You know, related to the risk vs. reward question of "why are shotguns so OP", they should make Heavy Melee, like, ignore shield gate or something. And hit harder at higher difficulties.
/opinion
This is actually the case, or at least part of it. Melee attacks seem to ignore the shield gate altogether.
It seems spotty at times. When I'm rolling my asari meleeguard in Silver, about once a match I'll run into a mob that takes the hit from the melee but takes very little (only a couple bars) of health damage after shield depletion, when ordinarily mobs are instantly killed.
Speaking of melee, sometimes you'll slide forward to connect. It's a quick motion.
And have you noticed that batarians really do pistol-whip differently? A straight stab to the nose. I don't think my other unlocked races do that.
I have yet to, just because I love swangin my harpooner like a club too much
and yeah, that "sliding into position" is super noticeable with the Batarian heavy melee. It also stops them from moving away from you, thankfully.
The best thing with the Batarian is when you wind up for a swing, and some jerk/hero uses Throw on the target at the same time, and you skate across the map for the punch.
It may be that your Martial Artist bonus went down.
I actually use to roll a melee-centric Human Vanguard when I was just starting out. That was a whole lot of fun on Bronze but I never had the guts to even try on Silver.
Maybe!
One of the things on the top of my wishlist for this game is some kind of visual indicator for having a temporary buff on - something on your character model, similar to how a survival pack gives you a hexpaper sheen when its temp boost is in effect. The additional melee damage thing could have your hands glow (for biotic hitters), or subtly crackle (for omni-bladers).
Alright, only one customization unlock left, then it's gonna be like hitting a weapon mod pińata, right?
...Right?
Weapon mods may only appear in the "extra" slots - that is, sometimes you'd get two weapons in a pack, right, or a weapon and a character card? They would only appear in that second card's slot.
If you find that it's difficult or tedious getting them in Recruit Packs, move on to Veteran. They appear about as often there.
Alright, only one customization unlock left, then it's gonna be like hitting a weapon mod pińata, right?
...Right?
Weapon mods may only appear in the "extra" slots - that is, sometimes you'd get two weapons in a pack, right, or a weapon and a character card? They would only appear in that second card's slot.
If you find that it's difficult or tedious getting them in Recruit Packs, move on to Veteran. They appear about as often there.
Alright, only one customization unlock left, then it's gonna be like hitting a weapon mod pińata, right?
...Right?
Weapon mods may only appear in the "extra" slots - that is, sometimes you'd get two weapons in a pack, right, or a weapon and a character card? They would only appear in that second card's slot.
If you find that it's difficult or tedious getting them in Recruit Packs, move on to Veteran. They appear about as often there.
Yeah, I've moved on to Veteran.
Don't worry too much about them. It took me forever to max out mine. You'll also get a few in Jumbo Equipment Packs as I remember, though not a ton.
Maxing out your commons and your uncommons will also give you a nice buffer of equipment you can use whenever it comes time to really make a shot at unlocking all the Rares. You'll want them for it.
Let's see, what else still needs to be snagged now that some serious grinding and PA'er gold/platinum'ing has been done!
51 uncommon gun ranks.
10 rare character appearance ranks (will touch on this again in a moment).
61 uncommon gear ranks.
57 rare gear ranks.
... 95 ultra rare ranks (they REALLY need to make an UR Pack)
And honestly, with 112 uncommons, Prime Veteran Packs wouldn't go unloved either. Given that VPs can drop rares, I wonder if I shouldn't swap to those eventually?
Anyway, to the meat of the matter; HOLY SHIT the Demolisher is awesome! Spec'd for both grenades and the portable pack, and it's just heaving grenades all day every day! Tossed a rank 3 grenade capacity equip on, tried out the Striker X (I'm sure the Piranha would be better, but with a stability mod in place, it's AOE damage and staggering on demand across the map) and had a blast.
I've never used a class that spec'd heavily into grenades, but one that generates its own is amazing. Been comfortably parking myself at or at least near the top of every pub since, just heavin' grenades and supplyin' my people.
It's fucking awesome.
