jefe414"My Other Drill Hole is a Teleporter"Mechagodzilla is Best GodzillaRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
OK, I have insanity and incinerate left for achievements. When they say incinerate the armor, do they mean all on a target or just the last scrap? Do I have to do it or can a teamate? Incendiary ammo or incinerate power? Thanks for any info, thanks. Also, what is the best way to bulk up on armored targets? Krogan heavy missions?
OK, I have insanity and incinerate left for achievements. When they say incinerate the armor, do they mean all on a target or just the last scrap? Do I have to do it or can a teamate? Incendiary ammo or incinerate power? Thanks for any info, thanks. Also, what is the best way to bulk up on armored targets? Krogan heavy missions?
Just makes you feel bad that the essence of humanity isn't our ability to accept differences, adapt, make really really big explosions if necessary... it's that we have an internal skeleton. Shame.
A) Spoilers
Pretty sure that while the Reaper was supposed to be built absorbing the essence of humanity or using it or what have you, that doesn't mean that it was supposed to visually depict it. It's not a piece of art :P
I think someone, can't recall whom, says that its supposed to depict the race, cause the reapers say so.
Just makes you feel bad that the essence of humanity isn't our ability to accept differences, adapt, make really really big explosions if necessary... it's that we have an internal skeleton. Shame.
A) Spoilers
Pretty sure that while the Reaper was supposed to be built absorbing the essence of humanity or using it or what have you, that doesn't mean that it was supposed to visually depict it. It's not a piece of art :P
Nah, that ain't spoilers. It references nothing specific. It's like saying "Man, it stinks that in that book that one guy killed that other guy" or "damn, I can't believe that guy is the other guys' father." Too vague to spoil. Spoils nothing.
OK, I have insanity and incinerate left for achievements. When they say incinerate the armor, do they mean all on a target or just the last scrap? Do I have to do it or can a teamate? Incendiary ammo or incinerate power? Thanks for any info, thanks. Also, what is the best way to bulk up on armored targets? Krogan heavy missions?
It has to finish their armor off.
Teammates can do it, but you have to command them to do it. I believe lots of enemies have armour on the higher difficulty settings, so that may solve your problem for you. But yeah, Krogans have armour aplenty.
Just makes you feel bad that the essence of humanity isn't our ability to accept differences, adapt, make really really big explosions if necessary... it's that we have an internal skeleton. Shame.
A) Spoilers
Pretty sure that while the Reaper was supposed to be built absorbing the essence of humanity or using it or what have you, that doesn't mean that it was supposed to visually depict it. It's not a piece of art :P
Nah, that ain't spoilers. It references nothing specific. It's like saying "Man, it stinks that in that book that one guy killed that other guy" or "damn, I can't believe that guy is the other guys' father." Too vague to spoil. Spoils nothing.
Right, by itself your comment wasn't, but responding to it necessitated the use of spoilers. I was vague and probably misleading in that sense, my bad.
OK, I have insanity and incinerate left for achievements. When they say incinerate the armor, do they mean all on a target or just the last scrap? Do I have to do it or can a teamate? Incendiary ammo or incinerate power? Thanks for any info, thanks. Also, what is the best way to bulk up on armored targets? Krogan heavy missions?
It has to finish their armor off.
Teammates can do it, but you have to command them to do it. I believe lots of enemies have armour on the higher difficulty settings, so that may solve your problem for you. But yeah, Krogans have armour aplenty.
On higher difficulties husks have armor. Have at it, hoss.
Just makes you feel bad that the essence of humanity isn't our ability to accept differences, adapt, make really really big explosions if necessary... it's that we have an internal skeleton. Shame.
A) Spoilers
Pretty sure that while the Reaper was supposed to be built absorbing the essence of humanity or using it or what have you, that doesn't mean that it was supposed to visually depict it. It's not a piece of art :P
Nah, that ain't spoilers. It references nothing specific. It's like saying "Man, it stinks that in that book that one guy killed that other guy" or "damn, I can't believe that guy is the other guys' father." Too vague to spoil. Spoils nothing.
Mordin says metaphors are for dumb people. He doesn't like them.
Just makes you feel bad that the essence of humanity isn't our ability to accept differences, adapt, make really really big explosions if necessary... it's that we have an internal skeleton. Shame.
