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[diaspora]

I don't think each element of this game is worse than the trilogy- the companions, main story, world building, lore, gameplay, etc. I don't think these elements came together here as well as the main trilogy though.

Like a 1:1 comparison of the gameplay Andromeda would win every time for me. Same goes for the world building, lore, political setup, side-quest stories. But, they did I think a poor job of actually making a game with these elements.

Edit: To clarify, I do like this game but the pieces here IMO don't really fit well together.

 

[Maledict]

I guess I'm just having a hard time comprehending the disappointment some people feel. To me Andromeda is not downhill. It stumbles in a few areas (the biggest area being what diapora has been talking about) but in most areas it feels like a logical expansion/continuation for Mass Effect. Just not seeing how the series is "ruined" now for some people. But as was noted some people said ME3 ruined the for the series too.

It's hard to pinpoint precisely, and Eatchildren is right in that it's all subjective. It's interesting because in many ways ME:A makes the same mistakes the original game did for me - open world busy work stuff that doesn't add anything, a weak character set, janky as hell. But Mass Effect had enough to carry me through the game and really enjoy it - the conversation with Soveriegn, the Virmire decision, the revaluation from Virgil and then that glorious end sequence running up the side of the Citedal rot the end (and the frankly beautiful cinematgrophy displayed in that end sequence which wouldn't be out of place in a film). Andromeda just doesn't have those same hooks at all - same mistakes, but without the gods stuff that makes made Mass Effect worth sticking with.

What I've also realised is that as much as I enjoy the gameplay improvements (and Andromeda does make great improvements), they are secondary to the storyline and characters for me. I don't play Mass Effect for the gameplay, so as important as it is improving the combat systems but weakening the characters, interactions and stories doesn't pay off for me.

(This is counter to a lot of the games I play - I honestly cannot understand a word of Nioh's campaign, but adore it for the gameplay).

 

[diaspora]

Once I'm back from the office, I'll probably* fire up the game to get a better sense to where my issues are go into a longer form format to illustrate where this game chafes with me and what I'd recommend moving forward with the series.

 

[Mindlog]

I guess I'm just having a hard time comprehending the disappointment some people feel. To me Andromeda is not downhill. It stumbles in a few areas (the biggest area being what diapora has been talking about) but in most areas it feels like a logical expansion/continuation for Mass Effect. Just not seeing how the series is "ruined" now for some people. But as was noted some people said ME3 ruined the for the series too.

Mass Effect is far from ruined for me, but Andromeda was my biggest disappointment even though I'm still playing and only need one more trophy for the Platinum. I still enjoy what's there.

Why is Andromeda a disappointment to me? This was the easiest game to get right! The massive slowdowns I experienced in the first areas of the game, the music and sound being off and stilted, the presentation not pushing the premise and on and on. None of these things should be this hard for a clean slate Mass Effect game with so many years in development and this was just the start of the game.

I would have done a modest reveal of the Reaper invasion earlier (while still on the Ark) to give a greater sense of urgency to securing humanity a home. Don't reveal specifics, but let Ryder find out that something attacked their home in the Milky Way and all further communication has been cut for ~600 years. Raise the stakes early. For the longest time I've been a proponent of exactly the opposite, 'Keep the stakes low.' However, securing a new home was the only motivation in Andromeda. Much to my disappointment the exploration angle was almost non-existent.

What's there though I like. Even though there are obvious direction for these elements to take.
The Kett are obviously doing their own Reaping. Hrm.
The Angara are gifted with powers. A weapon? Hrm.
The Scourge is obviously a weapon. Hrm.

I don't think each element of this game is worse than the trilogy- the companions, main story, world building, lore, gameplay, etc. I don't think these elements came together here as well as the main trilogy though.

Like a 1:1 comparison of the gameplay Andromeda would win every time for me. Same goes for the world building, lore, political setup, side-quest stories. But, they did I think a poor job of actually making a game with these elements.

Edit: To clarify, I do like this game but the pieces here IMO don't really fit well together.

I agree completely.

 

[SliChillax]

Why is the Milky Way inherently better? They can do anything in Andromeda that they could do in the Milky Way, and possibly more. If you have issues with the direction, I don't think they galaxy they're in was the main cause. And as we all know they did it to lave the trilogy endings as their own thing. You're sure this isn't rose-tinted trilogy goggles talking?

