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Mass Effect: Andromeda |OT| Ryders on the Storm

Arcteryx

Member
For those having infinite (or very long) loading, you may try to reboot your PC. Didn't come across the bug again so I'm not sure if it actually works.

I get this ALL the time after a few hours on PC. Annoying as fuck, considering this game LOVES loading screens.

At this point, this game feels like an un-patched KOTOR2 more than anything else.
 
After spending literally 20 minutes or so pumping bullets into one of the stupid architect boss encounters and then dying right before they died, I've finally been pushed over the edge into greatly disliking this game. The whole thing feels so unfocused, so unfinished and so lazy. It's exactly what I feared the game was going to be: a reskinned Dragon Age Inquisition. The architects are literally copied from the dragons straight out of DAI, right down to their pattern of behavior. So frustrating.

And then I have a quest log with an unreasonable number of quests, over half of which are complete garbage I have no interest in completing.

Sorry to pile on to all the negativity, I'm just frustrated.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
1. It's how game is designed. 3 active skills, unlimited passives. Swap profiles / favorites that have different active skills. And so on.

Do not spread out points too much early on tho. Aim to get Biotic profile to Rank 6, get your core active abilities high up in effectiveness and dip into other passives too. Game becomes artificially hard if you spread out points early on.
2. Yes, go to medbay on Tempest.
3. Because they are quite weak. On Insanity it takes 2 headshots from Black Widow to kill most basic Kett soldier, that is with damage boosts from augs, mods and skills.
4. No damage numbers
5. Jump and aim your weapon

I guess because the prev. games didn't allow you to learn so many different powers. You can set up 4 'favorite' profiles and swap between them from the wheel
es, in tempest medbay on the far wall
They shouldn't? use different guns
jump plus hold lt (or equivalent)

thanks guys. i had no idea the game had a wheel. also, what are passives? lol
 

Meifu

Member
Didn't Casey Hudson do ME3? The ending which everyone hated? Also the lack of detail and polish is likely due to the development hell this game went through. Tons of people quitting the project (even the head writer quit after a few months) means that time is needed to replace them all because of how long it takes to recruit+interview people, and the team has to develop their specific areas of the game and they don't have time to try picking up the pieces. I'm not familiar with video game development (don't know if Bioware or the game industry uses Agile development practices to begin with) but I'm pretty sure there's internal deadlines to meet. If so they likely half assed the nightclubs and other less important stuff to just put something out there.

Yes, you are correct. However, Casey was only able to put that stinker of an ending out there because he was given full control over it with Mac. This was after Drew left. With Drew back in the mix I would have full confidence in him and Casey. Everyone forgets that while Casey may hold most of the blame for the ending, he was given the George Lucas treatment of not being questioned. Also most of ME3 was very well done.


Casey and Drew built Mass Effect and besides the botched ending I think the universe wouldn't be what it is without them. Drew is a great writer, and Casey is an excellent producer who keeps the tone and feel of a game consistent - something this game is severely lacking in both departments.
 

nOoblet16

Member
Been playing since Thursday and I have a few questions.

  • Is there a reason why I can only have 3 biotic powers? I could swear the previous games had more. I feel so limited.
  • Can I respec? I put in like 4 points in Pull and now I am using singularity with shockwave and nova and it doesnt make sense to have more than one combo primer.
  • Why do guns feel so weak?
  • Is there a way to turn on damage indicators like in Destiny? I want to how much damage each attack does.
  • how do you hover? I am playing as a biotic.

I like the game overall. the premise is nice and despite all the issues the story is still better than 90% of the games out there. i just think it's bizarre that people are hung up over animations when there are very serious issues with the gameplay that can be fixed relatively quickly.
1) You always had 3 even in previous games but you had one global cooldown for all instead of individual cooldowns like here. You can set up 4 profiles with different powers, you also have equipments that you can use like cryo ammo, RPG on top of the 3 powers you have.
2) Yes you can respec, go to med bay in Tempest
3) Guns are sort of weak on their own but you need to use proper mods and mix them with proper abilities for max damage. That's how the game is built. You also need to consider what kind of damage boosters you have, for example only headshot multiplier is actually bad as it only multiplies the base damage but if that's low then you don't get much. So you need to increase base damage and equip armour/mods for headshot multiplier.
4) No damage indicator, only thing you have is the healthbar
5) You aim when you are in the air
 

Tovarisc

Member
After spending literally 20 minutes or so pumping bullets into one of the stupid architect boss encounters and then dying right before they died, I've finally been pushed over the edge into greatly disliking this game. The whole thing feels so unfocused, so unfinished and so lazy. It's exactly what I feared the game was going to be: a reskinned Dragon Age Inquisition. The architects are literally copied from the dragons straight out of DAI, right down to their pattern of behavior. So frustrating.