A) Spoilers
Pretty sure that while the Reaper was supposed to be built absorbing the essence of humanity or using it or what have you, that doesn't mean that it was supposed to visually depict it. It's not a piece of art :P
I think someone, can't recall whom, says that its supposed to depict the race, cause the reapers say so.
yeah, EDI says that the Reapers look like Protheans. It's a bit of a theme since the Geth also look like Quarians
So my friend managed to snag ME2 off of Gamefly, and playing an Infiltrator says that he prefers the Viper over the Widow. Can this friendship be salvaged?
So my friend managed to snag ME2 off of Gamefly, and playing an Infiltrator says that he prefers the Viper over the Widow. Can this friendship be salvaged?
Probably because he hates running out of ammo every 30 seconds :?
So my friend managed to snag ME2 off of Gamefly, and playing an Infiltrator says that he prefers the Viper over the Widow. Can this friendship be salvaged?
Probably not.
We can be friends though. Hi5?
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DHSChase lizards.....bark at donkeys..Registered Userregular
So my friend managed to snag ME2 off of Gamefly, and playing an Infiltrator says that he prefers the Viper over the Widow. Can this friendship be salvaged?
Probably because he hates running out of ammo every 30 seconds :?
If you're running out of ammo every 30 seconds you're not using it right, what part of a 12-13 round mag doesn't just scream "precision instrument"?
DHS on
"Grip 'em up, grip 'em, grip 'em good, said the Gryphon... to the pig."
So my friend managed to snag ME2 off of Gamefly, and playing an Infiltrator says that he prefers the Viper over the Widow. Can this friendship be salvaged?
I love the viper. There, I said it. Nothing beats an automatic sniper rifle. I looooove it. Then again I haven't even tried the Widow because I haven't played soldier or infiltrator yet. So I'll shut up now.
So my friend managed to snag ME2 off of Gamefly, and playing an Infiltrator says that he prefers the Viper over the Widow. Can this friendship be salvaged?
Probably because he hates running out of ammo every 30 seconds :?
Running out of ammo? With a widow?
How bad of a shot are you?
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
edited February 2010
If you're playing as a Soldier, it's mandatory to go with the Revenant. None of that prancing around with a sniper rifle; you should be up front laying down fire.
So my friend managed to snag ME2 off of Gamefly, and playing an Infiltrator says that he prefers the Viper over the Widow. Can this friendship be salvaged?
Probably because he hates running out of ammo every 30 seconds :?
If you're running out of ammo every 30 seconds you're not using it right, what part of a 12-13 round mag doesn't just scream "precision instrument"?
You can hit someone in the head with every single shot and still run out of ammo in combat - I did constantly without ever missing the body at least (kind of hard to miss when everything is slowed wayyyyy down). Half the combat in the game involves wave after wave of guys - way more than 13. The whole "ammo" system in 2 is just lame, but thats just my opinion. Just restarting ME1 with an adept with sniper rifle as my bonus skill and with only 1 point in it I can still shoot it just as fast as the widow and the first sniper rifle in ME2 without ever overheating, and I have unlimited ammo.
Edit: Also half the time in combat I would use 10-13+ shots and then only 2 enemies would drop clips and so I would enter the next "round" of combat with 5-7 shots and never recover back to 13 throughout the entire mission. Very annoying.
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Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
edited February 2010
I like the ammo system, but I do wish they'd even tried explaining why I can't use any of my spare 300 assault rifle rounds in my empty widow, despite the whole thing about them being universal clips.
Well the idea is that you'd be using up all of your assault rifle ammo in the widow but they decided to make the game playable for classes that depend on ammo.
I like the ammo system, but I do wish they'd even tried explaining why I can't use any of my spare 300 assault rifle rounds in my empty widow, despite the whole thing about them being universal clips.
Unfortunately the only explanation is summarized as: The ammo system exists to encourage the use of multiple weapons in the course of combat, rather than letting the player reduce combat to a repetitive exercise where one weapon is the answer to every question presented. I don't see a rational way to explain in game why picking up one thermal clip refills spare ammo for all weapons, but using thermal clips from a weapon doesn't deplete in the same way.
edit- and I should add, I'm OK with this. It's a small sacrifice on my part in suspension of disbelief in exchange for what I feel is an excellent improvement in gameplay. YMMV.
