Basically this. If you don't like traversing planets or dice roll elements in your shooters, then you just don't like ME. There are literally tons of games that handle combat better; its not why anyone should play this game.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Mass Effect (4): First Details & Images [Update 2: Video of Mako driving around]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Basically this. If you don't like traversing planets or dice roll elements in your shooters, then you just don't like ME. There are literally tons of games that handle combat better; its not why anyone should play this game.
TC McQueen
Member
That's absurdly reductionist and nonsensical.
Winterfang
Banned
You can't say that when two thirds of the trilogy didn't had the so called exploration. I like finding new missions in the planets in ME2, I like the main hubs in ME3, I liked the N7 missions in M3. None of those force me to drive in barren planets collecting pieces and bits for no reason other to extend the duration of the game. Tedium and boredom shouldn't be RPG staples, and I certain hope they are completely removed in the current generation.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Exploratory
Banned
Goddamnit I officially hate (a prominent subsect of) ME GAF after this post.
No wait this post.
Wind's Howling
Member
Everything is better than that awful planet scanning. That shit was like 10+ hours in order to get every single upgrade. It was tedious as fuck.
I usually do not swear in my posts here but, damn. Just thinking about that planet scanning is infuriating.
I usually do not swear in my posts here but, damn. Just thinking about that planet scanning is infuriating.
TC McQueen
Member
I just save edited my way past that as soon as I could.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Yes obviously dice roll aiming is completely integral to the core identity of what the game is, the bare essence of mass effect. When Drew, Casey and the gang sat down to hammer out what makes Mass Effect Mass Effect, they would obviously come to the conclusion that the two most important things about it are a) the ability to line up a perfect shot and then miss because the dice said so and b) the ability to drive a dune buggy on dreadfully designed, content-less planets.
10 hours, really? I think I got every single upgrade on my first 20ish hour playthrough and I probably only spent 1-2 hours scanning MAX. You only need the Normandy upgrades anyway. It's a poor mechanic but if you treat it as a palette cleanser between major missions (which are often combat heavy) instead of binging it all in one go it's perfectly tolerable.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Paging NeoGAF Shit Posts. Honestly, I love ME. I fucking hated traversing a desert to find a bunch of monkeys I either had to shoot or pet, in a vehicle that handled worse than my grandmother's Skoda. I would love if they managed to actually improve on the core concept of this, but what I've seen just looks like ME1 in a new engine. A similarly wonky vehicle that inexplicably has wheels, and a planet that looks barer than a Brazilian.
But apparently I don't like ME in the first place, so I am a paradox!
Well good for you in that you got the next two games to appeal to your tastes, the fourth one seems to be taking a lot of feedback from the fans and has determined that most fans want to go in a more Mass Effect 1 direction. Im not sure how exactly you say you would be fine with those ME1 core concepts revisited but done well and then criticize the Mako concept footage we have, which shows a far faster, less floaty and more responsive Mako.
He was not directly specifying dice rolling in the shooting itself, regardless I think we will (finally and thankfully see) a step up in overall stat management and dice rolling elements in this upcoming game (over 2-3).
Ok but see my post above, this does not invalidate anything I said.
He was not directly specifying dice rolling in the shooting itself, regardless I think we will (finally and thankfully see) a step up in overall stat management and dice rolling elements in this upcoming game (over 2-3).
Ok but see my post above, this does not invalidate anything I said.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Once I actually get my hands on the Mako and it doesn't handle like a spongecake on wheels, I'll feel a little at ease. Or maybe a dense jungle world where you have to deftly weave in and out of trees and avoid deep ravines, whilst a native monster chases you. Perhaps the improved technology of the PS4/XB1 can afford this. I absolutely refuse to get excited about exploring empty craters though. Exploration is only exciting if there's something exciting to find at the end of said exploration; wandering will simply not do.