And then I have a quest log with an unreasonable number of quests, over half of which are complete garbage I have no interest in completing.

Sorry to pile on to all the negativity, I'm just frustrated.

Architects are 100% voluntary side content that you don't need to touch. If this is first Architect encounter you most likely are level and gear gimped, meaning encounter is slightly harder than it would be with proper level and gear. Architecths are quite fast to kill when you aren't under leveling encounter.

Also then don't do side quests if you don't find them interesting? They aren't mandatory for you progressing and completing main story.

thanks guys. i had no idea the game had a wheel. also, what are passives? lol

Passives are stuff like "For every point in Biotics you get X% more shields". Usually 3 last things on skill list in e.g. Biotics. Passives of all 3 trees work for all profiles and are affect them all the time. For this reason you want take e.g. Assault Rifle points from Combat if you are using AR's as your go-to weapons.
 
After spending literally 20 minutes or so pumping bullets into one of the stupid architect boss encounters and then dying right before they died, I've finally been pushed over the edge into greatly disliking this game. The whole thing feels so unfocused, so unfinished and so lazy. It's exactly what I feared the game was going to be: a reskinned Dragon Age Inquisition. The architects are literally copied from the dragons straight out of DAI, right down to their pattern of behavior. So frustrating.

And then I have a quest log with an unreasonable number of quests, over half of which are complete garbage I have no interest in completing.

Sorry to pile on to all the negativity, I'm just frustrated.

They aren't copied at all, Dragons in DAI had their own movesets and elemental qualities. Architects are literal copies of each other with identical movesets each time. DAI also didn't have ammo and health boxes lying around making any damage dealt pointless.
DAI was neither unfocused, unfinished nor lazy. It was tedious.

Pile on MEA ahead but don't drag down DAI with it. Inquisition was a competent but flawed game with an incredible cast and a compelling story.
 

Wunder

Member
Just respecced before that question and redistributed my points. Still struggling to think of a second set of skills since I want to max out each of the three skills + put points in passives.
 

nOoblet16

Member
After spending literally 20 minutes or so pumping bullets into one of the stupid architect boss encounters and then dying right before they died, I've finally been pushed over the edge into greatly disliking this game. The whole thing feels so unfocused, so unfinished and so lazy. It's exactly what I feared the game was going to be: a reskinned Dragon Age Inquisition. The architects are literally copied from the dragons straight out of DAI, right down to their pattern of behavior. So frustrating.

And then I have a quest log with an unreasonable number of quests, over half of which are complete garbage I have no interest in completing.

Sorry to pile on to all the negativity, I'm just frustrated.

It takes like less than 10 minutes for me to kill an architect, the first one took longer but it's a very simple fight and he doesn't even have that much health. You just take 50% of the leg health down in 30 seconds (easily possible even with assault rifle) then just take your time to take 25% of its health shooting the head..there is no time restriction here.

You should be using incendiary ammo and tech abilities like incinerate and cloak here.
 
So I a haven't read anything on this game and I'm about 3 hours in and enjoying it. I haven't upgraded skills cause I'm scared to!

I just have my original overload skill and I upgraded Omni Grenade. Can I mix and match between combat profile and tech profile or should I stay with one?? Kind of confused. Also not sure how combos will work. Don't want to mess up my character.
 
It takes like less than 10 minutes for me to kill an architect, the first one took longer but it's a very simple fight and he doesn't even have that much health. You just take 50% of the leg health down in 30 seconds (easily possible even with assault rifle) then just take your time to take 25% of its health shooting the head..there is no time restriction here.

You should be using incendiary ammo and tech abilities like incinerate and cloak here.