I like the ammo system, but I do wish they'd even tried explaining why I can't use any of my spare 300 assault rifle rounds in my empty widow, despite the whole thing about them being universal clips.
So they're trying to "encourage" us to use multiple weapons by forcing us to switch because we run out of ammo in one weapon? That annoys me even more. Some people are fine with/prefer to use one weapon through the whole game, and some people who want to use multiple weapons will do so even if they don't run out of ammo on their primary weapon. Forcing the player to switch weapons because of limited ammo and then the only explanation provided being "we want you to use more than 1 weapon" is really lame.
Shooting was a lot more fun in ME2 than in ME1. I have no problems with the change, even the lip service codex explanation was more than enough for me. I would have been fine with 'it's a retcon because it's more fun to play'.
I like the ammo system, but I do wish they'd even tried explaining why I can't use any of my spare 300 assault rifle rounds in my empty widow, despite the whole thing about them being universal clips.
It's not ammunition, it's heat sinks.
It's still ammunition. It enables you to fire your weapon - without it you can't. There is a finite amount of it. It's ammunition.
Shooting was a lot more fun in ME2 than in ME1. I have no problems with the change, even the lip service codex explanation was more than enough for me. I would have been fine with 'it's a retcon because it's more fun to play'.
But why is it more fun to play? This is a serious question because I found the heat method in ME1 to be vastly superior and more fun - I just don't understand why people seem to prefer run of the mill ammunition that every other FPS game ever has used. No one has ever given me an answer that makes sense other than "it's more fun" when I'm looking more for a "why".
I like the ammo system, but I do wish they'd even tried explaining why I can't use any of my spare 300 assault rifle rounds in my empty widow, despite the whole thing about them being universal clips.
It's not ammunition, it's heat sinks.
It's still ammunition. It enables you to fire your weapon - without it you can't. There is a finite amount of it. It's ammunition.
His complaint doesn't make an sense because it isn't 300 assault rifle bullets, it's 300 shots worth of heat absorption. The sniper rifle creates more heat so it doesn't get as many shots worth.
Unfortunately the only explanation is summarized as: The ammo system exists to encourage the use of multiple weapons in the course of combat, rather than letting the player reduce combat to a repetitive exercise where one weapon is the answer to every question presented. I don't see a rational way to explain in game why picking up one thermal clip refills spare ammo for all weapons, but using thermal clips from a weapon doesn't deplete in the same way.
edit- and I should add, I'm OK with this. It's a small sacrifice on my part in suspension of disbelief in exchange for what I feel is an excellent improvement in gameplay. YMMV.
I'm pretty sure my explanation is better and closer to the truth. Oh also it has to do with being able to fire more bullets faster. So instead of going full auto and waiting a few seconds, you can go full auto and reload right away. The only thing that bothers me about heat sinks is how Zaeed tells his story about how way back when he didn't even have to replace the heatsink, or
the first thing Shepard does is "This weapon doesn't have a heatsink!"
And in ME1 I could just hold down attack and never get close to a quarter of the way to overheating. That's not fun, that's boring as shit. PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW
In ME2 I hardly even have to use my weapons because the cooldowns are shorter, even if they are all global , so I don't go "Oh used all of my abilities time to wait thirty seconds". ME2's combat is just plain better. The abilities work better, the combat flows better, and asshole biotics don't incap you for 15 seconds.
edit: Also I don't think any recent FPS has used a global ammunition system. I guess Battlefield games but those don't really count.
Shooting was a lot more fun in ME2 than in ME1. I have no problems with the change, even the lip service codex explanation was more than enough for me. I would have been fine with 'it's a retcon because it's more fun to play'.
Yeah, Mass Effect 1 had a stupid system. It was over powered and pretty much made every fight identical and more or less forced you to go with one weapon and maybe pull out your over powered super sniper rifle once or twice to kill the boss with one headshot.
Shooting was a lot more fun in ME2 than in ME1. I have no problems with the change, even the lip service codex explanation was more than enough for me. I would have been fine with 'it's a retcon because it's more fun to play'.
But why is it more fun to play? This is a serious question because I found the heat method in ME1 to be vastly superior and more fun - I just don't understand why people seem to prefer run of the mill ammunition that every other FPS game ever has used. No one has ever given me an answer that makes sense other than "it's more fun" when I'm looking more for a "why".
