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Rinkles posted:Is the combat better with a controller?I've only every played on pc, where it's loose and awkward af. it's a little better, because it was designed for consoles first, but it's still pretty awkward. They tightened it up by an incredible amount in ME2, so even bioware realized it was something they had to fix and then they did a good job fixing it. credit where it's due on that one.
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Dec 9, 2016 17:44
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The combat was, without a doubt, better in 2, and then better again in 3 (if a bit too easy). But it was fine in 1. Janky, unbalanced, sometimes frustrating or inconsistent, but fine. The only problem I had with the changes in 2 were heat-sink ammo, and universal cool-downs.
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Dec 9, 2016 17:47
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JawKnee posted:The combat was, without a doubt, better in 2, and then better again in 3 (if a bit too easy). But it was fine in 1. Janky, unbalanced, sometimes frustrating or inconsistent, but fine. The only problem I had with the changes in 2 were heat-sink ammo, and universal cool-downs. I feel like each game played noticeably better than the last. ME2 really tightened up movement and shooting and gave everything a sense of weight that was missing from ME1's floaty jank shooting. ME3 took the changes from 2 and made the gameplay feel more agile but with the same responsive shooting from ME2. It really shines in the MP mode.
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Dec 9, 2016 17:49
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Anyone arguing with this Lt. Danger jabroni, just remember he thinks the ME3 ending is good. Not isn't bad. GOOD. He's either an idiot or a troll.
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Dec 9, 2016 17:58
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A Buff Gay Dude posted:Anyone arguing with this Lt. Danger jabroni, just remember he thinks the ME3 ending is good. 
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Dec 9, 2016 18:27
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Interesting failures can be fun, and thus good in a sense, to talk about.
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Dec 9, 2016 18:28
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a whole bunch of the plot in ME3 is bad with some nice set-pieces, and I'm done being mad about the end being bad; honestly the silliest plot is ME2 though. I dunno who thought joining a terrorist group for a game was a great way to take the plot haha.
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Dec 9, 2016 18:41
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I think the plot in ME2 is bad as hell but at least it's just a dumb way to take the story that's properly executed. There's a difference between a story that I'm not a fan of and a story that's loving incompetent. That's why I don't get too loud at the ME2 situation.
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Dec 9, 2016 18:46
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Chomp8645 posted:Well there is no official organization whose job it is to codify what is a genre and what isn't so I'm not sure what to say about that. Wikipedia thinks RPG is a genre for what it's worth. *waves hands around* RPG is ideology *tweaks nose* So the actual thing-that-you-do in all the Mass Effect games is third-person shooting and covering. The genre is "third-person cover shooter". Unlike its sequels ME1 isn't very good at third-person shooting - damage-sponge enemies, insta-kill rocket snipers, anaemic gunplay, poor combat rhythm, power spam etc. etc. Nobody really agrees on what an RPG actually is because it isn't really anything - it's a set of largely para-ludic features like "strong narrative", "choice and consequence", "blank-slate customisable character" that games dip into to varying extents. The "traditional RPG" mechanics you're referring to are a cargo-cult hangover from D&D, a tabletop strategy/tactics game that held market dominance for several decades and thus wormed its way into the culture of game design. So in ME1 not only is the endless list of glaive-guisame Lucerne hammer guns-with-minor-numerical-differences poisonously dull in its own right, it also actively hampers the gunplay with forced unnecessary randomisation that players have to buy off with skill ranks in one of the "Shoot in a Shooting Game" skills (and more if you - god forbid - want to use different weapons for tactical purposes). This is only fun if you are bad at games and need a cushion of redundant numbers to buffer you from your skill failure. I like good RPGs.
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Dec 9, 2016 18:48
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A Buff Gay Dude posted:I think the plot in ME2 is bad as hell but at least it's just a dumb way to take the story that's properly executed. Oh for sure, they got ME2 right because they focused almost entirely on what the various characters were up to, and that was rad - mostly small-stakes, mostly personal and something you could get interested and involved with. That's why I call it silly rather than bad - the overarching plot was nonsensical, but that didn't matter because all the character work was way more fun and interesting.
