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Lord Shiv and I discussed this in detail not long after the Krysae came out. What we came up with is that the rifle doesn't do too much damage, it does too much damage in too many ways.

For example, if I activate Tactical Cloak and fire the gun at a Nemesis (Gold Difficulty) and I score a direct hit, the damage from the hit combined with the splash damage that also hits her will bypass shield gate and she will die instantly. No other Sniper Rifle can manage this on Gold. Even the Geth Plasma Shotgun requires two hits and it blatantly ignores Shield Gate. The Claymore is the only weapon that has enough raw damage on a headshot to 1-shot most enemies (and maybe a Talon X), and Krogan Melee can get enough damage to do it because melee bypasses shield gate as well.

The solution we came up with is not to change the amount of damage it does, but instead to INCREASE the damage of the initial hit, but make the target of the initial hit immune to the splash damage. In addition, the weapon should require a hit for the splash damage to take effect (no more air-bursting/shooting at enemies feet).

Effectively, what we proposed was that the initial target take a hit that is the equivalent damage of a direct projectile hit plus the Spash Damage, but because it only comes from a single source it won't bypass shield gate. Similarly, nearby targets don't take any damage from the projectile, just splash damage, so that won't bypass shield gate either. Adding the requirement that you hit a target for the explosion to go off increases the skill required to use the weapon, and necessitates actual aiming, much like the current Black Widow/Valiant.

What would you think of it then?

Also, yes. You need to join Shiv and I for more Golds, because between the 3 of us there's no reason we shouldn't be able to complete the majority of matches against any enemy on any map. We had a pretty good run going the first night we played.

Honestly, I just think they need to do two things to really "balance" the Krysae.

1) Remove the proximity trigger. This is a Big Deal, as currently I can fire a good four feet away from the target and it will still burst to make the kill. Making it so that you have to impact the target directly or their surroundings would be quite a way to go.

2) Remove the explosive feature altogether, and give it penetration superior/equal to the Javelin but with the requirement that it can't be quick-fired.

Kanluwen wrote:Honestly, I just think they need to do two things to really "balance" the Krysae.

1) Remove the proximity trigger. This is a Big Deal, as currently I can fire a good four feet away from the target and it will still burst to make the kill. Making it so that you have to impact the target directly or their surroundings would be quite a way to go.

2) Remove the explosive feature altogether, and give it penetration superior/equal to the Javelin but with the requirement that it can't be quick-fired.

But that change basically makes it the exact same as a Black Widow, except with better penetration, or if you remove the clip it makes it a Javelin/Widow. We already have those two weapons, and making this one emulate them is not the way to go. I think the explosive, AOE damage is a good feature, but it should be at the cost of single target DPS. Currently that's not the case since it does superior single target damage (due to bypassing shield gate with the explosion damage) to any sniper rifle in the game right now, and also does splash damage with an air-burst effect.

The problem is not the damage it does, or that it does the damage to multiple targets. It's the way it does damage to the initial target and the fact that it can be fired in the vicinity of targets for nearly the same damage that's the problem. Removing the splash damage makes it a Black Widow/Valiant clone, removing the clip and adding pen makes it a Javelin/Widow clone, so it needs something to set it apart from the rest. IE, area damage at the cost of single target DPS. If they do this, the weapon would be balanced. Just reducing damage like they already did doesn't fix the weapon, it just means it takes one more shot to kill off that group of enemies than it did before, and sometimes not even that.

Aldarionn wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Honestly, I just think they need to do two things to really "balance" the Krysae.

1) Remove the proximity trigger. This is a Big Deal, as currently I can fire a good four feet away from the target and it will still burst to make the kill. Making it so that you have to impact the target directly or their surroundings would be quite a way to go.

2) Remove the explosive feature altogether, and give it penetration superior/equal to the Javelin but with the requirement that it can't be quick-fired.