It's high time many accepted ME1 was a game that had ideas far beyond its means; I admit from this very, very early footage that there's no definitive proof the game won't deliver on the exploration, but I remain firm that the planet traversal in ME1 was nowhere near the ideal experience.
It's high time many accepted ME1 was a game that had ideas far beyond its means; I admit from this very, very early footage that there's no definitive proof the game won't deliver on the exploration, but I remain firm that the planet traversal in ME1 was nowhere near the ideal experience.
originalself
Neo Member
Mako!
Let me know when you get a ping back on that.
I made that post after reading a few comments abhorring exploration in ME and complaining about the shooting mechanics. I don't think the Mako in ME1 is close to perfect, or that combat can't be improved. I do believe that dice roll shooting,and the emphasis on exploring were very important (to me at least) in separating ME from the droves of shooters out there. So, my point is that if you're not into that stuff then you should probably find another game to play, because it appears to be coming back.
I'm skeptical though. My favorite ME will always be the first one but that is no reason to translate these vague explanations into that next installment will be more like the first ME. I mean it's BioWare, and not the BioWare that made ME1 who wasn't under the investors' pressure. They had to make changes for mass appeal to ME2 and ME3 to attract more audience. That's why IMO they got rid of most of the core gameplay features and mechanics out of the latter games in the first place instead of polishing and building new things upon them. So when they claim it'll be more like the first game I think it'd be highly unlikely. For exploration though, maybe.
I'm only saying this because it seems you're speculating that the new ME will be that way. Of course if it is in fact going to be more like ME1 in anyway I'd love that.
DOWN
Banned
I feel badly for people who don't see the magic of walking through dust on foreign stars like an astronaut glimpsing the glorious vastness of space. Thankfully, despite those people, BioWare does see the magic.
What do you people even think it would be like to explore space anyway? Of course there will be barren locations. Fact is, we can already see that the faster Mako is an improvement. Maybe they'll take this as far as having just 10-15 really good planets with variety. That's what I feel ME1 may have needed. Let's hope they pull out a couple of planets that are atmospherically unique:
The premise is so dang beautiful and I don't ever think they should have chosen abandonment of it over improvement. Uncharted worlds was a core element of ME1. It was a huge piece missing for me in ME2.
What do you people even think it would be like to explore space anyway? Of course there will be barren locations. Fact is, we can already see that the faster Mako is an improvement. Maybe they'll take this as far as having just 10-15 really good planets with variety. That's what I feel ME1 may have needed. Let's hope they pull out a couple of planets that are atmospherically unique:
The premise is so dang beautiful and I don't ever think they should have chosen abandonment of it over improvement. Uncharted worlds was a core element of ME1. It was a huge piece missing for me in ME2.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Sorry could you explain what you mean by dice roll? I'm not being facetious, I'm genuinely unsure of what you mean.
I do hope it's improved, for the record.
The premise is amazing, nobody can deny that. It's just the execution was so bad last time, and I don't believe the tech's improved enough for them to pull it off in any definitive way.
I'd be fine with them going to dice rolls for the next ME...as long as it is nothing like how it is in ME1 (or Alpha Protocol for that matter).
If they are going to go away from the straight action combat, they have to (in my opinion) go all the way on the strategic side. Going half way like they did in ME1 created a bizarre damage mitigation system with baffling and broken AI and awful player movement.
Slow it down, create more combinatorial systems, and give more situationally aware camera positioning.
Or just keep it an action game/dating sim hybrid. Unlike what some people have said here, there are basically no other games like it.
If they are going to go away from the straight action combat, they have to (in my opinion) go all the way on the strategic side. Going half way like they did in ME1 created a bizarre damage mitigation system with baffling and broken AI and awful player movement.
Slow it down, create more combinatorial systems, and give more situationally aware camera positioning.
Or just keep it an action game/dating sim hybrid. Unlike what some people have said here, there are basically no other games like it.