Because as much fun as "use the pistol always and forever because it's hilariously overpowered" was, I think I'll take a system that gives missed shots some meaning and encourages me to be smart/varied in my tactics.
It's much more of a challenge and I appreciate that.
Er... I imported my ME2 character from ME1 which got her some extra credits if that matters, but I was able to buy every single thing before I finished ME2, on my first playthrough, and I had like 150k left over.
Pretty sure you missed a shop somewhere. I suspect if you look at the Upgrades console a few things won't be maxed.
Shooting was a lot more fun in ME2 than in ME1. I have no problems with the change, even the lip service codex explanation was more than enough for me. I would have been fine with 'it's a retcon because it's more fun to play'.
But why is it more fun to play? This is a serious question because I found the heat method in ME1 to be vastly superior and more fun - I just don't understand why people seem to prefer run of the mill ammunition that every other FPS game ever has used. No one has ever given me an answer that makes sense other than "it's more fun" when I'm looking more for a "why".
The experience is paced by the size of your magazine.
In Mass Effect 1, even without any obsessive minmaxing, you were easily capable of fitting your rifle so that it never overheated, ever. Even if you fired without pause indefinitely. This means there is no rhythm to the shooting, it is always on all the time. It becomes a sensory overload sort of deal where each kill you make or each shot you fire is inconsequential because it required no foresight or planning and no preparation or reckoning.
In Mass Effect 2, and every other shooter out there, you have magazines and limited ammunition for a reason. It's not a trope, it has a very particular design function. Which is to provide you with peaks and troughs of combat, a wavering balance of intensity throughout. This effect was taken even further to enemy design actually. You only fight one colossus in ME2 and it is a tough fight. But in ME1 you fight dozens, and they are no different than the armatures in design, just in health and damage.
Several things arise from limited ammunition.
1) It forces you to commit to a firefight more, because you can't fire forever, and each bullet you fire has more meaning and more importance. This is both from an overheating standpoint and a capacity one. You can't fire your gun for more than 40 rounds, and you must reload five times before you are out of ammo entirely.
2) Tension arises from fear. Fear of not having enough or fear of being inadequate. Limiting your weapons in this way provides both. It puts more emphasis on a combined arms approach, using more efficient powers to strip away shields and armour instead of just meatgrinding them away with your highly ineffectual assault rifle.
With unlimited ammo and infinite firing supercooled weapons, there would be no impetus to use overload or biotics, cause the lowest form of combat would be to use your bullet hose to spray enemies forever until dead. That's boring.
3) As I said before, it's too easy to game the system. I had sniper rifles in ME1 that would one shot armatures with explosive rounds, and assault rifles that never overheated, ever, and seared enemies as though some kind of infinite laser.
You need variation in experience to appreciate the highs. If everything is 'on' at all times, you take for granted the ease of combat and it dulls the experience. Mass Effect 1 was repetitive because of this, having you shoot endlessly making your guns feel both stupidly overpowered and pathetically weak at the same time.
Shooting was a lot more fun in ME2 than in ME1. I have no problems with the change, even the lip service codex explanation was more than enough for me. I would have been fine with 'it's a retcon because it's more fun to play'.
But why is it more fun to play? This is a serious question because I found the heat method in ME1 to be vastly superior and more fun - I just don't understand why people seem to prefer run of the mill ammunition that every other FPS game ever has used. No one has ever given me an answer that makes sense other than "it's more fun" when I'm looking more for a "why".
The controls are tighter and combat flows more smoothly than it does in ME1. Removing overheating also removes the ten seconds of sitting out that follows if you overdo it a bit with your weapon (and before you point out - quite rightly - that it's possible to use weapon mods to shoot forever, ask yourself this: what's the point of including a mechanic if it can just be bypassed?). Now you can just take a second and a half and get right back to the action. In my experience, there's enough ammo to go through the whole game with one weapon if you want. I change guns often, but that's because I enjoy doing so.
Additionally, the cooldowns in ME1 are much, much longer than in ME2, meaning that once you've unleashed your opening alpha strike, you're stuck using the weaker shooter controls until your powers are back up. In ME2 you use fewer powers at once, but you get to use them more often. Combined with shooter mechanics that aren't rolling dice behind the scenes (as they are in ME1), I find the end result is a smoother, more visceral experience.