But that change basically makes it the exact same as a Black Widow, except with better penetration, or if you remove the clip it makes it a Javelin/Widow. We already have those two weapons, and making this one emulate them is not the way to go. I think the explosive, AOE damage is a good feature, but it should be at the cost of single target DPS. Currently that's not the case since it does superior single target damage (due to bypassing shield gate with the explosion damage) to any sniper rifle in the game right now, and also does splash damage with an air-burst effect.

Having similar guns with similar attributes is not necessarily, in my opinion, a bad thing.

Especially not when we're talking about "theme guns" like the Phaeston/Krysae.

The problem is not the damage it does, or that it does the damage to multiple targets. It's the way it does damage to the initial target and the fact that it can be fired in the vicinity of targets for nearly the same damage that's the problem. Removing the splash damage makes it a Black Widow/Valiant clone, removing the clip and adding pen makes it a Javelin/Widow clone, so it needs something to set it apart from the rest. IE, area damage at the cost of single target DPS. If they do this, the weapon would be balanced. Just reducing damage like they already did doesn't fix the weapon, it just means it takes one more shot to kill off that group of enemies than it did before, and sometimes not even that.

Like I said; either of these options wouldn't be just a "simple fix". Doing it in an in-depth way and essentially "rebooting" the gun would work better.

I had an idea on the BSN about it, where the 'warhead' is instead changed to be similar to the Scorpion in that it doesn't detonate on impact but rather after a short timeframe or with a proximal trigger. But unlike said Scorpion, it would actually be able to penetrate cover to the same depth as a Javelin/Widow. The thing is--according to the lore bit--an antimaterial rifle. It's designed to deal with fortified positions and medium/light armored vehicles, parked aircraft, etc.

Allowing it to be the first "penetrating" explosive gun would make it have an interesting niche, and make it a gun which wouldn't simply be a "If you don't take this gun on an Infiltrator; you're not welcome in our matches" option but rather a "I hope you can use that effectively to deal with entrenched enemies, as it will open up some new playstyles for our group!" option.

I see your point, and I think we are closer to the same page than you might think. Personally I feel that if it were a hitscan weapon (instead of unique projectile) that caused the target to radiate an explosive effect causing damage to nearby targets, it would work a lot better. The problem right now is the projectile and the air-bursting mechanics.

I don't think a third Black Widow/Valiant option is the right answer, because it's basically a re-hash of what's already been done. Themed weapons should not be a re-skin of existing weapons, but instead should have their own unique mechanics. The Krysae is an anti-material rifle, so making it pierce cover would work, but that mechanic is likely extremely difficult to code for a unique projectile weapon, necessitating the change to hitscan like the other snipers. But to keep it unique, it should maintain the explosive radius, but it should be applied in a different way. IE, if the target is hit, nearby targets take damage as if the round exploded, but the initial target only takes one hit, not two, so it cannot bypass shield gate. Either that, or it should work like a single target version of the Batarian Soldier's Ballistic Blades ability. The weapon fires a shot, then a few seconds later it is hit by an explosion that does damage in a radius. It should do less damage than the Black Widow, but have a better rate of fire and cause the explosive effect in some form, which would make for a unique and interesting weapon design that had its own niche rather than stealing the show from an existing gun.

To be fair, I have never been kicked from any match on any difficulty for using or NOT using the Krysae on an Infiltrator. Most people don't care and are not that petty about weapon selection. I'll kick someone if I think they are using a poor weapon loadout for their class (A striker and a Widow on an Asari Adept, for example) but I'm not going to kick an Infiltrator that prefers the Widow/Javelin over the other available snipers.

Have you ever been kicked for using/not using the gun?

A few times I've had people trying to Red-X me when I've done my Crusader/Tempest combination on the HMI.

I always just wait till the last few seconds and then swap the Krysae for the Crusader.