Demolisher and Destroyer are easily now among my favourite classes.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
In light of how great the new classes are, I wonder if people might be overlooking the applications of the new weapons on some old classes. Sure, everyone gets how great the Piranha is on Turian Soldiers (and everyone owes me five dollars)
But put the Typhoon on a Human Soldier, and activate Adrenaline Rush once the thing is wound up. Could anything be more horrifying?
0
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
Piranha on any Vanguard is pretty amazing.
Acolyte is great on most caster classes.
0
AchireIsn't life disappointing? Yes, it is.Registered Userregular
Which of the presidential nominees do you feel you could beat in a game of Mass Effect?
65% Mitt Romney.
35% Barack Obama.
Uh...and if you don't know now you know, I guess?
Forar, there actually used to be a Premium Veteran Pack. Because of it's success they made Premium Spectre Packs. However the veteran packs were only ever up for a week.
Achire on
0
HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
Which of the presidential nominees do you feel you could beat in a game of Mass Effect?
65% Mitt Romney.
35% Barack Obama.
Uh...and if you don't know now you know, I guess?
Forar, there actually used to be a Premium Veteran Pack. Because of it's success they made Premium Spectre Packs. However the veteran packs were only ever up for a week.
Something about Obama says "salarian infiltrator" to me.
Which of the presidential nominees do you feel you could beat in a game of Mass Effect?
65% Mitt Romney.
35% Barack Obama.
Uh...and if you don't know now you know, I guess?
Forar, there actually used to be a Premium Veteran Pack. Because of it's success they made Premium Spectre Packs. However the veteran packs were only ever up for a week.
I don't get the implication.
Are they saying they could beat Mittens if he was an enemy in the game or are they saying they can beat his multiplayer score?
Cause there isn't much competition in the game aside from that...
That gives me a multiplayer enemy faction idea!
If you could fight any President, who would it be?
The Reapers have turned all of our former Presidents into horrifying agents of destruction! Fight the awesome powers of Zombie Lincoln, George Huskington, and the mighty Reaper Nixon!
Get ready for a blast from the past in the upcoming Mass Effect DLC, Presidestruction!
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Forar, there actually used to be a Premium Veteran Pack. Because of it's success they made Premium Spectre Packs. However the veteran packs were only ever up for a week.
I'm aware of this.
I bought a bunch of them.
I'm not asking for them to make it.
I'm asking for them to bring it back. :P
I am, however, asking them to make an ultra-rare pack. 100k with no other items, 200k with the usual 5 slots, 250k, hell even half a million (perhaps with 2) would still be better than "lol the RNG still hates you", whatever they think is fair. And is actually reasonable.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Just got out of a few Bronze matches where in one of them my then-Level 9 Turian Soldier (with only the class power and Marksman) outscored two level 20 and one level 19 N7-DLC characters. When we got back to the lobby, one immediately left. Probably from the shame.
Speaking of, what's a good spec for the Prox Mine?
What makes you say that? I'm not positive it'll happen, but it seems like a fairly natural progression, especially if they want to help keep some more of those players who are focused (for whatever reason) on the gear treadmill.
Maxing out rares takes time and effort, but it's clearly doable (we probably have a half dozen or more people in this thread alone who have done it without spending their lives at the task), and what gear/uncommons/whatever remain will trickle in over time.
So what do you do to give people another reasonably achievable goal? Just adding rares and uncommons presents a greater and greater barrier to entry to what few new players they might be seeing. Adding a somewhat more expensive URP avoids this while giving those 'nearly capped out players' something to work towards.
I mean, nobody is realistically expecting to cap out on URs without years of playing, $Texas or cheating, but even being able to guarantee an UR rank or two after a couple hours of gold isn't an unreasonable progression.
Especially since they released Platinum. That alone gives a more efficient (assuming success) amount of credits per hour, but it's not aimed at new or gearing up players, it's aimed at people who likely have their golds near or at max.
Thus, give them something to put those credits towards other than rank 4 gear and jumbo equipment packs.
Speaking of which, those are also a good point. People asked for an equipment pack, and they gave it to us. They may well have planned to create it before that input was given, but I doubt it hurt our chances either.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Let's say that between gold farming and some meager success on Platinum with a solid crew, someone is able to earn roughly 200k per hour. Just over 3 fast gold clears, or 1-2 and a fast platinum. That's 5 hours per million. That's 550 hours to get the current ultra rares. And they're adding roughly a new one per month.
