Imagining An Ideal Multiplayer Experience for Mass Effect

The news is out, Mass Effect 3 will have multiplayer. At first blush, this seems like potentially troublesome water. Obviously, with squad AI being less than great, it could be a real boon to have a friend just pop into your game and control one of your teammates for you, but I don't think that's what this is going to be. For one thing, that would create all kinds of logistical troubles with the power wheel (can either teammate simply pause the action at any time to use a special ability a la Secret of Mana back in the day?), enemy AI (which tends to focus on Shep whenever possible, making it exploitable by a smart teammate), and victory conditions (I'd hate to be the second player who gets screwed and has to restart because Shepard acted the fool). For another, that seems like something that could have been announced back at E3 when they were already showing off new ways to control your squad with Kinect.

No, I'm guessing that this is going to be a distinct gameplay mode, either a side story a la the Splinter Cell coop missions or a set of traditional competitive gameplay types with a Mass Effect spin.

This, obviously, could suck.

That said, it doesn't have to. Imagine this:

Our basic template is Monday Night Combat, and if you haven't played MNC by now, shame on you. In short, it's a third person, class based, squad shooter where each class has three abilities they can level up as a round progresses. That's the foundation we need, but not with the standard, DOTA-esque gameplay mode, which just isn't something most people have an aptitude for (90% of the time, I've wound up on a team who think the objective is just to kill people and we get massacred).

Now, instead of those classes, we move ahead with the Mass Effect classes we all know and love: Soldier, Infiltrator, Engineer, Sentinel, Adept, Vanguard. These are differentiated by access to various Tech, Biotic, and Combat abilities.

Instead of shields or barriers, Soldiers have heavy armor that does not regenerate and health that does. They have access to all weapon types and can swap between three weapon ammo types: Incendiary (DOT), Cryo (slow/freeze unprotected enemies), Disruptor (increased damage to both shields and barriers).

Engineers have stronger than normal shields and can only use pistols and SMGs. However, they get access to Overload (heavy damage to enemy shields, temporary damage increase to unprotected enemies), Sabotage (prevent usage of the current weapon), and Combat Drone (moves around zapping nearby foes, knockdown burst on destruction).

Adepts have extra-powerful biotic barriers and also only get to use weaker weapons. They get warp (heavy damage to enemy barriers, temp. damage increase to unprotected enemies), Throw (knockdown, added damage to unprotected enemies), and Stasis (immobilization but increased defense).

Infiltrators have shields and can use rifles along with pistols and smgs. They can cloak temporarily as their unique ability and get to select at spawn time between one of Overload and Sabotage and one of Cryo ammo or Incendiary Ammo.

Vanguards have barriers and can use shotguns along with pistols and msgs. The can use Biotic Charge to move quickly between locations (effect of charging into a target TBD). They then get access to one of Warp and Throw and one of Cry and Incendiary Ammo at spawn.

Sentinels can spawn with either shields or barriers. Their special ability lets them swap between the two, quickly recharging to the opposite form of protection if their current form is depleted. They can only use pistols and SMGs and get to choose one of Overload and Sabotage and one of Throw and Warp.

A single round would consist of small-ish teams (6-8?) competing in traditional objective modes. Control point, attack/defend, CTF with Cerberus being pit against Citadel forces. Deathmatch is possible, but certainly plays less strongly to the class-based structure. As you kill people, get killed, and complete objectives, you unlock currency (at differing rates) used to boost your abilities for the remainder of the round.

Outside of matches, players can make a number of larger modifications to the way they want their classes to play. Superficially, they can control what race and appearance they want for each of their classes -- though obviously with less granularity than they get with Shep. They can also adjust the upgrade path for their abilities (different levels can increase AoE, reduce cooldown, up damage, or have other effects depending on the ability). I know that the main game is also going to have some fairly involved weapon customization, so maybe bring in some of that, too, in order to keep things from becoming too rote.

If they take this basic stripped down version of the traditional Mass Effect level tree along with the improved gunplay that they've already brought into the mix and provide adequate balance along with an effective way of aiming powers, I think they could come up with a pretty compelling experience. I'd certainly play it.