Architects suck for someone running shotgun-biotics :(
 

Sanojio

Member
Making my N7 armor is real tough when Milky way research seems non existent aside from mah perks

Do not bother researching N7 armor. It will obviously be attractive, but eventually you unlock a Nexus perk for vendors who will sell more “special gear,” and guess what? A full N7 set is part of the product line. I wasted probably 1,200 Milky Way research credits on this.
 

nOoblet16

Member
So I a haven't read anything on this game and I'm about 3 hours in and enjoying it. I haven't upgraded skills cause I'm scared to!

I just have my original overload skill and I upgraded Omni Grenade. Can I mix and match between combat profile and tech profile or should I stay with one?? Kind of confused. Also not sure how combos will work. Don't want to mess up my character.

Yes you can mix and match and you can also respec so don't be afraid of upgrading. Make sure to get the passive abilities on Biotics, tech and Combat tree they help a LOT. Also try some biotics like Pull/Throw or Singularity/Lance they work very well and are powerful as they are combos.
 

foxdvd

Member
Combat is amazing on insanity..level 43 so far.

I am having a problem with profiles.

My bread and butter skills are incinerate, energy drain and tac cloak. Once I got the secret skill that is required for a trophy, I set up a second profile with that skill replacing energy drain. Profile 1 had my three main skills, and profile two had incinerate, energy drain and
revenant constuct
..in combat when I fight revenant I switch to profile 2. After I am done and switch back to profile 1 I no longer have energy drain on my skill tree..it overwrites it. This has to be a bug. Anyone else have this problem?
 

nOoblet16

Member
Architects suck for someone running shotgun-biotics :(

Well it's not like you are limited to shotguns and biotics, otherwise you are only doing it to yourself by not switching your close range weapon for a long range fight tbh
Just swap your gun and use incendiary ammo, won't even need biotics but Lance as always is great for that burst damage. Infact Incinerate/Incendiary + Lance is a powerful combo.
 

Tovarisc

Member
On the topic of dlc, I'm curious to see whether they'll release anything for free.

There will be free DLC.

For MP.

SP peeps have to pony up.

Edit: Companion outfits will be one SP DLC

So I a haven't read anything on this game and I'm about 3 hours in and enjoying it. I haven't upgraded skills cause I'm scared to!

I just have my original overload skill and I upgraded Omni Grenade. Can I mix and match between combat profile and tech profile or should I stay with one?? Kind of confused. Also not sure how combos will work. Don't want to mess up my character.

Look what profile are you and what skill trees benefit that profile, then invest in those trees. E.g. Infiltrator dips into Combat and Tech. Investing in those tho increases profile rank (max is 6) which directly increases your effectiveness in combat. You should aim to max out your main profiles rank early on.

Even if your profile doesn't directly benefit from Combat go in there and put some points into weapon type that is your primary. Quite necessary for getting that weapon damage up.

Skill tells you if it's primer or detonator. Primer makes targeted enemy ready for combo and detonator triggers that combo. For e.g. Incinerate is primer and Overload is detonator, creates fire combo.

You can't mess up your character, you can respec on Tempest.
 
Architects are 100% voluntary side content that you don't need to touch. If this is first Architect encounter you most likely are level and gear gimped, meaning encounter is slightly harder than it would be with proper level and gear. Architecths are quite fast to kill when you aren't under leveling encounter.

Also then don't do side quests if you don't find them interesting? They aren't mandatory for you progressing and completing main story.
.

I definitely don't have strong enough weapons to be taking them on right now, especially because I wasn't geared expecting to run into this stupid thing. I was just doing the seismic activity quest and ran into it and though "okay, i'll take care of this now" and 20 boring minutes later I die right at the end.

As for the boring sidequests thing: I think the part I'm finding frustrating is that in the other 3 ME games I was hungrily eating up every single side quest and conversation the game threw at me so the fact that there are boring side quests and conversations I'm even contemplating not completing is very disheartening to me.

They aren't copied at all, Dragons in DAI had their own movesets and elemental qualities. Architects are literal copies of each other with identical movesets each time. DAI also didn't have ammo and health boxes lying around making any damage dealt pointless.
DAI was neither unfocused, unfinished nor lazy. It was tedious.

