Thursday, October 4, 2012

The Mass Effect 3 October patch sucks

The October patch for Mass Effect 3 is out. Most of the "corrections" are for multiplayer. And let me say that it sucks. I've played the multiplayer game on Platinum, Gold and Silver difficulties with XBOX Live. The big changes are aimed at the Gold and Platinum difficulty settings.

The Rocket Glitch

Let me talk about the rocket glitch. It was a shortcut to allow players to turn a weapon which fired explosive rounds (ala Falcon assault rifle) into a Cobra missile launcher. You could literally finish a Platinum round in less than twenty minutes and many times usually less. Some of us players believe it's not a glitch at all but a shortcut written in the program by a software engineer. It's illegal according to BioWare and Electronic Arts. (EA) And you could get banned for using it. My view is that mulitplayer game is hard. Using the glitch doesn't hurt anybody. In fact, it helps the whole squad since they will share in the bounty of virtual credits. Earning virtual credits to buy upgraded weapons is a good thing. Okay, it could affect one's N7 number and ranking. But that ranking is meaningless since it only goes up when you promote classes. So a bad player if he wanted to play for a very long time could have the highest ranking in the world.

I haven't talked to anyone today about the rocket glitch. And like I said, you could get banned for using it. But from what I've read about the patch, the rocket glitch is gone. So sorry for you guys, farming Platinum for credits.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Pyros get saved from your skills to kill them. You cannot stab Geth Pyros from cover with the instant kill maneuver. So, EA decided to make a hard game even harder. Why?

Banshees get stronger. How many of you thought it was too easy to kill Banshees? Obviously EA did. When you play the Firebase White map, the Banshees had trouble getting over the counters to kill you. Yeah, on Gold and Platinum, it was easier for the squad to direct their fire on them. But there were other enemies attacking you at the same time. So, it wasn't easy. Well, now the Banshees can warp behind the counters so they can instantly kill you with that head butt move. Having fun yet?

I'm guessing that EA has a thing for the "lovely" Banshees because they made them immune to the charms of the Decoy. If you played on Platinum, most of the time, good players always had a Salarian engineer with them. He's the only one with the Decoy. And the Decoy was the great strategic move to help you win Platinum rounds. The Banshees would attack the Decoy, giving the squad time to kill them. Well, now the Banshees ignore it. Don't get me wrong the Decoy is still useful against other enemies such as the Geth but this has made Platinum almost unbearable.

Loading games for Platinum.

One change that is absolutely not needed is the feature that automatically sends the squad into battle if three ready gamers are ready, even if the fourth is not. Under the old system, a fourth gamer could hold up the squad if he wasn't ready. But there was already a solution. You could kick out the fourth member if he took to long to signal his readiness. The new system automatically sends them into battle. But did this "improvement" cause another problem?

Is there a bug in the machine? My first time in Platinum, was nearly a disaster. The squad indicated it was ready. Then when I hit Firebase White, I was all alone. Yikes. Luckily, the program found random players and downloaded them. But by then, the strategy of Firebase White was gone. There were enemies everywhere. We expended most of our supplies within the First Wave. I was lucky that the three guys were very good. We got through Wave Ten.

The loading times. For some reason, loading times are extremely long. The loading time for one Platinum mission was so long that I told the squad to abort. We did.

So far I have found nothing good with this patch. EA should stop trying to make a fun game harder. Mass Effect 3 for multiplayer is hard enough.

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