Well the Crusader is widely seen as a terrible weapon, and I have to agree that on an Infiltrator there are probably better options simply because it lacks a scope. That said, it's basically a Black Widow in Shotgun form with an extra round in the chamber. The damage is about the same, the penetration is about the same, and the accuracy is about the same. If you are able to score headshots with it, it can do a lot of damage. The problem is most people can't aim well with the shotgun style reticle and a lot of people immediately see it on an Infiltrator and consider it a sub-par build.

Which is the point.

Rather than actually consider "Hey, maybe this guy uses these because he's worked with them"--they look at the guns and make a decision.

It takes someone doing something relatively silly to not do well using the Krysae.

Yet I've seen it. Oh yes, I've seen it.....

Kanluwen wrote:A few times I've had people trying to Red-X me when I've done my Crusader/Tempest combination on the HMI.

I always just wait till the last few seconds and then swap the Krysae for the Crusader.

I think this is a console-only phenomenon. I've seem lots of people complain about being gear\loadout kicked and it all seems to be on the 360 or PS3. I can't speak for all PC players obviously but in my anecdotal experience, I've never once been in a game where a player has been kicked for their loadout. I've only ever seen them kicked for

A.) taking too long to ready up in the lobby
B.) Showing up to a Gold with your lvl 5 soldier unless you have an astronomical N7 rating; and
C.) if we play a series of games with the same players, once or twice i've seen an ass clown get kicked for sucking in a previous game (I'm looking at you, Human Vanguards who like to port atop blobs, die, have us res you, repeat for 25 minutes)

Also I was just playing and I GOT MY BLACK WIDOW

Ouze wrote:
I think this is a console-only phenomenon. I've seem lots of people complain about being gear\loadout kicked and it all seems to be on the 360 or PS3. I can't speak for all PC players obviously but in my anecdotal experience, I've never once been in a game where a player has been kicked for their loadout. I've only ever seen them kicked for

It's definitely something that happens on the 360 but I cannot speak for PC users. In fact, I'm guilty of it, but only to the extent that I will kick on Gold for low ranked weapons and/or ineffective builds. I have a friend that I play with regularly (Lord Shiv, who Kanluwen has played with a few times) and we tend to do U/U/G games when we play together because between the two of us, if we are playing good classes, we can generally carry the match regardless of the other two players. Hell, both of us are fully capable of clutching wave 8-9 on Gold games before. We work well together and we know what we are doing. But we will not tolerate a level 12 Human Soldier with a Mattock I and a Shuriken III joining our matches because we KNOW he will be dead weight. The same goes for the Asari Adept using a Widow II or any power intensive class with a low rank, heavy weapon. The exceptions are Ultra Rares. If the class matches the weapon (IE Black Widow I on an Infiltrator, or a Talon I on anything that has Pistol weight reduction) then I'm more than willing to give someone a chance, even when the weapon combo is strange to me (Kanluwen's Crusader Infiltrator, for example) as long as the class is designed to use weapons, and not power dependent. I also kick people when they bring a level 1 character into Gold, regardless of weapons, with the sole exception of Infiltrators. If the person has a reasonable weapon on a level 1 Infiltrator and is N7 200+, I'll give them a chance in a match, and I've been pleasantly surprised enough times by this to not be bothered by it.

That's my policy anyway, and I think I'm relatively generous about it. At a certain point though, you have to be selfish and kick someone. I'm not going to invest 20-30 minutes and multiple consumables in a match where I feel two of the people are going to be dead weight before we even queue.

Ouze wrote:A.) taking too long to ready up in the lobby

I don't tend to kick for this unless the person is gone for an inordinate amount of time and doesn't have an active mic. Many times, people build a new character in between matches and that takes a few minutes to do. I do it, so I'm tolerant of it from other players. If I see someone change classes to a level 20 Adept that has a Predator and an Avenger equipped, I know they are allocating talents and I give them 5-10 minutes to get everything ready.

