At first glance I was, nice idea, easily makes up for being limited to only three skill slots. Let's do this. Oh well...After many hours I found myselft sticking with just the same profile all the time and limited to three skills. It's so sad. My vanguard for example loves to act as a "biotic nightmare", that means annihilation, charge, nova (useful or not, I like it) and a deonator like throw, lance or shockwave. Wait, these are 4 favorites. No problem, we have profiles - I though. Profile 1, fire up annihilation, switch to profile 2 with charge, nova and lance, profile 3, 4, whatever - all fine and ready to go. Even with the huge cooldown penalty. But wait - what? Annihilation shut down? Plus the cool down penalty? What's the point??? And no way to try something different like including a conclusive shot for example? Singularity?Or my nice remnant pet Peebee gave me. I don't need it but I like it. But no way to use it because it shuts down when I change the profile.Turret shut down when I load my sniper profile. What's the point at all in using profiles then? How could this be a good substitute for being limited to three skill slots?Maybe it's just a bug and just in my game, maybe it's "working as intended" - if so, it either needs fixing or should get a huge improvement. I don't like it at all.

They really unnecessarily limited the game. Like they thought this was League or something that needed fine tuning and tiny numbers. No, this is a singleplayer or PvE game where you want the players to feel like they're some awesome transhuman with an AI in her head. They play it up with Alec switching profiles constantly on Habitat 7, but you just cannot do that. The game actively discourages you from switching profiles. • There is NO reason switching profiles should put anything on cooldown. • Active abilities from one profile should remain active when you switch. • Profiles should be shown in the main radial menu and not hidden under another layer (Have to press X when in the quick menue just to see them) Do these and it'd actually feel really great like part of your character. It's what makes Ryder special, allegedly. With it gimped like this there's little reason to bother switching, and it's actively a detriment to bother in combat. She just feels like any other character as is. There is no reason not to go all out with profiles. Any little balance change to hold it back? No, don't do it, it's unnecessary and just makes the experience less engaging. I lends to the overall feeling that Bioware preemptively nerfed everything severely before release.

Yes my Profiles don't always swap or I hit the button to lightly. So I find them sort of messed up in that respect. I have noticed that with each new game bioware makes, and releases, we get less, and less options on our skill's. I remember how I loved DA Origins, and the bar that ran all the way across the bottom of the screen, and allows me to use most any skill I had, There was even a mod that allowed you to flip that bar to enjoy three different bars, all with different skills on them. DAI I could learn like maybe 15 or 16 skill's, but I got amnesia every time I entered a battle, and only remembered 8, talk about your absent minder sorcerer... ☹️ It just seems like the game's are I guess major catering to the Console, but I sure wish they would quit down sizing my skill's that I can use in battle with every new release. Now I only get 3 in battle, and no pause in the game to decide which skill, it is all live action.. I mean that is I guess okay, but then why let me pause the action to swap weapons Or use a consumable ? I just think we are really losing ground in some area's of our Bioware RPG's.

Was really hyped for the system until I tried it myself. Your abilities go on cooldown when you change profiles? That'd be ok except for the fact that abilities have absolutely ridiculous cooldowns in this game. Can finish a fight before a cooldown comes back so what's the point?

Considering how many different abilities I go through in FFXIV using a controller, I'm confident in saying that its not the controller's fault we're limited with abilities and the profile system. At any rate, I can see what they were going for with the profile system...IE different play styles for different situations, but the problem is that you can essentially use almost every play style in every situation. I think the only exception would be fighting something like a Fiend where you want to remain long ranged since it does that one-shot-grab-smash thing. I tried to do different profiles, myself, just to have more viability and ended up sticking to mostly just one profile unless I wanted to just spice things up for fun. If they wanted a system like that, they should've made the abilities a little less homogenized, I think. With the exception of Combat abilities, because #bleep# those ammo capacity abilities. 😃

Instead of 4 profiles and 3 powers per profile, I wished they had 2 profiles and 6 powers per profile. That would significantly improve the fun factor of the game. These days I mainly use 2 profiles, a long range one with my infiltrator profile and a close quarters one with my vanguard profile. 3 powers in a profile is limiting and cool downs when swapping profiles are not fun either and doesnt make sense during an intense battle. There are plenty of powers that I feel are fun but secondary powers that wont make it to the top of the 3 power list... I loved singularity in the original ME series but now I hardly use it.

What's the point in using profiles?

31 Replies

JucieN7
9 years ago
I know what you mean...
The cooldown penalty makes it almost uninteresting to change the profile while fighting.
I usually use 2 profiles which I set before a fight. One profile for combat against remnants and one against other enemies. Although I use the first profile about 80% of the time, because every enemy has soldiers with shields that I have to bring down.

In the trailers it looked more useful. But I don't change the profile in combat just each enemy
Anonymous
9 years ago
They really unnecessarily limited the game. Like they thought this was League or something that needed fine tuning and tiny numbers. No, this is a singleplayer or PvE game where you want the players to feel like they're some awesome transhuman with an AI in her head.

They play it up with Alec switching profiles constantly on Habitat 7, but you just cannot do that. The game actively discourages you from switching profiles.