Because Andromeda in comparison is boring. Because there's so many unexplored parts of the milky way, worlds that we know haven't been explored enough (Turian, Asari, Salarian, Krogan homeworld, Citadel) or let alone all the unexplored mysteries of the milky way that could have been. I do not care about Andromeda as much as I did about the Milky Way galaxy when I first played ME1. It just feels like it doesn't have the heart and soul of the trilogy because there's so much missing. The aliens are so dully presented, their worlds and their culture has no attention to detail, I feel no love in the writing of this game. It's so horribly boring and you can see this lack of detail in the writing everywhere in the game. The open maps/worlds aren't as interesting as I was hoping, the Nexus is dull and soul less, the characters don't come close to the crew in ME1 and I'm only comparing it to ME1 as I think that's more fair than comparing it to 3 games combined. I was more excited than anyone else when it was first announced that this game would take place in Andromeda, trust me, but this is not a proper successor to the milky way galaxy. They better pull some magic improvements to whatever the next game will be because if it's more of the same, there's nothing that makes me wanna come back to it. It's not a bad game, it's a good game but it's not an amazing Mass Effect game which is what it should have been. Sorry if I'm sounding so negative, there are definitely parts of this game that I enjoyed a lot but I was focusing on what felt wrong to me.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

I know I've beaten the point to death but here's Inquisition as a point of comparison:
Inquisition:

1. Open map with M
2. open world map
3. open another location
4. click camp

Andromeda:

1. Hold T to go to the Tempest
2. Watch the Tempest leave the planet
3. Hold E for the galaxy map
4. Press space to zoom out from the planet to the solar system
5. Press space to zoom out from the solar system to the cluster
6. click on another solar system to fly to
7. watch your ship fly there
8. click on a planet
9. either watch your ship fly there or hit tab to skip the animation
10. Click on the planet to land
11. Watch the ship landing animation
12. Click the forward station to fast travel to

A few notes regarding quest design on this point though- the first being that in all fairness Inquisition does fast-travel better than most western RPGs, and the second is I do personally feel that many of Andromeda's side-quests are very well written and are a definite step up from Inquisition- an example being something as basic as setting up the deceased Nexus engineer's beacons on Eos and hearing about their sick child's condition deteriorating while offering words of encouragement. Or alternatively the Salarian conspiracy quest, or the Angaran AI quest.

Additionally, I'm 100% on board with having an email system and even using it to trigger quests; what I'm not on board with is having to go through steps 1 and 2 of the above to actually be able to access it. This shit should be accessible via your omnitool. Or at least board the tempest without having to take off.

On the point of multi-location quests the problem isn't entirely just being designed around being on different planets but different solar systems where you don't even land:

1. Hold T to go to the Tempest
2. Watch the Tempest leave the planet
3. Hold E for the galaxy map
4. Press space to zoom out from the planet to the solar system
5. Press space to zoom out from the solar system to the cluster
6. click on another solar system to fly to
7. watch your ship fly there
8. Right click to scan the system
9. click point of interest to launch a probe
10. fly to probe
11. scan point of interest

This is asinine and what frustrates about this is that I find the quests that do this to generally be well written and actually interesting but actually doing the quest by doing the above like 3-6 times is complete bullshit. Like, they're often not even fetch quests! The Salarian Conspiracy is about investigating, and talking. It's great until you realize you have to go through the 10-13 steps like 3 times because of reasons. God help you if you have to go to Kadara too.

Here are the conditions wherein I actually wouldn't mind the arduous travel system:

• Entire quest chains take place in one place. It's fine if you GET a quest on the nexus and complete it on Kadara, but the actual bulk of the quest needs to be in one zone
• Let me check email from the omnitool. Having to go to the tempest, watch it take off, then hold e to open my email to trigger a new quest sucks. Then I have to fly back down to actually do the quest

Here are the conditions where I'd be fine with multiplanet quests:

• fast travel like in Inquisition
• check email from your omnitool

Here's what we got:

• A system to get messages and quests that requires multiple steps and an animation sequence to fucking check- the email system
• Quests that take place on multiple planets and locations without it actually helping the story that it's a part of
• traversal required to complete these quests that are 10-13 steps long each time you want to go anywhere. A quest requires going to 3 places? Enjoy doing these steps 30-36 times.

