Happy to hear the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer love

Sometimes I was wondering "Am I the only one who likes this?", so I was happy to hear it getting some love. Other than BF3 Premium, which kinda counts as a new game, I had the most fun with ME3's multiplayer this year. I have to agree that it's probably the best horde mode so far. I love the fact you can be a sniper, melee based, gun focused, tech powers, "space magic", etc or a combination of any of them. I have to agree with Brad, it's about how everything combines/interacts that makes it fun and special, not that there are objectives. I would've liked for it to make the top 3, but glad it was mentioned so much. Jeff definitely seems to have the "ME3 disappointed me, so screw every single thing about it" syndrome, which is unfortunate.

@Deathstriker said:

Sometimes I was wondering "Am I the only one who likes this?", so I was happy to hear it getting some love. Other than BF3 Premium, which kinda counts as a new game, I had the most fun with ME3's multiplayer this year. I have to agree that it's probably the best horde mode so far. I love the fact you can be a sniper, melee based, gun focused, tech powers, "space magic", etc or a combination of any of them. I have to agree with Brad, it's about how everything combines/interacts that makes it fun and special, not that there are objectives. I would've liked for it to make the top 3, but glad it was mentioned so much. Jeff definitely seems to have the "ME3 disappointed me, so screw every single thing about it" syndrome, which is unfortunate.

I think it matters more that regardless of one agrees with Brad or Jeff on the matter, there are sides to agree with, which I think is healthy for ME3 in the long run.

I think the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer's really cool! I'm actually thinking of going back to it. I love the combat in Mass Effect, the powers and weapons are awesome. That gun that shoots delayed sticky mines, coupled with chryo-ammo? It FREEZES THE GUY then BLOWS HIM UP!
 
I think the unlocking of weapons dragged it down though- yes it takes about 4 matches to unlock a new Spectre Pack, but that's like 2 hours of playing with guns I wanna upgrade out of. ASSUMING I keep winning with them. It felt like a treadmill and I really wanna blame the whole fremium angle.
And I'm halfway through this bombcast now, where Brad's saying this is the BEST horde mode to date? Better shooting than Gears? I just wanna say YOU ARE A FUCKING CRAZY PSYCHO MANIAC, GEARS HORDE MODE IS HUNDREDS OF PERCENTS ABOVE ALL OTHERS, WHAT KIND OF HUNKADUNK ARE YOU ON!!!?
 
but yeah, Mass Effect multiplayer: I was surprised, it's really fun. I'll definately go back to it soon, I hope they let me into the DLC packs like Gears does.

It is the only multiplayer I've played for quite some time. Competitive just doesn't do it for me.

It was the only multiplayer I gave a damn about this year.

I think the control concerns are valid. But the argument that it's "just Horde" is pretty thin, and the sheer depth of content in the multiplayer, and the crazy extent to which Bioware has continued to balance and rebalance the game mitigate all of that stuff entirely.

@I_smell: All ME3 multiplayer DLC is free. Come on back to the fight; we have biotic Volus... Voluses? Voli?

I only played the multiplayer across 2 days (via some free code I got for some GOLD time), but from what I played of it I liked. I would not agree that ME3 has better shooting/controls than Gears 3, but it looks like it's definitely up there as one of the best wave-based survival modes.

I was very surprised at how fun the multiplayer is in the game. Mass Effect 3 has the funnest version of Horde mode that I have ever played, mainly due to the off the wall abilities in the game. Keeping it a Player vs AI only thing was a smart idea.

I've put in just shy 140 hours at the moment, which totally throws me as when it was announced I was tentative at best about the whole thing. It is easily my favourite multiplayer of the year. There's something about that combat, that skill base and those powers, split across 4 people as they hold off against the hordes. The genius of it is in the way those power sets combine and the teamwork it creates, and it's a real blast, either with friends or with the remarkably decent and strong community that's still out there playing, so it ends up feeling like it's more than just the 'Horde Mode' it really is. The fact I could be a sneaky salarian, popping camo before snapping off an energy draining tech burst followed by the whipcrack of a Widow's shot, a Quarian engineer spitting out a sea of Geth SMG bullets in one hand and incineration blasts with the other, a Turian hurtling across the battlefield with jets strapped to his back smashing into enemies' faces, or even doing the same with a biotically-charged Volus, all in the same game, almost certainly helps too.

