Multiplayer Weapon/Combo Balance

There are certain things in Multiplayer that feel better balanced in ME:A than ME3. Waves, for instance, feel more manageable with less need to perma-camp like in ME3. Which is important because melee feels like it's a more viable combat aspect. Though the awkward locked melee animations do cause issues, the damage at least makes it very worth while.

But on the other end of things there are serious issues. Combos don't feel like they really do anything worthwhile. That's really all there is to say about the issue to be honest. They just seem like they're a hold over mechanic from single player. It really feels like you are just better off shooting things than going for intentional combos.

But even that's an issue. The weapon balance is terrible. Semi-Auto Sniper Rifles are the go to weapon because most of the other weapons can't even come close to being competitive in terms of power. At an Apex Rank around 5000, I have so far not found a single Semi-Auto Non-Sniper that is worth bothering with in Multiplayer other than the Granade Launcher weapons, like the Falcon and Scorpion. And the spare ammo pools on most of the Semi-Auto weapons are so laughably inadequate that combining them with the fact that they don't do enough damage with their slow fire rate it makes them fairly useless. And while Automatic weapons fare better, they still don't come anywhere close to being competitive with weapons like the Vanquisher or Black Widow. Even on my weapons heavy soldier who I've dumped points into anything that gives me better with guns just to use Automatic weapons more efficiently I feel like my Automatic weapons can't really compete with Sniper Rifles. And the Automatic Snipers are completely useless. They're so inaccurate that even if they have an equivalent damage to magazine ratio, the chances of actually hitting anything with them are low. Burst Fire weapons are mostly a waste of time as well. Between the more difficult to deal with climbing recoil and the fact that you can get an automatic with almost the exact same damage but a faster fire rate and easier to deal with recoil, it's hard to justify trying to use a gold tier Hornet over the bronze tier Charger.

Shotguns have their own special problem. Granted I don't have a whole lot of experience with them... And a lot of that is due to the fact that the only way I've managed to do decent damage with one is headshots. And in order to pull that off, I have to be pretty close to the enemy. At that range, I feel like it's just faster to run the extra few feet and just start smashing them in the face with melee attacks that are probably going to do more damage on the characters I'd use a shotgun on (Krogan and the Duelist for instance) instead of trying to shoot at them.

I'm all for a challenge. But when most of the team is using a Sniper Rifle because nothing else can compete with them and not because they want to play a sniper, something's not right.

13 Replies

Anonymous
9 years ago
I say it is too soon to do any real balancing. Equipment for non melee build damage hasn't been released yet as well as equipment for cool downs and power strength. Our bonus stats will increase our effectiveness in due time increasing a good handful of stats by several percent. While non melee and sniper rifle attacks can feel weak sometimes a well synergized build with high end weapon and attachment unlocks with proper booster use makes any combat style effective.
Alicondria
9 years ago
Weapon stats should never be balanced around optional equipment or bonus stats. The problem is that the devs didn't do any balancing whatsoever. They just ran the singleplayer numbers through a nerf generator and called it good.
Anonymous
9 years ago
Equipment modularity is very much at the core of effecting weapon and even build performance in many games and should be included in factoring weapon balance. Weapons without attachment and bonus equipment are only a base. They where you decide what characteristics you want your weapon to have such as rate of fire, accuracy or stability. Then you fine tune with attachments, peripheral equipment and boosters. This give more variety and specialization than having everyone be able to use every gun for every situation because they are all powerful out of the box. In the right hands weapons are not too underwhelming and it is obvious that teamwork is meant to play a bigger role this time around. This means that groups are supposed to focus down the same enemies instead of soloing waves like in ME3.
Anonymous
9 years ago
@BANDIT440 wrote:

I say it is too soon to do any real balancing. Equipment for non melee build damage hasn't been released yet as well as equipment for cool downs and power strength. Our bonus stats will increase our effectiveness in due time increasing a good handful of stats by several percent. While non melee and sniper rifle attacks can feel weak sometimes a well synergized build with high end weapon and attachment unlocks with proper booster use makes any combat style effective.