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Dec 9, 2016 18:48
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Mass effect 1: WHAT THE gently caress ARE REAPERS? WE GOTTA STOP THEM MAN JESUS CHRIST Mass effect 2: joins a notorious villainous organization known for horrific experimentation and murder and starts working for them random bug aliens appear out of nowhere that no one has ever heard anything about ??? bug aliens die, galaxy barely notices, nothing ever comes of the information that bugs are actually protheans. They remain faceless and boring Terminator baby Mass effect 2's plot was super garbage, but it was held up by the recruitment missions which had very little to do with the plot anyway Zzulu fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Dec 9, 2016 |
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Dec 9, 2016 18:50
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Most narratives in any medium fall apart under extended scrutiny, which anybody playing a video game for 50+ hours is going to do. Mass Effect for the most part remains interesting throughout because it keeps things moving from setpiece to setpiece without allowing the player too much time to question the logic of it in between.
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Dec 9, 2016 18:54
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There's a term for that, constructing a universe and narrative that's at least internally consistent enough to get you to suspend disbelief and not question everything, instead going along for the ride and enjoying it. It became a buzz word in the aftermath of the ME3 disaster. Narrative Coherence.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:01
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me1 is a real dang good rpg
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Dec 9, 2016 19:26
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Moola posted:me1 is a real dang good rpg 
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Dec 9, 2016 19:29
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JawKnee posted:Oh for sure, they got ME2 right because they focused almost entirely on what the various characters were up to, and that was rad - mostly small-stakes, mostly personal and something you could get interested and involved with. That's why I call it silly rather than bad - the overarching plot was nonsensical, but that didn't matter because all the character work was way more fun and interesting. Yeah, I can see that. To me that's the hallmark of good design: They knew what they were good at (character work) and what they could fix (mechanics) and what they didn't have to prioritize (Harbinger) and executed it right. It's like, be honest with yourself about what you're good at, produce good games??? also I enjoyed the direct stakes of ME2 not being galactic extinction because it means you can do more varied things with more characters and more personal stakes. Not every game should do that but IMO more games should do that.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:34
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Moola posted:me1 is a real dang good rpg it's ok, not great
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Dec 9, 2016 19:35
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Moola posted:me1 is a real dang good rpg I have trouble stomaching it nowadays.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:35
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Rinkles posted:I have trouble stomaching it nowadays. I'd have trouble stomaching most games made in 2007 nowadays.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:38
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Rinkles posted:I have trouble stomaching it nowadays. When I replay it again it'll be the same as the last time - skip all the side mission planet exploration, just do the core missions
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Dec 9, 2016 19:38
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Chomp8645 posted:I'd have trouble stomaching most games made in 2007 nowadays. I still enjoy plenty of older games.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:39
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Of games I can think of made back in 2007/2008, you could do worse than Mass Effect. A lot of the issues people have with it stem from the PC port just being a horribly unoptimized piece of crap.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:43
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exquisite tea posted:Of games I can think of made back in 2007/2008, you could do worse than Mass Effect. A lot of the issues people have with it stem from the PC port just being a horribly unoptimized piece of crap. When I do get to replaying ME1 (not for a while), I'm gonna try out the controller mod. http://me3explorer.freeforums.org/me1-controller-support-power-wheel-t2036.html
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Dec 9, 2016 19:48
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I wouldn't rate Witcher 1 as a particularly good game, but it handles its RPG mechanics better than ME1 does.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:49
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Chomp8645 posted:I'd have trouble stomaching most games made in 2007 nowadays. Stalker SoC holds up pretty well. Mods are still being made for it even now. Base game maybe not so much.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:50
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The worst thing about me1 on console was inventory management. Not that it wasn't horrible on PC, but sorting through everything was slow, trashing items was slow, flipping between menus was slow... it was agonizing. After my first playthrough I stopped trying to optimize and just gelled everything. If I started having trouble I'd upgrade weapons, rinse repeat.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:52
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This latest conversation caused me to wiki popular video games of 2007. There were a lot of bad video games released in 2007.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:55
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Lt. Danger posted:I wouldn't rate Witcher 1 as a particularly good game, but it handles its RPG mechanics better than ME1 does. Weird that it does because there's no such thing as RPG mechanics
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Dec 9, 2016 19:57
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DarkHorse posted:After my first playthrough I stopped trying to optimize and just gelled everything. If I started having trouble I'd upgrade weapons, rinse repeat. after your first playthrough you got access to Spectre weapons real early, so the game itself agreed with this plan.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:58
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There's no shame in console cheating yourself to 999999 credits and Spectre weapons in the original Mass Effect at this point, the inventory management aspects are kind of a momentum killer if you're just looking to get through the story.