For something that is essentially an aside to ME3's single player, yeah, I think that 500-1000 hours of game play is more than good to start with.
They keep releasing DLC so obviously Bioware hasn't abandoned this aspect, but just how long do we really think it'll keep going steadily enough to warrant support and resources, even if it's just the guy who writes up the events, adjusts the programming a bit early and then calls it a day?
Anyway, I'm not disagreeing with their desire to retain the player's interest in their business model (especially those who are willing and able to pay those $Texas but can't or won't be bothered to skip 'em and just :ar! ). I'm saying that it's not unbelievable that their business model might contain a flaw wherein it isn't exactly difficult to max out ones rare weapons and eventually gear and uncommons will catch up, and spending an hour or two on two PSPs to get nothing but rank 4 consumables (which may or may not get eaten the next time you join a game and the server loses you) would be an active detriment to retaining those players, whereas even an expensive UR pack gives them something to work on long term. And when we're measuring in the hundreds of hours, that's pretty damned long term. That's longer than most people probably played all 3 ME single player portions combined several times over.
Also, it's interesting that a PSP is basically a gold and a half. Platinum gives, as I recall, ~135k. x 1.5: ~200k.
So if we hit a point where people are doing platinum as successfully as they have been doing gold for months, it would stand to reason that a 200-500k UR pack could fit into the math nicely.
Even at 500k per (or one half of the expected rate from PSPs) that's still 200+ hours just on ultra rares.
Pointless grinding is a bad game mechanic. A distant goal that's achievable over the long run at a reasonable rate is better than "lolrng", and the existence of veteran, prime veteran, spectre and prime spectre packs (guaranteeing 1 or 2 of a given rarity) makes me think a natural progression to an URP and PURP (err...) isn't crazy talk. Following even vaguely along those costs (off the top of my head; 20k for 1U, 33k for 2U, 60k for 1R, 99k for 2R) the math would also fit fairly well around 200k for a URP and 300k for a PURP.
And nobody is going to break the game earning a single ultra rare every couple hours, but many might find it highly dissuading to put 5 or 10 hours into a couple million credits and get nothing new at all, which is a point at least some of us will hit eventually.
Gear bought them a bunch of time, and we know another DLC is supposed to be in the pipe and will have at least some more gear that was missed this time around, but eventually they either embrace a hat based economy or bring the carrot in from so far out of reach (apologies Mr. Colbert).
Edit: agreed Elendil. Which is what makes me think that it would be sensible for them to eventually make them a goal people could actually work towards, rather than being completely at the whims of not one but two uncaring RNGs (in a fashion). Right now it's random when we get one, and random which one we get. Even if they made it possible to guaranteed getting one, you'd still get people who hit X on weapons they didn't give a shit about while having 0 ranks in one they'd lusted after for months. But at least with a dedicated pack, like the GPSmg and other shitty weapons, eventually you'd have to hit a good one eventually.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
0
OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
Agree 150% with Forar. this rng bullshit is really getting to me.
0
AchireIsn't life disappointing? Yes, it is.Registered Userregular
It has to be in the 200k range. PSPs are around 2.3 euros. Many people would pay 5 euros for a guaranteed ultra-rare. Nobody is going to pay 25 euros for a Javelin I. It's just how microtransactions work.
Posts
The funniest thing is that I think I only got one uncommon (next upgrade for SR Extended Barrel)
crack effect 3
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
I would think how much you play you would have most stuff maxed by now.
Dark times
Imagine a stage where you can get hit by a rocket trooper almost anywhere.
Maybe!
One of the things on the top of my wishlist for this game is some kind of visual indicator for having a temporary buff on - something on your character model, similar to how a survival pack gives you a hexpaper sheen when its temp boost is in effect. The additional melee damage thing could have your hands glow (for biotic hitters), or subtly crackle (for omni-bladers).
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Having ability timers for stuff like Rage, Forticification, Martial Artist, etc.
Would really be a neat addition.
...Right?