Ouze wrote:B.) Showing up to a Gold with your lvl 5 soldier unless you have an astronomical N7 rating

Guilty as charged. And I don't look at N7 rating, I look at weapons. If that level 5 Soldier is packing a Cerberus Harrier X or some other rank X Ultra Rare, I MIGHT give them a shot, but otherwise, get at least level 15 on Silver before you come into a Gold.

Ouze wrote:C.) if we play a series of games with the same players, once or twice i've seen an ass clown get kicked for sucking in a previous game (I'm looking at you, Human Vanguards who like to port atop blobs, die, have us res you, repeat for 25 minutes)

Also guilty. It's awkward though when you have TWO ineffective players in a match (two of us over 100k, and the other two both below 50k), so two of us have to vote to kick one of them and hope the other does as well, so the two of us can then kick the second guy on our own. Sometimes it's just better to leave and make a new lobby.

Ouze wrote:Also I was just playing and I GOT MY BLACK WIDOW

Gratz!! Enjoy it, it's an excellent weapon. I'm a Valiant man myself, but I used the hell out of my Black Widow before I got my Valiant, and it does arguably more damage per shot. Definitely a solid gun.

Oh, also, in case anyone hasn't seen yet, BioWare announced that the Extended Cut is available for download on Tuesday.

Personally (as a PC player) I only vote for kick when people take too long to ready up.

When they bring a weird weapon choice, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt - just as I do every time when somebody plays a Vanguard. Gawd I hate this class. So many bad Vanguards give it a stigma.

The only thing I consider "too much" right away is when people join Silver or Gold matches with a character below a certain level. In these instances I do not kick, however, but simply leave and look for another match.

Aldarionn wrote:Oh, also, in case anyone hasn't seen yet, BioWare announced that the Extended Cut is available for download on Tuesday.

[squeels like little girl]

Lets see if bioware can gain back some of it's dignity.

Also, I'm open to any player, because I'm one of those low N7, non-min-maxed, average players...

Gah, why is it that for the past 2 months, when I haven't had enough money and have had exams, ME3 has been £25 everywhere, supermarkets, games shops, online etc, but when I finally have enough money to buy it (at £25) it goes up in price to £40?

Raaaaaaaage.

Anyway, hopefully the extended edition will get the internet as a whole to stop ruining the story for people who havent played it yet by complaining loudly about Detailed Plot Point A, or Ending Scene C.

Hopefully anyway.

Goliath wrote:Hopefully anyway.

My, you're an optimist, aren't ya?

Goliath wrote:Gah, why is it that for the past 2 months, when I haven't had enough money and have had exams, ME3 has been £25 everywhere, supermarkets, games shops, online etc, but when I finally have enough money to buy it (at £25) it goes up in price to £40?

Raaaaaaaage.

Anyway, hopefully the extended edition will get the internet as a whole to stop ruining the story for people who havent played it yet by complaining loudly about Detailed Plot Point A, or Ending Scene C.

Hopefully anyway.

Heh, not bloody likely. If you haven't played the single player section by now, you should expect to accidentally hear spoilers unless you intend to actively avoid any part of the internet that might talk about ME3. It's just going to happen.

Aldarionn wrote:[I don't tend to kick for this unless the person is gone for an inordinate amount of time and doesn't have an active mic.

Sorry, I should have clarified this. First, if I were to make a pie chart of the reasons I kick people, taking too long to ready would actually be almost the whole damn pie, 9/10th at least. But what I was unclear on was what "taking too long to ready" means; which is the same criteria you use. I mean someone who just sits there and doesn't say anything ever. When someone appears to be idle I listen for them to say "hey will be a sec" first, or look at their equipment and see if it's moving in or out (it sometimes makes beeps and boops when they do this but sometimes not), or be aware if they are obviously levelling up; if they were level 19 last game I know perfectly well they might be allocating points. I also don't kick people lightly, I do it at most... once a weekend, maybe,

Ive had the experience where you turn up in a really "snobbish" game and get immediately kicked out, just because your a lower N7 rank than anybody else (without even looking at your load-out or character level). Time and time again it is obvious in ANY game that rank only reflects how much you have played a game and NOT player ability (although time=practice in most cases and VERY low level players can be a liability on high level games).