Pile on MEA ahead but don't drag down DAI with it. Inquisition was a competent but flawed game with an incredible cast and a compelling story.

Alright, good point. So they're copied from DAI but even less inspired.
 

Wulfram

Member
There will be free DLC.

For MP.

SP peeps have to pony up.

Edit: Companion outfits will be one SP DLC

DAI had a free mini DLC that basically added the respec mirror and a new shop. I wouldn't be surprised if MEA did similar, though I also wouldn't be surprised if it didn't.
 

foxdvd

Member
Can you craft higher than level 5 gear? I am starting to see level 6 gear drop as I play, but I still can only craft level 5.
 
So I a haven't read anything on this game and I'm about 3 hours in and enjoying it. I haven't upgraded skills cause I'm scared to!

I just have my original overload skill and I upgraded Omni Grenade. Can I mix and match between combat profile and tech profile or should I stay with one?? Kind of confused. Also not sure how combos will work. Don't want to mess up my character.

Why are you scared to? If you don't like the way your build came out, you can always respec your skill points at the med bay on the Tempest. It'll only cOst you a mere 20 credits the first time. Combos work by using a skill that will "prime" an enemy for a combo detonation, then following up with a skill that acts as a detonator with a primed enemy. Usually only works if the enemies don't have shields (the blue bar over their health) anymore. So for example: while fighting a Friend, I'll prime him with incinerate, then hit him with energy drain to cause a tech explosion which will do massive damage.
The only downfall to mix and matching profiles is that when you switch them during combat, your assigned powers in that favorite profile you switched to have to cool down first before you can start to use them.
 

Tovarisc

Member
Can you craft higher than level 5 gear? I am starting to see level 6 gear drop as I play, but I still can only craft level 5.

For armors like Pathfinder Armor you unlock level 6 craft when you reach X level and for weapons like Black Widow you can research level 6 by first researching 1 through 5 and then picking Advanced BW from research list.
 
I definitely don't have strong enough weapons to be taking them on right now, especially because I wasn't geared expecting to run into this stupid thing. I was just doing the seismic activity quest and ran into it and though "okay, i'll take care of this now" and 20 boring minutes later I die right at the end.

As for the boring sidequests thing: I think the part I'm finding frustrating is that in the other 3 ME games I was hungrily eating up every single side quest and conversation the game threw at me so the fact that there are boring side quests and conversations I'm even contemplating not completing is very disheartening to me.



Alright, good point. So they're copied from DAI but even less inspired.

Tasks are usually not worth completing. Assignments and relationship quests are often quite good. Certainly better than in DA:I.
 

nOoblet16

Member
I definitely don't have strong enough weapons to be taking them on right now, especially because I wasn't geared expecting to run into this stupid thing. I was just doing the seismic activity quest and ran into it and though "okay, i'll take care of this now" and 20 boring minutes later I die right at the end.

As for the boring sidequests thing: I think the part I'm finding frustrating is that in the other 3 ME games I was hungrily eating up every single side quest and conversation the game threw at me so the fact that there are boring side quests and conversations I'm even contemplating not completing is very disheartening to me.



Alright, good point. So they're copied from DAI but even less inspired.

Well ME3 also had less side quests than this game, if you were to only play the interesting ones you'd still have as many side quests as ME3. Unless it bothers you to not do 100% of everything there is to do. Point being you cannot compare 100% in a game like this to 100% in a smaller game like ME3. The side quests under Heleus as well as allies and relationships are mostly as high quality as the priority ops.
 
There will be free DLC.

For MP.

SP peeps have to pony up.

Edit: Companion outfits will be one SP DLC



Look what profile are you and what skill trees benefit that profile, then invest in those trees. E.g. Infiltrator dips into Combat and Tech. Investing in those tho increases profile rank (max is 6) which directly increases your effectiveness in combat. You should aim to max out your main profiles rank early on.

Even if your profile doesn't directly benefit from Combat go in there and put some points into weapon type that is your primary. Quite necessary for getting that weapon damage up.

Skill tells you if it's primer or detonator. Primer makes targeted enemy ready for combo and detonator triggers that combo. For e.g. Incinerate is primer and Overload is detonator, creates fire combo.

