EPT
So over the course of the weekend I indulged myself in a little Mass Effect streaming. So far my adventures in ME3 have been mostly with my work colleagues after we finish for the day. This particular blog is about my experience with ME3 in a not so lanned environment, and how i feel it holds up with it's "Quick Match" functionality.
Videos and other links
I'm uploading all of my streamed games to youtube for people's viewing pleasure, for each game i'm setting up a playlist so you can easily keep up with where my streaming is at. For Mass Effect the playlist is here - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDE23819D01A1D4E9
My Twitter account - http://www.twitter.com/seeton_
My Own3d.tv channel - http://www.own3d.tv/Live/259165 - Where i'm streaming all of my gaming to.
My YouTube account - http://www.youtube.com/user/c10fnr?feature=mhee - Please subscribe!
My Clan - Channel 4 News Team - http://www.c4nt.net
Experiences
So far my experiences in a LAN setting have been really good, some problems with the occasional person lagging out, but for the most part the connection through origin is relatively painless and you can get a couple of quick games in no worries.
For the Internet however, clicking "Quick Match" matches you to the first available game to fill up the game slots and give you a full group of 4. While in theory this is great, I've found 2/3rds of the time I get connected to a players game who live on the other side of the world, or alternatively are playing on "Wooden" internet. This can make is very frustrating when you're spamming biotic charge and it takes 3 seconds for it to go off.
![[image loading]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/39038740/ME3%20blog%20screens/20120318-1.JPG)
Also leads to a lot of this ^^
The game itself is a simple 10 wave eliminate the enemy style game, with an objective thrown in every couple of waves. There's 3 enemy's, Cerberus (Human), Geth (Robots) and Reapers (Aliens), 3 difficulty's, Bronze -> Gold and a handful of maps to play on. Depending on the difficulty, the game is actually quite difficult. For instance, if you're all level 1's and play bronze, you probably won't complete the first few games. However once you get higher through the progressions and selections of abilitys, suddenly the game opens up for you, much like any RPG. In my limited experience I've completed a few Silver games, and unfathomable amounts of Bronze, Gold still eludes me, but I've yet to have a group that all have max'd characters and are able to communicate effectively enough to take down the hordes. I'll get there I'm sure.
An interesting mechanic for the game is that the weight of your gun(s) affect the rate your ability's cooldown, that means if you carry the lightest gun in the game, you could have 200% recharge speed and really not need it. The other end of the scale is you carry every gun in the history of the known galaxy and never be able to cast a single ability. It's a delicate balance, but most people I've played with tend to carry 1 gun of varying style's/weights and use their ability's that little bit more.
Vanguard -
I had a game today earlier on as a vanguard, I had heard there was an "Operation Goliath" event on and all you needed to do was finish a silver match against the reaper enemy and you got bonus kit. The vanguard is an interesting creature in that you literally teleport at your enemy and deliver an aoe nova or shotgun blast to the face, the kicker is that your AOE Nova uses your shields, where your charge refills them. A bit of a double edged sword. Undoubtedly one of the most fun classes to play, unfortunately a group with more than 1 vanguard is usually a ticket to defeat. Unfortunately spent a lot of the game dead and spectating the others. While you may spend most of the game on top of the scoreboard, there's the other end of the scale of if you have no backup, you'll also spend a lot of it dead. It's a vicious cycle as the vanguard simply isn't a defensive character.
Engineer -
The engineer on the other hand is almost the polar opposite to the vanguard. You have a little combat drone which you can deploy, I personally use it as a distraction, and it has helped me get the occasional kill here and there. You can also shoot fire, which seeks targets around corners, very helpful ability, and then you can use an ability called overload, which does high damage to shields and robots, and will also stun weak biological enemy's. Very handy!
I've been reluctant to move onto the engineer in MP as it's what my SP game is based on, and I felt that it would just be more of the same for me. I couldn't be further from the trust. Upon firing up my first multiplayer engineer, my SP game immediately got me up to speed with the ability's and how to work them, with now 2.5 games worth of Mass Effect engineer experience under my belt i felt strong with it under my control. Where the adepts I've played crumbles under any pressure, the Engineer distracts an enemy with a combat drone, stuns a group with overload and then sets them on fire with incinerate. I can't wait to max it out and see how it goes in gold!
