Mass Effect 2 - Shooter Shift Explained

Ah there's loot mechanics which is related but separate yet affected by inventory design; how it fits into he bigger game picture and all....

Lots of worthless loot seems to be de riguer of all the diablo clones....

Thrasher said:

Ah there's loot mechanics which is related but separate yet affected by inventory design; how it fits into he bigger game picture and all….

Lots of worthless loot seems to be de riguer of all the diablo clones….

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Well, I'm not sure why traditional CRPGs should have so much junk. Seems to me it's more a result of adopting certain MMO traditions. MMOs tend to milk their loot diversity for all its worth - so as to stretch out content almost to an extreme.

Mass Effect with its scaling mechanic, a horrible idea if I ever saw one, meant that loot was hollow and completely transparent. Normally, you tend to find loot more interesting if it's hard to (at-a-glance) guage the power of the item. That means you carry it around "just in case" - but not so in ME. They basically scale the items so you don't ever need to feel intrigued by anything. Once you stumple upon "Mark V" items, you know anything below that is worthless in terms of power. THAT is boring design 101.

Yuck. DA had a similar loot scaling I think. Just saying a crappy inventory UI, plus crappy loot, is bad. What's worse is if the game expects you collect all that junk and sell a ton of it so you can afford to buy the good stuff. TEDIOUSLY BORING…