It's a perfect storm of shit, multiple design paradigms at complete odds with each other. Each of them conceptually fine under certain circumstances but specifically aggravating when used both as is and together.

As of right now, I have shelved Andromeda.

I am just sick to death of my playthrough being dragged out by constant loading screens. I work 60 hours a week and my gameplay time is very limited and I am not going to further invest myself into a game that has no respect for my time.

 

[prag16]

As of right now, I have shelved Andromeda.

I am just sick to death of my playthrough being dragged out by constant loading screens. I work 60 hours a week and my gameplay time is very limited and I am not going to further invest myself into a game that has no respect for my time.

Are you playing on console? Are the loading times drastically worse than on PC (with SSD) maybe? I agree with the general gist of diaspora's analysis, but it just doesn't bother me THAT much; not enough to get angry at the game "not respecting my time" (and I too have limited gaming time; I pushed the limits of that with Andromeda to even complete it in a month, and that was with sacrificing some sleep in order to sink in 65 hours over that month).

Because Andromeda in comparison is boring. Because there's so many unexplored parts of the milky way, worlds that we know haven't been explored enough (Turian, Asari, Salarian, Krogan homeworld, Citadel) or let alone all the unexplored mysteries of the milky way that could have been. I do not care about Andromeda as much as I did about the Milky Way galaxy when I first played ME1. It just feels like it doesn't have the heart and soul of the trilogy because there's so much missing. The aliens are so dully presented, their worlds and their culture has no attention to detail, I feel no love in the writing of this game. It's so horribly boring and you can see this lack of detail in the writing everywhere in the game. The open maps/worlds aren't as interesting as I was hoping, the Nexus is dull and soul less, the characters don't come close to the crew in ME1 and I'm only comparing it to ME1 as I think that's more fair than comparing it to 3 games combined. I was more excited than anyone else when it was first announced that this game would take place in Andromeda, trust me, but this is not a proper successor to the milky way galaxy. They better pull some magic improvements to whatever the next game will be because if it's more of the same, there's nothing that makes me wanna come back to it. It's not a bad game, it's a good game but it's not an amazing Mass Effect game which is what it should have been. Sorry if I'm sounding so negative, there are definitely parts of this game that I enjoyed a lot but I was focusing on what felt wrong to me.

Well, I disagree with most of that. (And there's a strong chance nostalgia goggles contribute to at least some of that.) Regardless, I don't think going back to the Milky Way will magically "fix" some of these gripes (but it WILL introduce issues such as having to choose a canon ME3 ending which they very clearly don't want to do).

 

[Blue Ninja]

I'm fine with staying in Andromeda. I just want the next game to draw more from ME2 and ME3, construction-wise. Less pointless filler, more respect for the player's time. They have multiplayer to keep people coming back.

 

[SliChillax]

(And there's a strong chance nostalgia goggles contribute to at least some of that.)

It's what I thought too but I replayed the trilogy last week again and had such a great time. I also kinda agree about the Milky Way statement. I guess nobody will want to go back to the Milky Way if they actually give us what we want in Andromeda. But I doubt that will happen, I have lost hope in Bioware's writing.

 

[Maledict]

Yeah, I disagree strongly with the nostalgia goggles claim. Those games still work. Those key conversations I listed from the original game? They're still powerful, interesting and evocative moments - there's nothing like those in Me:A. And they have better facial animations and don't have a main character who looks like something is wrong with them.
And apart from the combat ME:2 frankly embarrasses ME:A in every single way. The writing and characters and overall set pieces in that game far outclass this.

Also, slight tangent - why were they so insistent about getting rid of paragon and renegade? I thought the system they had in ME3 worked perfectly, and gave you some freedom whilst still maintaining those two essential ME concepts. It seems like they ditched something which a lot of people think of as a core mass Effect trait, and replaced with a system that doesn't really seem to allow you to deviate from the overall snarky, Joss Wheedon-ish style dialogue.

