What's the point in using profiles?
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 ...
Forum Discussion
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.
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.
@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.
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. 😃
@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.
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.
Controller shouldn't limit options as much as MEA is limited.
DAI let you have upto 8 skills equipped at once, MEA has a measly 3.
A simple button push in DAI let you swap between the first 4 skills and the second it took no time at all making all 8 perfectly viable in combat. This limited to three skills thing is annoyingly restrictive.
Is it not possible assigning pressing 2 buttons at once for additional functions? 2 buttons on the control pad like we did in some fighting games, for example? I concur this 3-power-assignment setting is things too flat, making all the other related mechanics poorly presented/explored as well.
Cross-platform game design is the worst in general. Give me an old fashioned PC game any day, and hundreds of key binds. Reducing the number of inputs to console controllers without adding nested menus is impossible, so the game is click-click-click a lot of the time while going through menus.
@Sirenapples wrote:
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.
Seeing Alec on Habitat 7 doing his "Hey SAM, gimme this profile, gimme that" was so cool! You got the feeling the connection is something VERY special and helpful. Until the moment you try it for yourself...
If BW did that because of the limitation of controllers, maybe. But well, they could have done it better, controller users suffer from it, too. So at least and as you said they could
make it that every ability that is permanent won't stop when you switch to another profile. So we could at least use a profile just for such abilities and that leaves us three other profiles with three fully usable combat skills. This way I could live with the huge cooldown penalty. Why my anhihilation for example has to stop working when I switch to another biotic profile with more ranged attacks is beyond my understanding. Or why should I spent a precious slot in every profile just to use my bot pet? I strongly believe there is huge space for improvement.
It's fun but yeah, the cooldown penalty is a little ridiculous. You basically have to be securely in cover when you do it as you'll get a few seconds of ineffectiveness. There really is no reason for the cooldown, it's a fun feature that SHOULD actually be a little OP like you see Alec doing.
I still use it but I'm definitely super careful with it.
To reiterate what others have said I think the forced cooldown when we switch is definitely the main issue here, if that was gone we could happily flit back and forth in combat between laying down supporting fire and constructs to charging in with biotics just like dad does in the prologue.
Overpowered? maybe..
Fun? oh hell yes!
I have never once switched profiles. After looking at the mechanics involved, it's mildly interesting to 'unlock' profile options, but nothing more.
As a soldier, I use concussive shot, shockwave, and lance. That's it. I developed singularity for use later in the game. Can kill everything with no problems. Some things can be bullet sponges, but that comes down to weapon selection, not skill use. If I ever need to, I've already unlocked all of the profiles anyway.
The real trick is bringing the right team with you. Fighting worms? Leave Drack on the ship and bring Liam, and that sort of thing. I'm only playing on normal settings. Maybe playing on harder settings would make it matter more, but for the most part it's no challenge at all downing groups of enemies while hardly even getting hit.