You can't mess up your character, you can respec on Tempest.

Ok thanks to you and nooblet for advice. So if I chose engineer type profile I should focus on tech style upgrades. So even though I have three slots for powers, is it ok if I have like 6 different skill trees leveled up or should I max out 3 first like grenades and overload and maybe weapons or something. And then later focus on biotics?
 
Architects suck for someone running shotgun-biotics :(

As a biotic using a shotgun, I've found a fun strategy for Architects: charge into whatever weak point is currently available, hover in place, fire shotgun. Works beautifully.

That said, I've had my own frustrating issue with Architects. For the two that I've fought so far, after destroying the second leg, they've flown up into the air...and then stay there. They look like they get "stuck" on invisible walls in the sky and can't get to where they're scripted to be. I've had to reload two to four times per Architect on the same phase each time. Really frustrating.
 

Tovarisc

Member
Ok thanks to you and nooblet for advice. So if I chose engineer type profile I should focus on tech style upgrades. So even though I have three slots for powers, is it ok if I have like 6 different skill trees leveled up or should I max out 3 first like grenades and overload and maybe weapons or something. And then later focus on biotics?

I took 3 active skills that I liked most and focused on getting them to Rank 4 to 5 range while advancing passives in Tech and Combat. I was Infiltrator with Cloak, Ince and Overload. Early on started to take sniper rifle damage from Combat while dipping into 1-2 Tech passives and like 1 Combat passive.

Basically I tried to focus my skill point distribution evenly into damage and survivability increases while increasing Infiltrator profile level. This way, I feel, I was able to properly increase my characters effectiveness. Once Infiltrator profile was Rank 6 I took passive shield boost stuff from Biotics.

I also was on Insanity so more narrower approach was required.
 

Jharp

Member
The combat and exploration in this game is so fucking satisfying.

The writing in this game is so fucking infuriating. Anytime I'm not running around a planet with my gun out, I can't get through it fast enough. Aya, the Tempest, the Nexus, the Hyperion, whatever. Just get me out of here as fast as possible so I can go back to killing shit. For the first time in a Mass Effect game, I'm skipping the dialogue without reading ahead first. I can't hit the spacebar fast enough.

I also just personally dislike the Angar. As a race, they're fine, I just think it's weird how human they are. Different planet in a different system in a different galaxy, and they're the same size as us, have roughly the same body shape we do, similar social structure, eat and breath the same shit. I find the Kett equally annoying in this way. Even the first games had the Hanar and the Elcor and truly alien-feeling races.
 

Roussow

Member
Going to stop researching armour, I feel like I'm just wasting points on stuff that isn't super attractive, exclusively researching and building weapons seems like the better plan.
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
Thanks for all the build tips above. I think I need to respec again as I've got points too spread out. Been mostly doing fine but noped out of first Architect battle and struggled a bit with the boss fights at the end of the rescue story mission on Voeld. I also need to delve more into the research and development stuff and figure that out.
 
Despite having a lot of fun with the combat and some of the story stuff, at around the 20 hour mark, the game is starting to drag on me. I think I'm just going to finish up the main story then perhaps come back for the side content later once I've cleansed my palate a bit.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
The combat and exploration in this game is so fucking satisfying.

The writing in this game is so fucking infuriating. Anytime I'm not running around a planet with my gun out, I can't get through it fast enough. Aya, the Tempest, the Nexus, the Hyperion, whatever. Just get me out of here as fast as possible so I can go back to killing shit. For the first time in a Mass Effect game, I'm skipping the dialogue without reading ahead first. I can't hit the spacebar fast enough.

I also just personally dislike the Angar. As a race, they're fine, I just think it's weird how human they are. Different planet in a different system in a different galaxy, and they're the same size as us, have roughly the same body shape we do, similar social structure, eat and breath the same shit. I find the Kett equally annoying in this way. Even the first games had the Hanar and the Elcor and truly alien-feeling races.

I don't completely hate the writing. It think it feels generally BioWare style and standard, and it has some really sweet emotional beats.