 

[diaspora]

I can't put the Trilogy's writing above this game in good conscience. The stupid shit in those 3 games dwarf this despite Andromeda having major design issues.

Arguably the entire Krogan side-arc is better but the rest? Can't do it.

 

[Maledict]

Have to disagree there. Yes, there's silly bits of writing in there, but to claim they're at the same level of ME:A is a disservice. There's nothing which even begins to compare to the conversation with Sovereign, Samara's 'romance' line, the entire Garrus / Thane / Mordin arcs, Legion in ME2. I think this weird concept of talking down th original games writing to justify the mess that is ME:A is odd to me.

 

[diaspora]

Have to disagree there. Yes, there's silly bits of writing in there, but to claim they're at the same level of ME:A is a disservice. There's nothing which even begins to compare to the conversation with Sovereign, Samara's 'romance' line, the entire Garrus / Thane / Mordin arcs, Legion in ME2. I think this weird concept of talking down th original games writing to justify the mess that is ME:A is odd to me.

The conversation with Sovereign is abject ass though. He goes from being an unknowable god machine to being... Corypheus.

"I'm better than you"
"Why"
"You don't even get me maaaan"

The Quarian and Krogan plots of ME 1-3 were always the best parts, the Reaper shit has always been as bad as the Archon junk we got here.

Edit: I'd put the companion stuff in Andromeda up there with the Trilogy too.

 

[Maledict]

You can boil *any* dialogue down to basic stupid lines like that. Shakespeare can be summed up in the same way. And sorry, but the Sovereign conversation has been pointed out by many people and reviews as a high point of the series. Yes, the end of the reaper storyline was bad in ME3 - but in me1 they were terrifying, alien space gods who really sounded different to normal baddies in a brilliant way. Hell, as someone else pointed out - the cinematography used in the end sequence of me1 with Sovereign and the fleets could have been from a sci fi film. It's clearly been made by someone who loves early sci fi. Th rest just none of that in Andromeda.

 

[diaspora]

You can boil *any* dialogue down to basic stupid lines like that. Shakespeare can be summed up in the same way. And sorry, but the Sovereign conversation has been pointed out by many people and reviews as a high point of the series. Yes, the end of the reaper storyline was bad in ME3 - but in me1 they were terrifying, alien space gods who really sounded different to normal baddies in a brilliant way. Hell, as someone else pointed out - the cinematography used in the end sequence of me1 with Sovereign and the fleets could have been from a sci fi film. It's clearly been made by someone who loves early sci fi. Th rest just none of that in Andromeda.

No, they weren't. I've made this point long before Andromeda even released but they were stereotypical dickhead villains talking up how great they were and how you were never going to get how great they were. Bioware's done this at least 3 times now between the Archon, Sovereign, and Corypheus. Going into the Eos vault alone and seeing how ridiculous the scale of construction was far outstripped anything belonging to the Reaper story.

 

[Maledict]

Like I said, that's your opinion - but I think the majority of people would disagree from the reviews and everyone's comments subsequently.

 

[diaspora]

What's that phrase- when wearing rose tinted glasses all the red flags just look like flags. Whatever the hell nonsense ME1 is now was probably more impressive at launch than it is now.

 

[Maledict]

I watched that particular scene an hour ago. It's still really good.

Thane Samara and Mordin writing in ME2 remains great - I played it a few months ago. Same with Legion.

It's not like these are historical things we can't go back too - we can just load them up and compare side by side. And the original series doesn't have 'my face is tired of this', and it also has (for me, and obviously lots of people' moments of brilliant writing that Andromeda doesn't have.

 

[diaspora]

I watched that particular scene an hour ago. It's still really good.

Thane Samara and Mordin writing in ME2 remains great - I played it a few months ago. Same with Legion.

It's not like these are historical things we can't go back too - we can just load them up and compare side by side. And the original series doesn't have 'my face is tired of this', and it also has (for me, and obviously lots of people' moments of brilliant writing that Andromeda doesn't have.

I've been playing the OT as much as I have Andromeda, and yes, the OT has moments as bad as My Face is Tired(TM), shit, most of the dialogue in the first game is as bad or worse like most of the ME1 citadel dialogue around Saren's trial.