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Shooting was a lot more fun in ME2 than in ME1. I have no problems with the change, even the lip service codex explanation was more than enough for me. I would have been fine with 'it's a retcon because it's more fun to play'.
But why is it more fun to play? This is a serious question because I found the heat method in ME1 to be vastly superior and more fun - I just don't understand why people seem to prefer run of the mill ammunition that every other FPS game ever has used. No one has ever given me an answer that makes sense other than "it's more fun" when I'm looking more for a "why".
The experience is paced by the size of your magazine.
In Mass Effect 1, even without any obsessive minmaxing, you were easily capable of fitting your rifle so that it never overheated, ever. Even if you fired without pause indefinitely. This means there is no rhythm to the shooting, it is always on all the time. It becomes a sensory overload sort of deal where each kill you make or each shot you fire is inconsequential because it required no foresight or planning and no preparation or reckoning.
In Mass Effect 2, and every other shooter out there, you have magazines and limited ammunition for a reason. It's not a trope, it has a very particular design function. Which is to provide you with peaks and troughs of combat, a wavering balance of intensity throughout. This effect was taken even further to enemy design actually. You only fight one colossus in ME2 and it is a tough fight. But in ME1 you fight dozens, and they are no different than the armatures in design, just in health and damage.
Several things arise from limited ammunition.
1) It forces you to commit to a firefight more, because you can't fire forever, and each bullet you fire has more meaning and more importance. This is both from an overheating standpoint and a capacity one. You can't fire your gun for more than 40 rounds, and you must reload five times before you are out of ammo entirely.
2) Tension arises from fear. Fear of not having enough or fear of being inadequate. Limiting your weapons in this way provides both. It puts more emphasis on a combined arms approach, using more efficient powers to strip away shields and armour instead of just meatgrinding them away with your highly ineffectual assault rifle.
With unlimited ammo and infinite firing supercooled weapons, there would be no impetus to use overload or biotics, cause the lowest form of combat would be to use your bullet hose to spray enemies forever until dead. That's boring.
3) As I said before, it's too easy to game the system. I had sniper rifles in ME1 that would one shot armatures with explosive rounds, and assault rifles that never overheated, ever, and seared enemies as though some kind of infinite laser.
You need variation in experience to appreciate the highs. If everything is 'on' at all times, you take for granted the ease of combat and it dulls the experience. Mass Effect 1 was repetitive because of this, having you shoot endlessly making your guns feel both stupidly overpowered and pathetically weak at the same time.
Hmmm, I guess I just didn't feel that in ME2. Ran out of ammo on my sniper rifle? Annoyed, but simply switch to pistol and keep firing. Run out on the pistol? Sucks, but oh well I can still finish the fight with the submachine gun just as easily - its just far less fun.
Having the ammo didn't actually add any challenge to the game for me, it just made it annoying. The worst was running around staring at the floor trying to see the ammo clips - half the time I could barely see them my eyes would actually ache after a mission (I'm not exaggerating - it would actually give me mild headaches). Would have been nice to have a button to press to make them glow brighter or something.
Either way, I would have MUCH rather preferred they used the same ME1 system and just made it easier to overheat a weapon or balanced them in some other way - they took the serious cop-out method and just switched it over to the same ammo system used by every other game :?
You can keep the infinite ammo and simply balance the overheat system and the weapons so it meets those 3 concerns easily.
Not one thing was made better by introducing the ammo system as a gameplay mechanic by itself. The game was just much better balanced in ME2.
Nope. Having ammo means you can't hold down fire indefinitely. That alone made the combat leagues better.
We'll have to disagree on that one I guess - I'm one of the clear minority but after replaying ME1 right after beating ME2 I find the combat vastly superior in ME1 with a couple very minor exceptions (getting completely disabled by biotics is one but it hasn't happened that often 20 hours into the game). I honestly didn't find combat challenging in ME2 for the most part - switching weapons because I ran out of ammo didn't make the game more difficult, just less convenient.
The other night I was doing Therum in ME1 and during the Krogan fight I was running all over the room darting between cover trying to stay away from him while taking pop shots when I could and using biotic abilities. In ME2 the most I ever did in ANY combat was sit behind cover and fire my weapons until everything was dead. I don't remember really moving much at all during combat throughout the entire game and I still made it through just fine with very few deaths on hardcore. There was a couple fights where I had to move once just to get further away but thats about it.