Weapon mods may only appear in the "extra" slots - that is, sometimes you'd get two weapons in a pack, right, or a weapon and a character card? They would only appear in that second card's slot.
If you find that it's difficult or tedious getting them in Recruit Packs, move on to Veteran. They appear about as often there.
It's like...Fuck your barriers! Fuck your kung fu pose! Eat this Singularity!
You're damn right it is
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
Yeah, I've moved on to Veteran.
Don't worry too much about them. It took me forever to max out mine. You'll also get a few in Jumbo Equipment Packs as I remember, though not a ton.
Maxing out your commons and your uncommons will also give you a nice buffer of equipment you can use whenever it comes time to really make a shot at unlocking all the Rares. You'll want them for it.
I have become what I hate.
I don't mind.
51 uncommon gun ranks.
10 rare character appearance ranks (will touch on this again in a moment).
61 uncommon gear ranks.
57 rare gear ranks.
... 95 ultra rare ranks (they REALLY need to make an UR Pack)
And honestly, with 112 uncommons, Prime Veteran Packs wouldn't go unloved either. Given that VPs can drop rares, I wonder if I shouldn't swap to those eventually?
Anyway, to the meat of the matter; HOLY SHIT the Demolisher is awesome! Spec'd for both grenades and the portable pack, and it's just heaving grenades all day every day! Tossed a rank 3 grenade capacity equip on, tried out the Striker X (I'm sure the Piranha would be better, but with a stability mod in place, it's AOE damage and staggering on demand across the map) and had a blast.
I've never used a class that spec'd heavily into grenades, but one that generates its own is amazing. Been comfortably parking myself at or at least near the top of every pub since, just heavin' grenades and supplyin' my people.
It's fucking awesome.
Demolisher and Destroyer are easily now among my favourite classes.
But put the Typhoon on a Human Soldier, and activate Adrenaline Rush once the thing is wound up. Could anything be more horrifying?
Acolyte is great on most caster classes.
Which of the presidential nominees do you feel you could beat in a game of Mass Effect?
65% Mitt Romney.
35% Barack Obama.
Uh...and if you don't know now you know, I guess?
Forar, there actually used to be a Premium Veteran Pack. Because of it's success they made Premium Spectre Packs. However the veteran packs were only ever up for a week.
Something about Obama says "salarian infiltrator" to me.
I don't get the implication.
Are they saying they could beat Mittens if he was an enemy in the game or are they saying they can beat his multiplayer score?
Cause there isn't much competition in the game aside from that...
That gives me a multiplayer enemy faction idea!
If you could fight any President, who would it be?
The Reapers have turned all of our former Presidents into horrifying agents of destruction! Fight the awesome powers of Zombie Lincoln, George Huskington, and the mighty Reaper Nixon!
Get ready for a blast from the past in the upcoming Mass Effect DLC, Presidestruction!
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
I'm aware of this.
I bought a bunch of them.
I'm not asking for them to make it.
I'm asking for them to bring it back. :P
I am, however, asking them to make an ultra-rare pack. 100k with no other items, 200k with the usual 5 slots, 250k, hell even half a million (perhaps with 2) would still be better than "lol the RNG still hates you", whatever they think is fair. And is actually reasonable.
Just got out of a few Bronze matches where in one of them my then-Level 9 Turian Soldier (with only the class power and Marksman) outscored two level 20 and one level 19 N7-DLC characters. When we got back to the lobby, one immediately left. Probably from the shame.
Speaking of, what's a good spec for the Prox Mine?
and tonight i got a paladin IX.
still no typhoon.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
What makes you say that? I'm not positive it'll happen, but it seems like a fairly natural progression, especially if they want to help keep some more of those players who are focused (for whatever reason) on the gear treadmill.
Maxing out rares takes time and effort, but it's clearly doable (we probably have a half dozen or more people in this thread alone who have done it without spending their lives at the task), and what gear/uncommons/whatever remain will trickle in over time.
So what do you do to give people another reasonably achievable goal? Just adding rares and uncommons presents a greater and greater barrier to entry to what few new players they might be seeing. Adding a somewhat more expensive URP avoids this while giving those 'nearly capped out players' something to work towards.