 

[prag16]

Guys, this is part of how nostalgia goggles work. For example, if you didn't grow up with 8 bit games it's gonna be hard to ever play those games for a lot of people. But if you did, you can go back and they're still fun. Going back and still enjoying a game now doesn't necessarily mean you are not wearing nostalgia goggles. A lot of people I don't think are being objective about the trilogy in relation to Andromeda, and that can persist when going back to those games.

You can maintain blind spots for things even when revisiting them. Chances are strong that's what's happening here.

Writing, characters, animation, all of it. You really think people playing ME1 for the first time in 2017 are largely going to think it's better than Andromeda (technical leap aside)? I'd be shocked.

 

[EatChildren]

I don't really like the nostalgia argument when people seem to be doing a decent job of articulating what they do and do not feel the trilogy did better than Andromeda, especially particular themes and narrative beats. It's a hand wave excuse that doesn't explore why people enjoy certain things over others.

For example, another note I'll make is that I'm personally not a fan of the bubblegum science fiction tone that Andromeda often takes, akin to a script written by Joss Wheton. It's not a criticism of the writing itself, so much as the chosen tone. By BioWare's own admission, Andromeda was deliberately written with a more colourful tone, less intensity and severity in the stakes, to give the adventure an optimistic, upbeat vibe.

While I understand this choice, it's not a tone I personally like, and I don't even feel it was really earned. As I've said in previous posts, if anything it feels at odds with other realities within the setting and lore, particularly the severity of the Initiative itself and the immediate disasters it faces. Despite trying to distance the narrative from the grim doomsday scenario of the trilogy, the hilarity is Andromeda's setup is almost as severe; Nexus on life support after a mutiny, lost Arks housing thousands of civilians, uninhabitable planets, devastating galactic anomaly, well armed invading alien species conflicting with the locals. For my taste the premise just doesn't commit to this scenario in the way that I would have liked, and at times tackles them with a borderline apathy. As if the severity of each narrative beat only ever matters when it's required as part of the narrative arc as a whole.

I was talking to a friend about it a little while ago, and I'd said that Andromeda for me lacks tone. For all the trilogy's weaknesses and aged traits, I can at least readily identify and resonate with an overarching tone distinct to each of the three games, resonant throughout most of the cast, plot threads, and quest arcs. Andromeda for me is a cocktail of tones, none of which feel deeply intertwined with the experience as a whole. It lacks a tonal coherency and consistency to give the entire production a distinct, unique feel and identity. Which, during the experience, results in an disconnected, scattered feeling towards all the pieces and parts involved.

When my crew is opening up on the reasons they left to Andromeda, and how they're dealing with the experience of being permanently disconnected from the old world, such as Liam's wonderful personal moment related to his car. Or when you're chasing down Arks and trying to unravel the mystery of where they are, what's happened to them, and what you can do to help. These are the moments I feel Andromeda is really committing to its premise and unique qualities. I wish the writing and narrative were more consistent with these themes.

 

[Madness]

Why is the Milky Way inherently better? They can do anything in Andromeda that they could do in the Milky Way, and possibly more. If you have issues with the direction, I don't think they galaxy they're in was the main cause. And as we all know they did it to lave the trilogy endings as their own thing. You're sure this isn't rose-tinted trilogy goggles talking?

No they couldn't. There is history in the milky way Andromeda will never have. The big sci-fi draw of the original was that Prothean ruins had been found on Mars causing religious panic and unity on Earth. That the Milky Way is home to more than just humans, the Citadel.

Beyond Earth, you have Surr'Kesh, Thessia, Pelaven, Tuchanka etc. These have histories with the lore. Andromeda has none of that. I don't care about visiting Aya like I had visiting Ilium for the first time.

Going forward they can obviously hit the 'nostalgia' by making us visit Eos and Prodromos which has grown, etc. But I still think inevitably the history of the Milky Way will be wanted. A lot of stories to be told, a lot of lore still there. Especially post-ME3 if they were brave enough.