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
I still think the title of at least one thread should be "Yeoman Chambers is Getting Sexed."
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It has to finish their armor off.
I think someone, can't recall whom, says that its supposed to depict the race, cause the reapers say so.
Nah, that ain't spoilers. It references nothing specific. It's like saying "Man, it stinks that in that book that one guy killed that other guy" or "damn, I can't believe that guy is the other guys' father." Too vague to spoil. Spoils nothing.
Teammates can do it, but you have to command them to do it. I believe lots of enemies have armour on the higher difficulty settings, so that may solve your problem for you. But yeah, Krogans have armour aplenty.
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Right, by itself your comment wasn't, but responding to it necessitated the use of spoilers. I was vague and probably misleading in that sense, my bad.
On higher difficulties husks have armor. Have at it, hoss.
Probably because he hates running out of ammo every 30 seconds :?
Probably not.
We can be friends though. Hi5?
If you're running out of ammo every 30 seconds you're not using it right, what part of a 12-13 round mag doesn't just scream "precision instrument"?
I love the viper. There, I said it. Nothing beats an automatic sniper rifle. I looooove it. Then again I haven't even tried the Widow because I haven't played soldier or infiltrator yet. So I'll shut up now.
Running out of ammo? With a widow?
How bad of a shot are you?
You can hit someone in the head with every single shot and still run out of ammo in combat - I did constantly without ever missing the body at least (kind of hard to miss when everything is slowed wayyyyy down). Half the combat in the game involves wave after wave of guys - way more than 13. The whole "ammo" system in 2 is just lame, but thats just my opinion. Just restarting ME1 with an adept with sniper rifle as my bonus skill and with only 1 point in it I can still shoot it just as fast as the widow and the first sniper rifle in ME2 without ever overheating, and I have unlimited ammo.
Edit: Also half the time in combat I would use 10-13+ shots and then only 2 enemies would drop clips and so I would enter the next "round" of combat with 5-7 shots and never recover back to 13 throughout the entire mission. Very annoying.
Unfortunately the only explanation is summarized as: The ammo system exists to encourage the use of multiple weapons in the course of combat, rather than letting the player reduce combat to a repetitive exercise where one weapon is the answer to every question presented. I don't see a rational way to explain in game why picking up one thermal clip refills spare ammo for all weapons, but using thermal clips from a weapon doesn't deplete in the same way.
edit- and I should add, I'm OK with this. It's a small sacrifice on my part in suspension of disbelief in exchange for what I feel is an excellent improvement in gameplay. YMMV.
It's not ammunition, it's heat sinks.
It's still ammunition. It enables you to fire your weapon - without it you can't. There is a finite amount of it. It's ammunition.
But why is it more fun to play? This is a serious question because I found the heat method in ME1 to be vastly superior and more fun - I just don't understand why people seem to prefer run of the mill ammunition that every other FPS game ever has used. No one has ever given me an answer that makes sense other than "it's more fun" when I'm looking more for a "why".
His complaint doesn't make an sense because it isn't 300 assault rifle bullets, it's 300 shots worth of heat absorption. The sniper rifle creates more heat so it doesn't get as many shots worth.
And in ME1 I could just hold down attack and never get close to a quarter of the way to overheating. That's not fun, that's boring as shit. PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW PSHEW
In ME2 I hardly even have to use my weapons because the cooldowns are shorter, even if they are all global , so I don't go "Oh used all of my abilities time to wait thirty seconds". ME2's combat is just plain better. The abilities work better, the combat flows better, and asshole biotics don't incap you for 15 seconds.
edit: Also I don't think any recent FPS has used a global ammunition system. I guess Battlefield games but those don't really count.
Yeah, Mass Effect 1 had a stupid system. It was over powered and pretty much made every fight identical and more or less forced you to go with one weapon and maybe pull out your over powered super sniper rifle once or twice to kill the boss with one headshot.
Because as much fun as "use the pistol always and forever because it's hilariously overpowered" was, I think I'll take a system that gives missed shots some meaning and encourages me to be smart/varied in my tactics.
It's much more of a challenge and I appreciate that.
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The experience is paced by the size of your magazine.