Winterfang
Banned
I feel badly for people who don't see the magic of walking through dust on foreign stars like an astronaut glimpsing the glorious vastness of space. Thankfully, despite those people, BioWare does see the magic.
What do you people even think it would be like to explore space anyway? Of course there will be barren locations. Fact is, we can already see that the faster Mako is an improvement. Maybe they'll take this as far as having just 10-15 really good planets with variety. That's what I feel ME1 may have needed. Let's hope they pull out a couple of planets that are atmospherically unique:
The premise is so dang beautiful and I don't ever think they should have chosen abandonment of it over improvement. Uncharted worlds was a core element of ME1. It was a huge piece missing for me in ME2.
Is a flaw concept. It doesn't translate well in a video game, unless the world is literally jam pack with loot. Usually the empty barren plains are just used in RPG's to connect the actual interest places like dungeons and towns where actual plot advancement happens. It makes no sense in a place where you spaceships and shuttles that can land anywhere on the planet.
I don't mind exploring the mini map to find new planets, but also driving across miles and miles of nothing just to get one item or a random dungeon, is just extra tedium.
TC McQueen
Member
The only way I'll accept dice-roll mechanics in a game with shooting is if it's an XCOM: Enemy Unknown style turn-based game. It works there because it adds to the tension, instead of generating frustration when the results don't match what you'd logically expect from a real-time shooter.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
Well, dice roll... a random segue for sure, but I'd play XCOM: Mass Effect or Fire Emblem: Mass Effect any fucking day.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Hey dude I love space porn as much as the next guy, I just don't want my Action-RPG to feature missions with diddly squad to do on them. Oh, another Matriarch writing, wonderful. Totally worth the five minute drive through awfully designed terrain to get here. Wait look over there, it's the same prefab building I've seen 50 times! I'm sure this time something awesome will be in there.
Bioware isn't "seeing the magic", Bioware is responding to fan pressure. If Bioware actually thought it was a totally integral part of the experience they might have continued those things in ME2 and ME3.
Well dude exploring space will involve setting up science facilities, building infrastructure and sending cheap unmanned missions to the surface to collect soil samples. Since the supermajority of all planets are uninhabited and have nothing significant on them, it's not going to be very fun to base a game around. If you want a realistic simulation of life on a natural satellite you should go play Moonbase Alpha, not Mass Effect, a game with space wizards, blue skinned space babes / space vampires and a ancient cosmic evils.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
If we're going for the "realism" angle, there probably wouldn't be warrior frog people and genocidal doom bots in space either. I don't want realism in my sci-fi, particularly.
Sorry, but having the plot about the Reapers invading come to a screeching halt so you can Pokemon with crew members solve their daddy issues is not my idea of a good plot.
Speaking of dice roll mechanics in shooter rpgs, what's the difference between how Fallout 3 handled it with how ME1 handled it? I think Fallout still used some kind of behind the scenes dice roll mechanic to determine accuracy and critical hits and stuff even when not using VATS no?
I liked the combat in Fallout 3 as a mix of rpg and shooter mechanics.
I liked the combat in Fallout 3 as a mix of rpg and shooter mechanics.
DOWN
Banned
Yeah, screw Halo 4. We know Reach is actually Halo 4 no matter what they said. #HaloReachIsTheRealHalo4 #Probably
Try all you want to make the ME exploration sound like it doesn't fit. ME was conceived and marketed with exploration of uncharted worlds and I was along for that introductory marketing and release to fall in love with the whole package. A space sim is a pretty silly comparison to how ME handles it and can improve on it.
And there better very well be some vast terrain to drive that isn't overly dense with "content" like an Elder Scrolls map. That just feels like the most faked exploration because you never are left for a minute to the actual wild. Always running into houses and camps.