Even just saying I am a Pathfinder versus I was N7 or a Spectre has a different meaning no? Andromeda also disrespects some of the established lore. People hate the Tann-Krogan storyline but I felt it was the one thing that was actually true. In a pre-ME3 world, Salarians won't trust Krogans, neither would Turians, and Asari would not be as brash as they are shown, and humans were still viewed with distrust in ME1, but because of Jien Garson's vision, everyone loves humans? Hopefully we get more 'conflict' as the Arks found, old grudges come out, and species start to claim their own cities or golden worlds. They could fix a lot of world issues by havint Andromeda 2 set maybe 3-4 years later. So that some rapid development has happened.

 

[Mindlog]

No they couldn't. There is history in the milky way Andromeda will never have. The big sci-fi draw of the original was that Prothean ruins had been found on Mars causing religious panic and unity on Earth. That the Milky Way is home to more than just humans, the Citadel.

While that started unification it wasn't really until the First Contact War that the Systems Alliance came to the forefront. I can easily see arrival and the capture of Meridian as being the same galvanizing event for citizens of the cluster. Now they can all band together to establish themselves and explore beyond.

Where we run into the Kett problem. Something has to be done with the giant Kett hegemony. Obviously we'll be visiting their vassals and hidden fringe races, but otherwise the Kett have likely scrubbed a very large percentage of systems in local Andromeda. This is Mordin's culturally stagnant nightmare. We're potentially trapped behind a very large event that needs to occur before we can move forward with the narrative.

 

[diaspora]

ME2, and especially 3 are significantly better designed games. When you're doing the Tuchanka or Rannoch arc you're not bogged down by "ON HOLD" because you haven't completed requisite planet discoveries yet, nor are you held back by missions that require a 13 step process to fucking go anywhere multiple times. I personally still put 3 as king of the hill, but I still find 1 to be bottom of the barrel and 2 more or less on par with Andromeda.

In 3 when you do the Tuchanka arc you do the story arc from start to finish or even do ancillary quests like with Victus' son. With say- Drack's quest it is well written when you're actually fucking playing it but they break it up over the course of the game and it doesn't flow properly. Andromeda's quests unto themselves are written well but they're not put... in the game properly. Shit just sort of shows up and you do it. Stuff like Victus' son or the ME2 recruitment missions work within the actual game's setup. In Andromeda they're kinda just thrown in there with stuff happening. I can look at each personal/companion/main/planet quest on it's on and say it's as good as anything in ME2 or most of 3. I can't say that getting the quest and in a lot of instances actually doing the quests are well done though. Like with the Salarian conspiracy, setting up a meeting on Elaaden isn't bad writing per say but forcing you to switch planets when the game's design makes it inherently a shitty experience? Fuck off.

I can joke about "my face is tired" but at the end of the day I'd still rather that than the stupid shit in ME1 with the trial, voice tape, Sovereign's asinine conversation, ME2's big terminator, or 3's Leng.

 

[EatChildren]

That's what I mean by tone; it's in the writing, structure, and design of quests and narrative flow. Mass Effect 3, for all its faults, is exceptionally consistent with its themes and how quests are structured and open up based on progress through the plot. An argument could be made that it's a lot of busywork given the Reaper war, but this is only really an issue with the silly scan-the-planet trinket hunts. For the structured, playable quests they all resonate strongly with the tone and pacing of a galactic war, and Shepard for most part has good reason for doing what she does when she does.

That's definitely something I felt lacking in Andromeda. Again, there's a lot of cool stuff in there (Arks, scourge, premise for the Initiative), but the questing structure and game doesn't support the narrative as well as the trilogy did, in my opinion. The kind of game that opens with you realizing your home planet is totally fucked, some of your crew die, you encounter an immediately hostile alien force, the Nexus hub is in shambles, they're cut off from everything, arks have gone missing, people could literally starve to death or never wake from stasis, the entire operation is on the brink of failure and there's no safety net of the Milky Way...but let's push you on your upbeat whirlwind adventure and please, take your time.

 

[diaspora]

That's what I mean by tone; it's in the writing, structure, and design of quests and narrative flow. Mass Effect 3, for all its faults, is exceptionally consistent with its themes and how quests are structured and open up based on progress through the plot. An argument could be made that it's a lot of busywork given the Reaper war, but this is only really an issue with the silly scan-the-planet trinket hunts. For the structured, playable quests they all resonate strongly with the tone and pacing of a galactic war, and Shepard for most part has good reason for doing what she does when she does.