In Mass Effect 1, even without any obsessive minmaxing, you were easily capable of fitting your rifle so that it never overheated, ever. Even if you fired without pause indefinitely. This means there is no rhythm to the shooting, it is always on all the time. It becomes a sensory overload sort of deal where each kill you make or each shot you fire is inconsequential because it required no foresight or planning and no preparation or reckoning.
In Mass Effect 2, and every other shooter out there, you have magazines and limited ammunition for a reason. It's not a trope, it has a very particular design function. Which is to provide you with peaks and troughs of combat, a wavering balance of intensity throughout. This effect was taken even further to enemy design actually. You only fight one colossus in ME2 and it is a tough fight. But in ME1 you fight dozens, and they are no different than the armatures in design, just in health and damage.
Several things arise from limited ammunition.
1) It forces you to commit to a firefight more, because you can't fire forever, and each bullet you fire has more meaning and more importance. This is both from an overheating standpoint and a capacity one. You can't fire your gun for more than 40 rounds, and you must reload five times before you are out of ammo entirely.
2) Tension arises from fear. Fear of not having enough or fear of being inadequate. Limiting your weapons in this way provides both. It puts more emphasis on a combined arms approach, using more efficient powers to strip away shields and armour instead of just meatgrinding them away with your highly ineffectual assault rifle.
With unlimited ammo and infinite firing supercooled weapons, there would be no impetus to use overload or biotics, cause the lowest form of combat would be to use your bullet hose to spray enemies forever until dead. That's boring.
3) As I said before, it's too easy to game the system. I had sniper rifles in ME1 that would one shot armatures with explosive rounds, and assault rifles that never overheated, ever, and seared enemies as though some kind of infinite laser.
You need variation in experience to appreciate the highs. If everything is 'on' at all times, you take for granted the ease of combat and it dulls the experience. Mass Effect 1 was repetitive because of this, having you shoot endlessly making your guns feel both stupidly overpowered and pathetically weak at the same time.
You can keep the infinite ammo and simply balance the overheat system and the weapons so it meets those 3 concerns easily.
Not one thing was made better by introducing the ammo system as a gameplay mechanic by itself. The game was just much better balanced in ME2.
Additionally, the cooldowns in ME1 are much, much longer than in ME2, meaning that once you've unleashed your opening alpha strike, you're stuck using the weaker shooter controls until your powers are back up. In ME2 you use fewer powers at once, but you get to use them more often. Combined with shooter mechanics that aren't rolling dice behind the scenes (as they are in ME1), I find the end result is a smoother, more visceral experience.
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
Hmmm, I guess I just didn't feel that in ME2. Ran out of ammo on my sniper rifle? Annoyed, but simply switch to pistol and keep firing. Run out on the pistol? Sucks, but oh well I can still finish the fight with the submachine gun just as easily - its just far less fun.
Having the ammo didn't actually add any challenge to the game for me, it just made it annoying. The worst was running around staring at the floor trying to see the ammo clips - half the time I could barely see them my eyes would actually ache after a mission (I'm not exaggerating - it would actually give me mild headaches). Would have been nice to have a button to press to make them glow brighter or something.
Either way, I would have MUCH rather preferred they used the same ME1 system and just made it easier to overheat a weapon or balanced them in some other way - they took the serious cop-out method and just switched it over to the same ammo system used by every other game :?
Yep. Having ammo has no effect whatsoever on holding fire indefinitely.
Like I said, balancing the overheat system can provide the same effect.
We'll have to disagree on that one I guess - I'm one of the clear minority but after replaying ME1 right after beating ME2 I find the combat vastly superior in ME1 with a couple very minor exceptions (getting completely disabled by biotics is one but it hasn't happened that often 20 hours into the game). I honestly didn't find combat challenging in ME2 for the most part - switching weapons because I ran out of ammo didn't make the game more difficult, just less convenient.
The other night I was doing Therum in ME1 and during the Krogan fight I was running all over the room darting between cover trying to stay away from him while taking pop shots when I could and using biotic abilities. In ME2 the most I ever did in ANY combat was sit behind cover and fire my weapons until everything was dead. I don't remember really moving much at all during combat throughout the entire game and I still made it through just fine with very few deaths on hardcore. There was a couple fights where I had to move once just to get further away but thats about it.