The Mako was part of the explorer's arsenal in ME and I missed it. Lucky me to have it returning.
http://youtu.be/mKgSiPqi39w
peanutbutterlatte
Member
I don't know, I kind of enjoyed the fact there was some character development, gave the sense of there being an actual team of characters that interacted with one another and actually had personalities rather than 9 faceless alien soldiers fighting an invasion. I hope this is improved upon to be honest, rather than minimized.
infiniteheteroskdasticity
Member
Uhm no. I agree that exploration and world building should be a big part of every RPG, let alone ME. I don't think you'd find a lot of people that want to go back to the absolutely horrible combat in ME1. A game with ME1's scale and openness, ME2's characters and story and ME3's combat would be the perfect blend. That stupid dice roll shit died in ME1. Nobody should want it back.
Except for a couple of scenes (like Miranda and Jack), they didn't really interact with one another, that was the problem. The fact that some characters are optional means the amount of interaction is limited due to the different permutations available.
Some characters felt like filler, too. I understand the plot points of Miranda and Mordin, but why did we need characters like Thane or Samara?
DOWN
Banned
I'm rolling my eyes super slow.
So planets can't look like planets because of the aliens and AI in the game? I'm all for some planets that have a more unusual terrain, but thank goodness the surface in the prototype seems to resemble what the vast majority of space exploration would be and thus what I'd look forward to when playing as an exploring astronaut. I don't get what is wrong with space looking a lot like space when you go off exploring. The imagined future setting explains the fantasy of the enemy threats and alien worlds, but am I supposed to imagine that exploring space would be lush and suburban or what?
Brah chill, this game is being made by the MP and Omega team, combat will still be front and centre, especially since the MP is seen as an important aspect of the next game. They pretty much have to design the game with it in mind otherwise the whole thing will be a clusterfuck.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
No need to be condescending. It's just boring man, honestly. I don't care if that's what actual space exploration would be like, to be blunt. I simply don't care. I don't care how difficult a real gun is to reload, I don't want that to be a part of my experience. If you're going to make that part of the gun interesting, sure. But it wasn't in ME1.
Real space exploration is this:
99.99999999999% of planets have no life, objects, or interesting terrain whatsoever. There is nothing to do. There is nothing to explore. The Mako probably gets vaporized by a boiling hot cloud of gas and Shepard dissolves into nothingness. Oh, and who the fuck knows how we got here, because actual space exploration would be nothing without an actually fictional Mass Effect drive.
Fun, fun, fun!
Dice rolls and percentage chance to hit aren't essential to my enjoyment of these games, but they certainly don't hurt if they're present. Having meaningful stats, perks and non-combat skills that potentially change how you approach situations are what really matters to me in an RPG. That's something I feel the later ME games could have done with more of.
I know that you, and some of the other people here, don't like the planetary exploration element of ME1. You guys thought it was shit. I understand that. For me, it was one of the things that drew me into the setting and created a real sense of atmosphere.
I doubt that telling you what I liked about those sequences will magically change how you feel about them, any more than you telling me about how you hated driving around on "dreadfully designed, content-less planets" or think the Mako handled horribly will suddenly make me stop wanting more of that kind of thing in future games.
So you had no problem with planet scanning, which I felt was the worst, most miserable kind of makework and did nothing to enhance the game's atmosphere, but you loathe the Mako. I think we just have very different tastes.
Personally, I'd like to see two types of explorable worlds: Plot-critical planets, which are hand-designed by the dev team, and procedurally-generated ones.
The plot-critical planets would be the same for everyone. The procedurally-generated worlds would be different from person to person and playthrough to playthrough. Stars would have a random number of planets, with different atmospheres, terrain types, possible lifeforms, etc. generated randomly for each. There'd also be a pool of potential "special encounters" that would have a chance of appearing on a given planet - alien ruins to explore, pirate bases (active/abandoned/overrun by hostile lifeforms/etc.), encounters with unique huge beasts a la the thresher maws, downed spacecraft (with a random chance of there being survivors to rescue), rare and unusual lifeforms (that could be captured and sold to collectors or researchers for credits), etc.