• There is NO reason switching profiles should put anything on cooldown.

• Active abilities from one profile should remain active when you switch.

• Profiles should be shown in the main radial menu and not hidden under another layer (Have to press X when in the quick menue just to see them)

Do these and it'd actually feel really great like part of your character. It's what makes Ryder special, allegedly. With it gimped like this there's little reason to bother switching, and it's actively a detriment to bother in combat. She just feels like any other character as is.

There is no reason not to go all out with profiles. Any little balance change to hold it back? No, don't do it, it's unnecessary and just makes the experience less engaging. I lends to the overall feeling that Bioware preemptively nerfed everything severely before release.
Anonymous
9 years ago
They wanted an open character design with lots of options but the limiting factor they built in was they wanted to make it so it was controller friendly I suspect.

This of course negates all the advantages that a PC has over a controller which are multiple keybinds which bites for PC users as that is one of the key reasons to play on a PC over a consol.

Ditto for the TEXT option in multiplayer being gone. That also bites. But then console users don't type. So you can't tell the fool who is chomping and grunting with an open mic to turn the darn thing off. (seriously he didn't say one word just disgusting noises all match long till I figured out how to mute him.)

The only advantage I can see to profiles is swapping them out according to enemy type. Some are more resistant to biotics than others for example. First Architect I encountered taught me my adept needed something else going on for that fight. So perhaps you make a profile specifically for that situation.
MeinChurro
9 years ago
When I played my profiles always messed up and it would default over to my most used everytime I loaded up a save, so I just got tired of it and never played any other profile. 😢
taglag45
9 years ago
   Yes my Profiles don't always swap or I hit the button to lightly. So I find them sort of messed up in that respect.

I have noticed that with each new game bioware makes, and releases, we get less, and less options on our skill's. I remember how I loved DA Origins, and the bar that ran all the way across the bottom of the screen, and allows me to use most any skill I had, There was even a mod that allowed you to flip that bar to enjoy three different bars, all with different skills on them.

   DAI I could learn like maybe 15 or 16 skill's, but I got amnesia every time I entered a battle, and only remembered 8, talk about your absent minder sorcerer... ☹️

   It just seems like the game's are I guess major catering to the Console, but I sure wish they would quit down sizing my skill's that I can use in battle with every new release.

Now I only get 3 in battle, and no pause in the game to decide which skill, it is all live action.. I mean that is I guess okay, but then why let me pause the action to swap weapons Or use a consumable ?

   I just think we are really losing ground in some area's of our Bioware RPG's.
Anonymous
9 years ago
@NueeArdente wrote:

They wanted an open character design with lots of options but the limiting factor they built in was they wanted to make it so it was controller friendly I suspect.

This of course negates all the advantages that a PC has over a controller which are multiple keybinds which bites for PC users as that is one of the key reasons to play on a PC over a consol.

Hey! Don't go blaming us controller users for this... at least not entirely, lol.

But seriously, you can map a lot to a controller. Not as much as you can with a keyboard but after making a few custom controller profiles myself, I know we could have easily had more than 3 powers. Besides, it has been awhile since I've played Inquisition, but I remember using a controller for that one and having more than 3 powers active at once.
GigaChadEnhance
9 years ago
Was really hyped for the system until I tried it myself. Your abilities go on cooldown when you change profiles? That'd be ok except for the fact that abilities have absolutely ridiculous cooldowns in this game. Can finish a fight before a cooldown comes back so what's the point?
Anonymous
9 years ago
Considering how many different abilities I go through in FFXIV using a controller, I'm confident in saying that its not the controller's fault we're limited with abilities and the profile system.

At any rate, I can see what they were going for with the profile system...IE different play styles for different situations, but the problem is that you can essentially use almost every play style in every situation. I think the only exception would be fighting something like a Fiend where you want to remain long ranged since it does that one-shot-grab-smash thing. I tried to do different profiles, myself, just to have more viability and ended up sticking to mostly just one profile unless I wanted to just spice things up for fun.

If they wanted a system like that, they should've made the abilities a little less homogenized, I think. With the exception of Combat abilities, because #bleep# those ammo capacity abilities. 😃
N7NYj
9 years ago
agreed, and another reason why i stopped playing the game right now. i'm hoping this would be changed when this game is finally polished up.
Anonymous
9 years ago
@sirexodus84 wrote:

At any rate, I can see what they were going for with the profile system...IE different play styles for different situations, but the problem is that you can essentially use almost every play style in every situation.

And I would have to try a successfully implemented version of this to be able to judge it fairly. Right now, it seems/feels too inconvenient to be switching profiles and or favorites with powers due to cooldowns.

Outside of that, I prefer to just pick one way to go and stick with it but have there be advantages and disadvantages. As you pointed out, it all seems a bit the same. For the most part, it doesn't seem like the advantages/disadvantages (if any) are significant enough period. Even among many of the weapon types, I don't know.

Either way, I picked one profile, stuck with it, and would spend points to raise that profile. And perhaps that also hurts switching profiles as well. I mean to have those profiles to their maximum, you would have to adjust how you spent points as well.