I also had an "amusing" experience the other day when the entirety of my team went down on I think wave 6 on silver and i was playing as an infiltrator. I was taking cover to regenerate health, because it was stupid to run through a horde of enemies to res my team/do the objective with no shield. I get taken down pretty soon after and my whole team was screaming "WHAT THE F**K ARE YOU DOING! GET THE OBJECTIVE!" (there were still 3 devices left). I decided it would be a waste of medigel to try and save such a terrible team and I immediately get kicked afterwards. The team decided to ignore that I was the one resing everybody else before hand and had more than double the score of everybody else. I hate teams like that.

vodo40k wrote:Time and time again it is obvious in ANY game that rank only reflects how much you have played a game and NOT player ability (although time=practice in most cases and VERY low level players can be a liability on high level games).

Which is why I tend to think of character level being more important than N7 rating. ME Multiplayer is pretty easy to learn, and a fully maxed character offers much more leeway for error (more survivability, more damage, more everything) to a "noob" than a level 1 character for someone who has played longer.
Granted, N7 rating may also hint at superior equipment because a player who has played more will have purchased more packs, but he might have also just gotten crap and still uses a rank 1 standard weapon just because so far he didn't get what he wanted.

Lastly, N7 rating isn't accurate anyways, even if the above weren't true. You don't rank up beyond 20 when you don't promote your characters and only play a single class, like I did for some time. I now have promoted a couple classes multiple times, but still I keep hitting the threshold - effectively "wasting" N7 levels any time I do not immediately promote a character after getting to L20.

Lynata wrote:

vodo40k wrote:Time and time again it is obvious in ANY game that rank only reflects how much you have played a game and NOT player ability (although time=practice in most cases and VERY low level players can be a liability on high level games).

Which is why I tend to think of character level being more important than N7 rating. ME Multiplayer is pretty easy to learn, and a fully maxed character offers much more leeway for error (more survivability, more damage, more everything) to a "noob" than a level 1 character for someone who has played longer.
Granted, N7 rating may also hint at superior equipment because a player who has played more will have purchased more packs, but he might have also just gotten crap and still uses a rank 1 standard weapon just because so far he didn't get what he wanted.

Lastly, N7 rating isn't accurate anyways, even if the above weren't true. You don't rank up beyond 20 when you don't promote your characters and only play a single class, like I did for some time. I now have promoted a couple classes multiple times, but still I keep hitting the threshold - effectively "wasting" N7 levels any time I do not immediately promote a character after getting to L20.

N7 rating is pretty much BS. The number of times I have out played (Not just out scored, but out played, with more medals and objectives achieved with fewer missiles used) someone with 4x my N7 rating is staggering, and I've been out played by a few people with half my N7. I'm just shy of N7 1,000 right now, and all that means is I have promoted my characters many many times.

There are actually a few key N7 levels to watch for that are a hint to whether a person promotes or not. N7 120 means a person likely got all of their characters to 20 and never promoted. N7 180 means they did the above and participated in the first promotion event. N7 270 means they have participated in both promotion events. If you see anyone playing at any of these levels, look at what gear they are using. If their guns are all rank X, or reasonable rank Ultra Rares, chances are you have someone who plays a lot, is a good player, and just doesn't promote.