Ideally there'd be enough of these special encounters that no one player would find them all during a single playthrough, and some of them would have a very low chance of appearing. This would make coming across the rarer events a big deal. A system like that would really capture the thrill of exploration, where there's always the possibility of discovering something new.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
I'm not saying there shouldn't be any, I've written great walls of text on the subject before. But the huge series of barren worlds with nothing meaningful to do on them was terrible design. I'm not asking for a new town every 5 paces, or a tiny shrunken world. But there needs to be a reason for me doing this all that isn't just collecting shitty tokens which are pointed out to you on the map from the second you land.
I don't even think there really should be random UNC worlds to land on at all, and that the game should take place on a relatively small number of celestial bodies, but allow you to traverse between hub areas and explore well constructed environments with interesting things to look at and find.
Sure, in an ideal world you might have a more Deus Ex style of role playing where the RPG progression is about unlocking parts of the world and giving unique paths and ways to approach things. However we never had anything similar to this in ME1, as long as you had a "thief" in your party you could go anywhere and do anything, and progression was solely about getting new combat abilities to cast.
No I had huge problems with planet scanning, I complained about it on the official forums when it came out and I'm glad it's gone. But people grossly exaggerate the amount of it you needed to do. You found resources in side quests, if you were importing the game you got a pile of resources at the start, and in a best case scenario you need maybe 30 minutes of mining to get all the important upgrades. If you're a completionist you spend longer mining, although this is of marginal importance unless you're playing max difficulty. The main reason I find mining more tolerable than the UNC missions is because in addition to being much briefer, it's also mindless - I used to watch TV shows on a laptop while I was mining. Shitty? Absolutely. I also think the mandatory Mako sections were bad, and the UNC planets were terrible.
Completely incorrect.
Here is the actual timeline of events:
1. Bioware released Mass Effect 1
2. There was a lot of criticism of the empty planet exploring (primarily due to content repetition) portions and difficult to control Mako
~bioware felt the fan pressure and sought to redesign the Mako, but in conjunction with decreased development time and budget ended up cutting the Hammerhead until after release and the content for it never matched their original ambition~
Mass Effect 2 comes out and for what people do complain about it is the reduction in stats and the lack of planet exploring, people also hate planet scanning
Mass Effect 3 comes out , fans are STILL complaining about the lack of planet exploring, additionally complaining about lack of mission variaty and small overall scope.
Bioware has the opportunity with a new engine and new hardware to revisit the core features they believed in and the new engine allows them to much easier realize earlier features from the franchise that were cut and we have what is going on now.
And god forbid fans want more stats, scale, and scope in sci fi role playing game.
There absolutely should be massive relatively barren worlds to explore because negative space have a tremendously powerful effect on most people. Not every inch of a game needs to be, nor should be, over designed.
Exploratory
Banned
I feel badly for people who don't see the magic of walking through dust on foreign stars like an astronaut glimpsing the glorious vastness of space. Thankfully, despite those people, BioWare does see the magic.
What do you people even think it would be like to explore space anyway? Of course there will be barren locations. Fact is, we can already see that the faster Mako is an improvement. Maybe they'll take this as far as having just 10-15 really good planets with variety. That's what I feel ME1 may have needed. Let's hope they pull out a couple of planets that are atmospherically unique:
The premise is so dang beautiful and I don't ever think they should have chosen abandonment of it over improvement. Uncharted worlds was a core element of ME1. It was a huge piece missing for me in ME2.
You're literally comparing ME to Star Trek, and hoping its more like the latter.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Not sure how what you're saying is utterly incompatible with what I'm saying, although I disagree totally that they considered it a core part of the ME identity. If they managed to not include a feature in 2/3 of the entries (4/5 if I was being unfair and counting the spinoffs), it evidently wasn't all that important in the long run. There was nothing stopping them from including Hammerhead levels in ME3, for example, but they chose to do more conventional levels instead. Wasn't even included in ME3 DLC packs, but they did find time to code and include a giant mech level.