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Dec 9, 2016 20:00
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Wouldn't it be neat if Bioware games were more open to modding?
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Dec 9, 2016 20:02
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A Buff Gay Dude posted:Weird that it does because there's no such thing as RPG mechanics Whoever said that sounds extremely hosed up imo
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Dec 9, 2016 20:02
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Rinkles posted:Wouldn't it be neat if Bioware games were more open to modding? [in extremely tali sweat voice] Yesh... yesh it would be.
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Dec 9, 2016 20:05
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Rinkles posted:Wouldn't it be neat if Bioware games were more open to modding? The horrible mod thread would certainly have a deep new vein of horror to mine.
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Dec 9, 2016 20:05
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exquisite tea posted:Of games I can think of made back in 2007/2008, you could do worse than Mass Effect. A lot of the issues people have with it stem from the PC port just being a horribly unoptimized piece of crap. Yeah. Mass Effect 1 was one of those games I played on the 360 first , not just because that port came out first but because the PC version just did not work properly. It got a bit better, but it was obvious there weren't as many resources pushed towards that version as the console one. ME2 was a LOT better on PC though.
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Dec 9, 2016 20:07
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exquisite tea posted:[in extremely tali sweat voice] Yesh... yesh it would be.  Dragon Age: Origins was at least open to modding on the level of QoL and balancing stuff so that was pretty sweet. Dog rebalance, 2H rebalance, respec potion, Skip The Fade, Pocket Portal, "change you armor aesthetics". Cool stuff, too bad they didn't keep with it.
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Dec 9, 2016 20:09
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the only mod I want is one that removes color from textual choices, and scrambles their placement around
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Dec 9, 2016 20:09
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ME2 was one of the best PC ports of all time. It ran great even on my piece of junk system back in 2010 and still looks great in 2016.
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Dec 9, 2016 20:09
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exquisite tea posted:This latest conversation caused me to wiki popular video games of 2007. There were a lot of bad video games released in 2007. Yes. With how big the Mass Effect franchise became, it's easy to forget how big a deal the first game was in the context of 2007. AAA video games have made huge leaps and bounds since then, to the point where what was incredible then looks janky in places now.
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Dec 9, 2016 20:10
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ME1's numbers on its gear and poo poo were just numbers for the sake of numbers. Like you could do very different builds which is good (ie. gun that fires forever vs. gun that shoots once with the force of a tank) or funky stuff with ammo mods but when you were comparing like, two pistols or two armour sets it's like... 2% more guff or 1.5% crap and 0.5% poo poo? And then you actually use them and they are exactly the same, so you just use the one with bigger numbers which always ends up being the spectre gear in the end. But-but minmaxing you say! Well sure but 2 and 3 also had minmaxing except there's resulted in big noticable and meaningful changes vs a few extra percentage points here or there. Same with the skills, it's just a bunch of small incremental increases to power, but not really meaningful game choices, besides I guess combat skills vs. non-combat skills, but that ends up just frustrating because noone likes seeing a crate they can't open because their lockpick skill is too low or whatever but they also hate gimping their strength or having to cart Kaidan around so he can open poo poo for them. ME2 did good. Guns are actually differentiated gameplay wise from each other. Useless skills are gone. Ranking up skills gives big ups, with a capstone choice (plus the increasing costs to rank a skill as a nice balancer). BUT it removed too much. Too few guns, too few good skills (especially on squaddies), not enough meaningful gameplay customization. ME3 got it right, especially after the dlc weapons came out. Now you have a huge arsenal. You got gear mods, you got weapon mods. Skill trees go up to 6 instead of 4 levels, with choices for the last three. More skills on Shep and squad that aren't chaff like electronics. Instead of trying to eke out a few negligible points you're making big decisions on how your characters play and feel. Ammo mods being class powers still sucks though although in multiplayer they weren't powers but were one-time use consumables for any class. Essentially ME1 was good, but it wasn't good. Like even the vaunted number crunching min-maxing almost always boiled down to 'use the biggest numbers dumbass'. It was janky and poorly balanced, BUT it was doing something new, it had a lot of charm and you could do some silly gamebreaking stuff so I will never say it was really truly bad.
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