The problem is many weapons are still not competitive vs sniper rifles with boosters and mods. Performing better because of loads of optional mods and gear vs a weapon that needs absolutely nothing whatsoever to perform at optimum levels is simply not balanced. And as Ambaire below you points out, the game shouldn't be balanced around optional equipment that isn't even released yet. Mods, sure. But the gear should have no bearing on the basic level of balance of Multiplayer because it forces you to use a specific piece rather than build the way you want and gear like Thermal Clip becomes useless over a damage bonus or what ever the combat and guerilla mods will be doing for weapons.

And quite frankly, if the goal is to balance the game around totally optional gear cards, then every piece of gear should have all been released on day one and be left up permanently instead of a rotation so that players can pick and choose which to buy when they need it so they can build how they want to build without having to spend a month or two waiting for their cards to pop up.
Anonymous
9 years ago
Even though not releasing the other equipment cards may not have been the best idea at release it is still better to take these things slower. You can break the games balance in later stages and end up having overcorrections or nerfs instead of buffs because the power creep catches up to ramped up mechanics from knee-* changes. Changes may eventually need to be made. I am not denying that. But for the games longevity patiently making gradual changes with more known factors is key.
Krollbar
9 years ago
I have been told that there are a couple good multiplayer weapons out there but I've never collected one. Every gun I own suuuuuuucks. All 15 of them. And painfully so.

And shotguns? Wow. Why would I shoot something 5x when I can kill it with 3 melee hits? And please don't take this as an invitation to nerf melee.
Anonymous
9 years ago
@BANDIT440 wrote:

Even though not releasing the other equipment cards may not have been the best idea at release it is still better to take these things slower. You can break the games balance in later stages and end up having overcorrections or nerfs instead of buffs because the power creep catches up to ramped up mechanics from knee-* changes. Changes may eventually need to be made. I am not denying that. But for the games longevity patiently making gradual changes with more known factors is key.

Except there really won't be any significant long term power creep in this type of Multiplayer. This isn't a game where there is ever escalating power increases. At a certain point, you reach absolute maximum power. Yes, they'll add new stuff. But it's not like they'll be adding an Ultra-Ultra Rare tier that starts outclassing everything in the game and it is unlikely every new thing they add will be Ultra Rare and super powerful. Most things will end up being sidegrade rather than upgrades. There likely won't be additional character levels added. Most certainty won't be additional ranks added above 10. They won't be adding new gear that is ridiculously over powered. Biotic War Amp was released recently, it adds a mere 15% damage to biotics, which is of questionable usefulness. If we ever get an upgraded gold version of that at some point, we're probably looking at 25-30% at most. And at gold tier, that's really not much of a damage boost.

And let's not forget that there will likely be a Platinum Difficulty added like was added to ME3's Multiplayer. The main reason it probably wasn't added to begin with is because players simply won't be geared for it right away. It's bad enough right now having low ranking players trying to get low level, low rank characters into Gold with an Avenger.
Anonymous
9 years ago
IMO you should feel competent in bronze with basic weapons. I am a player with 1500 hours in ME3MP, got all of the challenge banners, completed platinums on a regular basis, so I know how to play MP. Bronze when I started and can still be now overly challenging with the gear we have. Conversely after the early access period was up I went into a bronze on ME3 with Avenger 10 no other gear on a first level character and had no problems.

I do not expect no problems but I do not think it should be a struggle.
sleepijoe
9 years ago
Weapon damage and power damage needs to be buffed all around the damage values are ok on bronze but if you go into silver and gold difficulty than playing gets too arduous and un-fun the avenger X takes 2 full clips, 60 rounds total to kill a normal, base, red bar enemy and it takes 20 rounds to kill the same with a level 6 mattock its just crasy it sould take less than half that, its like throughing grapes at the enemy instead of shooting them with weapons, and its the same thing with powers. Hiting something with any power that does damage doesnt do near enough and the explosions are like popping a balloon on front of them and it should be like setting C4 off in front of them. I want to play the multiplayer but I will not until the weapons and powers are buffed significantly.
Tuinbonen
9 years ago
"It really feels like you are just better off shooting things than going for intentional combos."

I'm sorry, but you should play with the asari adept first or have a team that has annihilation + vortex. These people have been clashing for frags with the SR guys. I've got around 7k apex and have been playing with SR only until the gold medal, but biotic combos are by far my favorite since it's a satisfying nukefest. I just feel like Lord Vader or Starkiller that just breezes through with the enemies floating around (or flying away at high speed).

Edit: And not to mention the double shield the adepts/vanguards have which makes them extremely useful in close combat on gold.