But I won't lie: as a whole this is absolutely the first of the four mainline Mass Effect games where I routinely feel actively bored and disinterested in character exchanges (mainly NPCs that aren't your squad), narrative exposition, and other thematic beats to the point of forcing myself through them.
When Aya opened up I really couldn't have given less of a shit. Try as I might I just don't care about the Angara. They're fine, whatever, but I don't care. I find them dull and uninteresting, and I don't really care about their homeworld. It's all so haphazardly presented and unceremonious and tonally unfocused that I mentally have nothing to latch on. I just don't care, at all
.

And tonally unfocused is how I'd define this game. There's a lot of I'm loving about it, but I'd easily rank it as the most tonally dissonant and thematically unfocused game in the entire series. Like a hundred writers throwing in ideas under no coherent vision. It's just stuff.
 
Yo! This audio glitch where I lose all audio in game is a fucking ass hole.

This is the one thing that gets on my nerves. Not the jank or animations the audio glitch/bug.
 
I love the loyalty missions and some of the side quests that take place in special maps, totally unrelated to the open world maps. It totally feels like Mass Effect.
 

X-Frame

Member
How do I get my Strike Teams to be Gold viable?

My teams are Level 15+ and are at about 90% success rate for Bronze and Silver but 30-40% for Gold.

I've bought some equipment too to help them.
 
I don't completely hate the writing. It think it feels generally BioWare style and standard, and it has some really sweet emotional beats.

But I won't lie: as a whole this is absolutely the first of the four mainline Mass Effect games where I routinely feel actively bored and disinterested in character exchanges (mainly NPCs that aren't your squad), narrative exposition, and other thematic beats to the point of forcing myself through them.
When Aya opened up I really couldn't have given less of a shit. Try as I might I just don't care about the Angara. They're fine, whatever, but I don't care. I find them dull and uninteresting, and I don't really care about their homeworld. It's all so haphazardly presented and unceremonious and tonally unfocused that I mentally have nothing to latch on. I just don't care, at all
.

And tonally unfocused is how I'd define this game. There's a lot of I'm loving about it, but I'd easily rank it as the most tonally dissonant and thematically unfocused game in the entire series. Like a hundred writers throwing in ideas under no coherent vision. It's just stuff.

man. this is basically exactly how I feel too.
 

Ushay

Member
I feel like they missed out hugely by not allowing companions to have any customisation or appearance changes.

Removing player agency over their companions is exactly going against what Bioware have been doing for a while. Why did they do this??
 

Tovarisc

Member
I feel like they missed out hugely by not allowing companions to have any customisation or appearance changes.

Removing player agency over their companions is exactly going against what Bioware have been doing for a while. Why did they do this??

If dev pre-release tweets are anything to by then we are going to get companion appearance DLC sooner than later.

Why this route? Most likely they ran out of time.
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
I feel like they missed out hugely by not allowing companions to have any customisation or appearance changes.

Removing player agency over their companions is exactly going against what Bioware have been doing for a while. Why did they do this??

I don't really mind it. Hell, I preferred ME2 and ME3 (especially 2) with the super light RPG elements. I don't like hassling with the weapon and armor upgrades, mods, augments etc.
 

eot

Banned
... What?

If we want talk about shit tier ME DLC then we need bring up that shitty tankthing DLC for ME2. By comparison Omega is waaay better.

Firewalker was a "free" thing included with the Cerberus Network pass. It wasn't proper paid DLC.

Omega is glitchy, has bad writing, strikingly poor voice acting from the main character (Carrie Anne Moss) and offers almost nothing except three hours of combat. It is without question the worst piece of proper content in ME3 (which is saying a lot), whereas most of the other DLC ranks if not at then near the top. Of course, Arrival was the same way and I've heard that Montreal had their hands on that shitfest too.
 

v0mitg0d

Member
Posting this again for the morning crew.

Ok so I love the Dhan Shotgun so much I made a video about how to craft the blueprint, how to easily find Vanadium (very rare mineral). It's a lot of fun, so check it out if you're interested.

Oh, and this is a must have if you are playing a Vanguard.
https://youtu.be/rs5QCQmQAAA
 

Mossybrew

Member
Even the first games had the Hanar and the Elcor and truly alien-feeling races.

Even the Geth or Collectors, while still having human proportions, were just so much cooler than anything in this game. There's just a lack of imagination here.
 
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