On top of that, the way Bioware have supported it, with a bunch of free packs of new maps and characters, weekend community challenges and weekly balance tweaks, for so long too. Their support almost puts other, far more seasoned Multiplayer dev teams to shame (I'm mainly looking at 343i's ghastly post-release support for Halo 4 so far). It's something that I can definitely see myself coming back to every once in a while to play a few matches, and I really hope it ends up featuring in future ME games.

Yeah, I probably played more ME3 multiplayer than Diablo 3 or Borderlands 2 which is a bit crazy. Also, I don't know what it's like on consoles, but I only played ME3 in public games and was able to clear gold probably 9 out of 10 times on PC.

I just like that Brad called out Jeff's general dismissiveness of Mass Effect 3. That anyone who likes it is on dust.

It won't get game of the year here, but the discussion over its placement in the top ten should be interesting.

It's great that other people had such a good time with it, but this all seems a little baffling from my point of view. The ME3 multiplayer always just felt clunky and rather unpleasant to me.

@Ursus_Veritas said:

On top of that, the way Bioware have supported it, with a bunch of free packs of new maps and characters, weekend community challenges and weekly balance tweaks, for so long too. Their support almost puts other, far more seasoned Multiplayer dev teams to shame (I'm mainly looking at 343i's ghastly post-release support for Halo 4 so far). It's something that I can definitely see myself coming back to every once in a while to play a few matches, and I really hope it ends up featuring in future ME games.

To be fair, the only reason those multiplayer packs were free was because of the micro-transactions revenue they made by people purchasing those loot packs. Not going to discredit all of the patch support they've done for the MP or anything, though.

I think it was actually pretty fun, i think i spent more time in it than any other multiplayer shooter this year.  Plus it was constantly updated with new maps and classes to mess around with for free.  

Never would have thought when they announced that Mass Effect 3 was going to have multiplayer, that it'd be the game I spent the most time on...but it sunk its claws into me deep. I love that they have a character and weapons dedicated pack now instead of just ramming up against the premium spectre pack all the time. The new challenges and banners are also great and there are a TON of characters and maps now.

Brad claiming the movement and shooting are better than Gears made me laugh.

@DharmaBum said:

Brad claiming the movement and shooting are better than Gears made me laugh.

Yyyyyyyeaaaaah... That and him claiming Jeff had ''irrational bias against ME3'' came across as a little defensive. Vinny's notion that ''you could just play with the powers'' managed to help lift Brad's argument up a little, though.

"It plays better than Gears of War". Sometimes you have to reign it in Brad, what you think makes for a strong argument just makes you look like a desperate idiot.

I don't think calling it "just another horde mode" is fair either. It is fun, it just had no staying power for me. I jumped off before any of the DLC came out though.

@DharmaBum said:

Brad claiming the movement and shooting are better than Gears made me laugh.

I don't fully agree with that, but I can see where he's coming from. The reload gimmick in Gears got annoying to me after the first one and so did roadie run. I wouldn't say shooting specifically, but gameplay wise overall, I find ME to be more satisfying than Gears. Doing cryo and a shotgun blast to blow someone to tiny pieces or using throw to slap someone around, beats anything in Gears IMO.

@DharmaBum said:

Brad claiming the movement and shooting are better than Gears made me laugh.

Pretty bold assertion agreed, but I think I'd agree about movement, but shooting? Naw.

Overall though I thought the ME3 mp was, and is, amazingly good and endless fun w/all the free dlc. Just played some more recently and it's amazing how many are still playing and all the diverse characters and related stuff that are in there..including some tough ass new enemies.

@Yummylee said:

I only played the multiplayer across 2 days (via some free code I got for some GOLD time), but from what I played of it I liked. I would not agree that ME3 has better shooting/controls than Gears 3, but it looks like it's definitely up there as one of the best wave-based survival modes.

I've played a lot of Gears 3 multiplayer (specifically the objective games because fuck team death match) and a whole lot of horde mode. I wont say I've played as much ME3 multiplayer, but I did gold every map and I played with every class. I would say that the shooting and movement in both games is different enough that you can like one better than another. What they have in common is that the combat is set up in such a way that you can see enemies in whatever part of the map and be able to devise a strategy to counter them. You don't really have one hit kills or twitch controls. You have to work enemies over for a while to take them down.