Personally I look at gear and character level when kicking on Gold. Level 15 or lower for anything but Infiltrator = kick. Weapons ranked below V = kick unless the weapon is Ultra Rare, or some very specific weapons. No equipment equipped at all = kick unless weapons are rank X, and even then I'd like to see an ammo type at the least. Perhaps I'm a bit more of an elitist than most, but it's because failure on Gold for me means the loss of high ranked consumables (I use full gear in every match) and possibly wasted medi-gel, ops packs and missiles. If I don't think the team is going to make it past wave 6, I leave and find another lobby. Perhaps playing with teams of friends, all of whom are capable of soloing a wave if we all derp out, has spoiled me so that when I play with randoms who bring poorly ranked weapons and low level characters, I just don't tolerate it anymore. But at least I admit that to myself, and I make no secret of it.

No, I think we are all allowed to be a bit elitist when it comes to Gold. It's just hard enough to demand a certain level of commitment from anyone wishing to join your team - commitment that is shown in both character level and gear selection (weapons & equipment). When I can I only play Gold with friends, but I have been "forced" to do it with randoms on occasions when my buddies did not want to play but there was a limited event going on.

My favorite is still Silver. Just the right combination of challenge and room for error. You can still fail miserably, but only when more than one guy in your team is an idiot, and I've seen good players carry the team almost on their own, at least during parts of the match (like when everyone else was killed and the guy still manages to win the round).

Lynata wrote: I've seen good players carry the team almost on their own, at least during parts of the match (like when everyone else was killed and the guy still manages to win the round).

Oh that still happens on Gold. Make no mistake. Depending on what class you are playing, sometimes it's just outright easier to solo a wave than to have your team around mucking things up if they are bad players. It just takes an inordinate amount of time and resources so I'd rather not do it if I don't have to.

Seriously? there is no discussion of the Extended cut being released next week? All you guys care about is Multiplayer?
:( Don't forget what Mass Effect is about. Story, not random slaughterfests ala Call of Duty.

Anyway, seriously, I hope the extended cut actually makes me want another Mass Effect game. At this point, Mass Effect is about dead to me. I don't even feel like playing the Multiplayer. Hopefully Extended Cut will change that.

GalacticDefender wrote:Seriously? there is no discussion of the Extended cut being released next week? All you guys care about is Multiplayer?

What's there to discuss? All that people would talk about is either lament on how they think the ending sucked, then others argueing it was cool.

Oh, I see what you did there.

Anyways, give if a few days until the DLC is actually out and people have stuff to talk about other than their expectations or hurt feelings.

GalacticDefender wrote:Seriously? there is no discussion of the Extended cut being released next week? All you guys care about is Multiplayer?
:( Don't forget what Mass Effect is about. Story, not random slaughterfests ala Call of Duty.

Anyway, seriously, I hope the extended cut actually makes me want another Mass Effect game. At this point, Mass Effect is about dead to me. I don't even feel like playing the Multiplayer. Hopefully Extended Cut will change that.

There is already a large discussion thread about the ending of Mass Effect not that far down the page list. This thread was originally about Multiplayer and the title was changed to include other discussions as well. But primarily we discuss Multiplayer in this thread because it's the least static part of the game. There has been no single player DLC before the Extended Cut, so there is nothing to discuss that hasn't been hashed over a thousand times already. Multiplayer on the other hand gets updated every week, with community events every other week.

It's not that we don't care about the single player campaign, it's just that we've been over that a thousand times so until something new is actually released, it's not likely we will discuss it in detail. When it is released, it will probably get its own thread

GalacticDefender wrote:Seriously? there is no discussion of the Extended cut being released next week? All you guys care about is Multiplayer?
:( Don't forget what Mass Effect is about. Story, not random slaughterfests ala Call of Duty.

That comes tomorrow, brah. There isn't anything to say yet!

I'm replaying ME2 tonight, to start a new ME3 tomorrow for the EC.

The whole of ME2 in a single night? Whoah.

I've been playing it for most of the day since grey_death and I finished a session of Battlefield 3 awesomeness.

Up to Haestrom now.

I think I spent at least 50 odd hours on my ME2 SP campaign. I didn't feel like it was done until I had scanned every single rock and moon in the galaxy.