With the recent release of Mass Effect 3’s second multiplayer expansion titled “Rebellion” earlier this week, I was naturally eager to hop back into the multiplayer scene to try out all the new features the expansion had added.
I’ve been a big fan of Mass Effect 3’s unique take on multiplayer ever since the game first came out but my time with this recent expansion got me thinking about what I’d personally like to see added to the multiplayer experience down the road.
Now, it goes without saying that these features and ideas are wrought of my own personal opinion and that I’m sure Bioware has their own plans for which direction they want to take the multiplayer aspect of the game. But I know as a long-time Bioware fan that they’re always open to suggestions from their playerbase so here goes nothing…
1. A Character/Weapon Preference Slider For Recruitment Packs.
As excited as I am whenever Bioware adds new weapons and playable characters to the multiplayer, my enthusiasm is always tempered by that fact that me getting to use said weapons and play as said characters is entirely dependant on the luck of the draw.
As much as I enjoy the random collectible element of the game’s recruitment packs, that same randomness can become a frustrating ordeal when there’s a specific unlock I’m gunning for. What would be nice is if there were some way players could sort of “tip the scales” in their favor, maybe give us a kind of slider so we could decide if we wanted a higher chance of new characters or new weapons in our recruitment packs.
2. Dynamic “Mini” Objectives
The recent “object retrieval” objective added in Rebellion was a good start for keeping the game fresh, but no matter how many different types of objectives there are, knowing they’re always gonna show up on waves 3, 6, and 10 can rob them of their luster, especially after playing through several games in a row.
I’d suggest adding some “mini” objectives that could be sprinkled out in random waves. Maybe having to take out just one designated target or retrieve a certain number of items that are instant pick-up. Unlike the standard objectives, failing the mini objectives wouldn’t cost players the game and would reward a small credit bonus on successful completion.
3, Scalable Difficulty
This one might be a bit much for Bioware to accomplish, but nothing can ruin a game faster than when two people decide to leave on the 8th wave, leaving the other two to deal with an onslaught of powerful foes.
A difficulty that scaled with the number of players would help not only when someone decides to drop out of your game, but also if you just want to play with friends but only one or two of your friends happens to be online. Maybe allow us to manually set the difficulty but impose an xp/credit penalty for playing on 2-person or 3-person difficulty so people don’t abuse it.
4. “Severance” Reward For Getting Disconnected.
Again this might be a bit tough to implement from a technical standpoint, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets extremely frustrated when I get disconnected from a game on wave 9 and lose out on all the xp/credits I earned for that game.
Maybe Bioware could find some way where if a player gets disconnected from a game in progress they could receive a small number of credits as a sort of “severance.” Obviously some conditions would have to apply: maybe a player would have to attain a certain number of points from killing enemies to prevent leechers and the severance reward would only apply for a total of 3-5 games every 24 hours to prevent credit farming.
As I said before, these suggestions are just my own personal opinion. Bioware has already delivered an amazing experience with Mass Effect 3 both with the single-player and multiplayer components. Whatever they decide to do with the multiplayer in the future, I’m sure it will only serve to make the already great multiplayer experience even greater.