What ME3 does have over Gears is that the weapon load out and class system allows for some great team dynamics. The Gold lobbies I was in usually kicked no mics because we decided what classes to take into the match based on the map and the enemies. We needed to know that each person had their set role in the coming match. Drell vanguards were essentially banned from gold matches because their play style was all about stealing kills, which was fine considering you needed constant targets to stay alive, but it wouldn't work on Gold.

@Gamer_152 said:

It's great that other people had such a good time with it, but this all seems a little baffling from my point of view. The ME3 multiplayer always just felt clunky and rather unpleasant to me.

Yeah, in some ways, ME3's combat in general is just clunky. It's because they bound so many abilities to the space bar (played the PC version). If they had spread out the controls more, I think that would have helped a ton. Other than that, though? The ME3 multiplayer was really great. It's hard as hell, which means your team has to work together, which always makes for an amazing experience when playing with friends. Reminds me of my WoW days, when we'd group up together and run the really hard dungeons.

@MURDERSMASH said:

@Gamer_152 said:

It's great that other people had such a good time with it, but this all seems a little baffling from my point of view. The ME3 multiplayer always just felt clunky and rather unpleasant to me.

Yeah, in some ways, ME3's combat in general is just clunky. It's because they bound so many abilities to the space bar (played the PC version). If they had spread out the controls more, I think that would have helped a ton. Other than that, though? The ME3 multiplayer was really great. It's hard as hell, which means your team has to work together, which always makes for an amazing experience when playing with friends. Reminds me of my WoW days, when we'd group up together and run the really hard dungeons.

Oh geez, you just reminded me of the synchronized rocket launcher attacks on Gold. You had to call out your shots and decide on an order to launch to prevent people from wasting rockets.

@golguin said:

@Yummylee said:

I only played the multiplayer across 2 days (via some free code I got for some GOLD time), but from what I played of it I liked. I would not agree that ME3 has better shooting/controls than Gears 3, but it looks like it's definitely up there as one of the best wave-based survival modes.

I've played a lot of Gears 3 multiplayer (specifically the objective games because fuck team death match) and a whole lot of horde mode. I wont say I've played as much ME3 multiplayer, but I did gold every map and I played with every class. I would say that the shooting and movement in both games is different enough that you can like one better than another. What they have in common is that the combat is set up in such a way that you can see enemies in whatever part of the map and be able to devise a strategy to counter them. You don't really have one hit kills or twitch controls. You have to work enemies over for a while to take them down.

What ME3 does have over Gears is that the weapon load out and class system allows for some great team dynamics. The Gold lobbies I was in usually kicked no mics because we decided what classes to take into the match based on the map and the enemies. We needed to know that each person had their set role in the coming match. Drell vanguards were essentially banned from gold matches because their play style was all about stealing kills, which was fine considering you needed constant targets to stay alive, but it wouldn't work on Gold.

Woah, you mean you actually played in public matches with a mic? You're a braver man than I, that much is sure. But yeah, I agree that ME3 clearly has a lot more customisation options and overall versatility than Gears 3. It's why I was excited to learn that Judgment is introducing classes (though only 4) for their new OverRun mode, which I would hope means they'd carry those different classes into its Horde mode as well. That is if there'll even be a Horde mode, as they've so far only been specifically talking about what's new, such as the OverRun and Free-For-All modes.

As for the overall feel of movement, it's been a while since I've played ME3 so I can't quite recall on how it all felt to me. I do remember really enjoying it, though, and strangely enough the shooting was one of the best parts of the entire game for me. But Gears, and Gears 3 in particular, I quickly grew to love everything about how it played. When I got me a months worth of GOLD on my 360, I used it all up just playing Gears 3 multiplayer, despite getting decimated more often than not as you may expect. I was just so enamoured with how surprisingly fast and fluid the gameplay was that regardless of how I was doing in the match, the mere act of just running around bopping from cover-to-cover, felt so damn satisfying.

I think the actual moment to moment gunplay isn't superior to Gears or anything, but all the different ways the abilities work together is great. I like co-op a lot more than I like anything competitive, but I was still surprised at how much I've enjoyed it. I came across a free 3 month sub for XBL and its practically the only multiplayer I've done.