Mass Effect fans are not monolithic and their fanbase does not consist solely of hardcore ME1 fans. Although people were asking for exploration and UNC worlds after ME2, I would say that the loudest and most consistent call was for more customization / RPG elements, which they actually did include in ME3 again. I certainly haven't performed statistical research on the subject, but my impression is that it was near the release of ME3 when people started getting louder and louder (on the internet) about wanting planetary exploration back. Fanbase wants, Bioware responds.
Why are you making out like I'm asking for some kind of folded six dimensional level with a secret hidden behind every rock and billions of NPCs and quests or something? I'm saying that Mass Effect 1's UNC levels were shit. There is presumably a medium between a densely packed environment and completely empty canyons with two points of interest within 10 square kilometers, both of which are pointed out for you automatically ass soon as you touch down on the planet by your map markers.
The role of negative space in a game is not something I've ever really heard people harking on about before this thread. I agree you need downtime between adventure, I agree you don't need something around every single corner, yet the ME1 mako levels redefine the word "barren". If you're going to shove me into a barren wasteland, at least have the mercy to give me a vehicle capable of moving quickly that won't get stuck on terrible level geometry constantly.
Exploratory
Banned
Fun fact I think planet scanning did a ton for the atmosphere. The actual scanning sucked but going to each planet and reading about it did a ton for the game.
That's one of the major points we disagree on. A small handful of explorable "theme park" planets, each hand-crafted to be capital-I Interesting at all times, is paradoxically going to be less engaging to me than a bunch of unknown planets that may or may not have stuff on them.
Ideally, exploring unknown worlds should be a crapshoot. Sometimes you find nothing of value. Often you find something that justifies the trip or is mildly interesting. Occasionally you find something really valuable or out of the ordinary. It's the rarity of those moments that makes them special and memorable. That's why I want them to introduce randomized unknown worlds. It's the difference between, "I haven't found the Big Thing on this planet yet, but every planet has one major event or setpiece on it, so I'll just keep searching until I find this one, too" and "Holy shit! I just found a massive Prothean obelisk on a jungle world in my current playthrough, with what looks like a hidden elevator leading down! I'm going to check this out and post screenshots!"
My point there is that each game seems to move further and further away from having any sort of meaningful character stats, to the point where it is kind of like a glorified perk system now. I was hoping for more in the way of stats and some useful noncombat skills in ME2, rather than streamlining that stuff away. I know Fallout 3 gets shat upon frequently by some folks here, but I felt that game (and New Vegas after it) did a really good job of combining ranged combat/gunplay with a stat-driven skills system, and provided tools to approach problems in multiple ways. I'd like a little more of that in my Mass Effect, please.
I liked the Mako sequences. I enjoyed the simple act of driving around on these planets, listening to the background music and taking in the atmosphere, seeing what there was to see. (If that's hard for people to grasp, I wonder what they'd make of something like Euro Truck Simulator 2, a game about sedately driving a delivery truck around Europe that a lot of folks seem to unironically enjoy.) It made the ME universe larger to me in a way that being restricted to a handful of planets wouldn't, regardless of the amount of content on them. Being told, "the game universe is actually much bigger than what you're seeing here, but you can't visit any of it" just doesn't convey the same sense of scale.
The scanning segments may have been shorter than the Mako sequences, but they felt longer and more tedious to me because I got nothing from them. They didn't drive home the scale of the setting or enhance the atmosphere. They had no intrinsic entertainment value in their own right. They were filler of the worst kind. I'm glad we agree on that much, at least.
Your interpretations is a pretty big distortion from what we know of the development situation of those games. that is all.
The little writeups were a nice touch, but they mean more to me when you can actually land on that place you just read about and take a look around with your own eyes, rather than just spinning a 3D globe and clicking on the glowy spots.