I mean, nobody is realistically expecting to cap out on URs without years of playing, $Texas or cheating, but even being able to guarantee an UR rank or two after a couple hours of gold isn't an unreasonable progression.
Especially since they released Platinum. That alone gives a more efficient (assuming success) amount of credits per hour, but it's not aimed at new or gearing up players, it's aimed at people who likely have their golds near or at max.
Thus, give them something to put those credits towards other than rank 4 gear and jumbo equipment packs.
Speaking of which, those are also a good point. People asked for an equipment pack, and they gave it to us. They may well have planned to create it before that input was given, but I doubt it hurt our chances either.
that means that every 1 million credits (10 PSPs) you spend, you should get a UR
that also means that the BARE MINIMUM COST of a UR-guaranteeing pack is 1 million credits
bioware needs to keep people playing, a UR pack costing 200k would provide a momentary spike but would be bad in the long run from their perspective
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Or do some classes just fire missiles instantaneously and I never noticed until now? I was playing a turian soldier btw.
ultra-rares are unicorns
there are 110 ultra-rares now
the ultra-rare drop rate is fucking stupid
For something that is essentially an aside to ME3's single player, yeah, I think that 500-1000 hours of game play is more than good to start with.
They keep releasing DLC so obviously Bioware hasn't abandoned this aspect, but just how long do we really think it'll keep going steadily enough to warrant support and resources, even if it's just the guy who writes up the events, adjusts the programming a bit early and then calls it a day?
Anyway, I'm not disagreeing with their desire to retain the player's interest in their business model (especially those who are willing and able to pay those $Texas but can't or won't be bothered to skip 'em and just :ar! ). I'm saying that it's not unbelievable that their business model might contain a flaw wherein it isn't exactly difficult to max out ones rare weapons and eventually gear and uncommons will catch up, and spending an hour or two on two PSPs to get nothing but rank 4 consumables (which may or may not get eaten the next time you join a game and the server loses you) would be an active detriment to retaining those players, whereas even an expensive UR pack gives them something to work on long term. And when we're measuring in the hundreds of hours, that's pretty damned long term. That's longer than most people probably played all 3 ME single player portions combined several times over.
Also, it's interesting that a PSP is basically a gold and a half. Platinum gives, as I recall, ~135k. x 1.5: ~200k.
So if we hit a point where people are doing platinum as successfully as they have been doing gold for months, it would stand to reason that a 200-500k UR pack could fit into the math nicely.
Even at 500k per (or one half of the expected rate from PSPs) that's still 200+ hours just on ultra rares.
Pointless grinding is a bad game mechanic. A distant goal that's achievable over the long run at a reasonable rate is better than "lolrng", and the existence of veteran, prime veteran, spectre and prime spectre packs (guaranteeing 1 or 2 of a given rarity) makes me think a natural progression to an URP and PURP (err...) isn't crazy talk. Following even vaguely along those costs (off the top of my head; 20k for 1U, 33k for 2U, 60k for 1R, 99k for 2R) the math would also fit fairly well around 200k for a URP and 300k for a PURP.
And nobody is going to break the game earning a single ultra rare every couple hours, but many might find it highly dissuading to put 5 or 10 hours into a couple million credits and get nothing new at all, which is a point at least some of us will hit eventually.
Gear bought them a bunch of time, and we know another DLC is supposed to be in the pipe and will have at least some more gear that was missed this time around, but eventually they either embrace a hat based economy or bring the carrot in from so far out of reach (apologies Mr. Colbert).
Edit: agreed Elendil. Which is what makes me think that it would be sensible for them to eventually make them a goal people could actually work towards, rather than being completely at the whims of not one but two uncaring RNGs (in a fashion). Right now it's random when we get one, and random which one we get. Even if they made it possible to guaranteed getting one, you'd still get people who hit X on weapons they didn't give a shit about while having 0 ranks in one they'd lusted after for months. But at least with a dedicated pack, like the GPSmg and other shitty weapons, eventually you'd have to hit a good one eventually.
Assuming it's the same on any character (mine's a gethfiltrator), then you want "lots of damage and the +20% damage thingie", and I like radius too.