Mass Effect 3 MP kicks Gears ass any day (this is brought to you by a very biased fan of ME ^^)

Yeah Im glad that they mentioned it in the podcast and revindicated the MP portion which has grown to become way awesome , and to any one I dont understand the fear to public games without mics .... I mean its pretty clear what you need to do to survive games.

@Yummylee said:

@golguin said:

@Yummylee said:

I only played the multiplayer across 2 days (via some free code I got for some GOLD time), but from what I played of it I liked. I would not agree that ME3 has better shooting/controls than Gears 3, but it looks like it's definitely up there as one of the best wave-based survival modes.

I've played a lot of Gears 3 multiplayer (specifically the objective games because fuck team death match) and a whole lot of horde mode. I wont say I've played as much ME3 multiplayer, but I did gold every map and I played with every class. I would say that the shooting and movement in both games is different enough that you can like one better than another. What they have in common is that the combat is set up in such a way that you can see enemies in whatever part of the map and be able to devise a strategy to counter them. You don't really have one hit kills or twitch controls. You have to work enemies over for a while to take them down.

What ME3 does have over Gears is that the weapon load out and class system allows for some great team dynamics. The Gold lobbies I was in usually kicked no mics because we decided what classes to take into the match based on the map and the enemies. We needed to know that each person had their set role in the coming match. Drell vanguards were essentially banned from gold matches because their play style was all about stealing kills, which was fine considering you needed constant targets to stay alive, but it wouldn't work on Gold.

Woah, you mean you actually played in public matches with a mic? You're a braver man than I, that much is sure. But yeah, I agree that ME3 clearly has a lot more customisation options and overall versatility than Gears 3. It's why I was excited to learn that Judgment is introducing classes (though only 4) for their new OverRun mode, which I would hope means they'd carry those different classes into its Horde mode as well. That is if there'll even be a Horde mode, as they've so far only been specifically talking about what's new, such as the OverRun and Free-For-All modes.

As for the overall feel of movement, it's been a while since I've played ME3 so I can't quite recall on how it all felt to me. I do remember really enjoying it, though, and strangely enough the shooting was one of the best parts of the entire game for me. But Gears, and Gears 3 in particular, I quickly grew to love everything about how it played. When I got me a months worth of GOLD on my 360, I used it all up just playing Gears 3 multiplayer, despite getting decimated more often than not as you may expect. I was just so enamoured with how surprisingly fast and fluid the gameplay was that regardless of how I was doing in the match, the mere act of just running around bopping from cover-to-cover, felt so damn satisfying.

I did all my ME3 multiplayer when the game came out to get that 100% readiness. People were trying to Gold the various maps so through trial and error the "right" ways to tackle maps eventually emerged and you needed people with mics to play ball. A good example is the desert satellite looking area against the geth and only using salarian and quarians. I don't remember the class names, but salarians used their double image technique and the quarians had the ability to hack the geth. All of them used sniper rifles and position themselves in that upper room overlooking the map.

@Deathstriker: I said as much on the Bombcast thread itself, but I think the game doesn't get enough credit for the MASSIVE support that's been thrown behind it (100% of which has been free).

@Zippedbinders: Agreed, I think Gears has more solid movement/shooting, but ME3 does almost everything else better, particularly the variety with which you can tackle it on. Vinny's point was perfect: in Gears you're always just running and shooting, in ME3, you don't even HAVE to shoot if you don't want to.

As someone who loves racing games. None of them stuck out to me this year, there were just things about Most Wanted that didn't rub me the right way over time. I just didn't like the progression as much and the overall lobby structure to waste a lot of time. I probably spent a third of the 30 hours I dropped in that game stuck in a game where the next race wouldn't start for instance.

As for Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. I just finished that game a few days ago, haven't stopped playing the multiplayer since. Got enough to 100% but still haven't gotten enough good gear to beat gold. I can beat silver just fine with randoms but that gold is just insurmountable at the moment. Really at this point I'm playing it to unlock the a Krogan or Geth.

@golguin said:

@MURDERSMASH said:

@Gamer_152 said:

It's great that other people had such a good time with it, but this all seems a little baffling from my point of view. The ME3 multiplayer always just felt clunky and rather unpleasant to me.

Yeah, in some ways, ME3's combat in general is just clunky. It's because they bound so many abilities to the space bar (played the PC version). If they had spread out the controls more, I think that would have helped a ton. Other than that, though? The ME3 multiplayer was really great. It's hard as hell, which means your team has to work together, which always makes for an amazing experience when playing with friends. Reminds me of my WoW days, when we'd group up together and run the really hard dungeons.

Oh geez, you just reminded me of the synchronized rocket launcher attacks on Gold. You had to call out your shots and decide on an order to launch to prevent people from wasting rockets.

Hell yeah, that was awesome!

I think to get the most out of it as with any of these things is to play with friends. Spent quite a few months playing it with various rockpapershotgun ppls to the extent that we started setting out own challenges like this one, an all Turian Gold Run Vs reapers, just using basic weapons (no fancy N7 weapons). : -

Other issues aside with ME3 I can't fault the MP aspect at all. It's got a lot of depth to it, and the way you can combine powers between players is great. Played it again recently to explore the new characters and it still holds up well. Do kind of feel that Jeff really didn't give it a fair shake of the stick because of the games ending, where as he should of parsed that information out.

Volus Biotics? That's it. I'm going to play me some ME3 multi right now (well, I probably should finish work first). It was one of those multiplayer games that just wouldn't let me go. If you want to jump in for a short session, you can. If you want to spend the whole weekend with it, just as fun. Usually horde mode is a drawn out, nerv wracking struggle. They are fun but you're equally glad when it's over. For this, and many other reasons already mentioned, ME3 stands far above every other horde mode.

@Undeadpool said:

@Deathstriker: I said as much on the Bombcast thread itself, but I think the game doesn't get enough credit for the MASSIVE support that's been thrown behind it (100% of which has been free).

I have to agree with that. As a console gamer and someone who's been with XBL since the first year, I've never seen a dev support a game for so long and without charging for a thing. I'm sure EA has made millions off the awful unlock system in the game, but still, the idea that they release content and do balance updates as well as MMO style events (the weekend challenges) is pretty much unheard of on consoles. I'm hesitant for another Mass Effect, but I'd love to see what they do with the multiplayer.

@Yummylee said:

@Ursus_Veritas said:

On top of that, the way Bioware have supported it, with a bunch of free packs of new maps and characters, weekend community challenges and weekly balance tweaks, for so long too. Their support almost puts other, far more seasoned Multiplayer dev teams to shame (I'm mainly looking at 343i's ghastly post-release support for Halo 4 so far). It's something that I can definitely see myself coming back to every once in a while to play a few matches, and I really hope it ends up featuring in future ME games.

To be fair, the only reason those multiplayer packs were free was because of the micro-transactions revenue they made by people purchasing those loot packs. Not going to discredit all of the patch support they've done for the MP or anything, though.

well if that's the case I'm kind of O.K. with the micro-transactions as long as their is always a reasonable way to earn the same stuff by playing. They still feel kind of crappy but if they add up to free multiplayer maps and classes then great. Some good comes out of the bad.

I liked ME3 multi-player way more than I thought I would. Unfortunately I was hit by the Origin login bug on the xbox and EA support essentailly said, "FU, it's only like 1% of our customers and we don't care."

ME3's multiplayer ended up being leagues better than I thought it would be. People got so wrapped up in the Galactic Readiness controversy that I think the actual quality of it all got overlooked. It's well made, fun, requires some decent teamwork, and is honestly one of the better Horde modes out there. Not bad, considering I didn't expect much of anything from it.

Why'd they think the random loot buys were gross? That sounded cool and gambly to me.

@aquamarin said:

Why'd they think the random loot buys were gross? That sounded cool and gambly to me.

Because you could pay real money for the packs.

@aquamarin said:

Why'd they think the random loot buys were gross? That sounded cool and gambly to me.

Paying for a gamble with real money is the part that's gross. However it's pretty easy to buy loot with the free currency.

@Gamer_152 said:

It's great that other people had such a good time with it, but this all seems a little baffling from my point of view. The ME3 multiplayer always just felt clunky and rather unpleasant to me.

This is how I feel too. I can never shake the feeling that a stand alone game would have been a much bigger and better idea than just a mode.

I played more ME3 MP than Borderlands 2, and Diablo III. I put over 400 hours into it and it's easily one of the best MP experiences I've ever had. With all the free DLC expansions that BW gave out too how can you not have it as one of your games of the year? "Bad ending," and all?