That's definitely something I felt lacking in Andromeda. Again, there's a lot of cool stuff in there (Arks, scourge, premise for the Initiative), but the questing structure and game doesn't support the narrative as well as the trilogy did, in my opinion. The kind of game that opens with you realizing your home planet is totally fucked, some of your crew die, you encounter an immediately hostile alien force, the Nexus hub is in shambles, they're cut off from everything, arks have gone missing, people could literally starve to death or never wake from stasis, the entire operation is on the brink of failure and there's no safety net of the Milky Way...but let's push you on your upbeat whirlwind adventure and please, take your time.

Well, fwiw even the lead into Eos was generally OK thematically too considering that the next world you land on after Habitat 7 is an irradiated mess. I don't mind having an open world, nor do I mind the quest writing but what I do want is for missions to be designed where... when you start one you have to take it to completion. The stories told can be great- like with Knight and the anti-AI cell, but it needs to be designed where it has to be taken from start to finish in a go, no running back and forth and that stupid bullshit.

 

[BrassDragon]

I watched that particular scene an hour ago. It's still really good.

Thane Samara and Mordin writing in ME2 remains great - I played it a few months ago. Same with Legion.

It's not like these are historical things we can't go back too - we can just load them up and compare side by side. And the original series doesn't have 'my face is tired of this', and it also has (for me, and obviously lots of people' moments of brilliant writing that Andromeda doesn't have.

I have been replaying ME1 and ME2 every year. They hold up just fine. I even go back for ME3 replays and stop after Citadel. These games have flaws, sure. But they are compelling and satisfying, both in the moment and as a whole experience. Important narrative beats still hit me in the feels because of competent writing and acting, stellar music and cinematography and great payoffs.

Andromeda feels like fluff to me. I'm not going back for a replay because it never hits those same highs. I don't care for any of the stakes and the Kett are a laughable and boring enemy to fight. The cast is okay but the quality of their dialogue is all over the place and I'm not particularly invested to see what happens to them after Andromeda.

Nostalgia goggles? Sure, call it that - but BioWare made a deliberate decision to make Andromeda as inoffensive as possible, desperate to evoke that nostalgia and mirror the older games so they encouraged these comparisons.

I'm not going to turn in my fan badge because I'll still do my replays of the older titles. But after the ME3 ending and Andromeda, I seriously question the leadership and vision behind this franchise.

 

[Rodhull]

I've done a replay of the old games recently too and to be honest don't really see the significantly higher standard of writing people are making them out to be, particularly for the squadmates. Seems almost every game from Bioware since ME1 has been routinely shit on here for its writing but is now being lauded for how good it was.

I don't think the Kett are that great an enemy but neither were the collectors and for me at least the geth only became interesting after the developments of the later games. In 1 they were just a robot army controlled by the big bad and little else.

This game has a ton of problems but the hyperbole of some of the comparisons to the older games is very strange to me. If this game is 'inoffensive' I'm not really sure what was the parts that were trying to be 'offensive' in the old games.

 

[Ralemont]

About the Inquisition vs. Andromeda discussion last page....I don't know, when I look at all the pieces, Andromeda seems like the supremely superior game. But I enjoyed Inquisition more. Maybe it was because it was the first game I had to trudge through BioWare's dull open world attempts and so Andromeda started on sourer soil. Maybe it's because Inquisition, despite having a short main quest and bad side quests, still managed to evoke feelings and emotions in singular moments better, which gives me fonder memories.

The only times Andromeda's story feels like it's clicking are loyalty missions and the final mission, but even then the assault on Haven/finding of Skyhold in Inquisition blows it away (imo). Inquisition also has Trespasser which retroactively makes Inquisition's story feel a lot better (since

Spoiler

the vanilla villain is revealed/confirmed to be basically a red herring

). Companion-wise I think Andromeda does a pretty good job, but since we knew that none of the squadmates are ever going to be in any danger of leaving/dying, it kind of removes a lot of the drama from their situations.

Since I feel both games are at their best in a barebones playthrough, I think once Andromeda's DLC is released I'll get a better sense of where I stand.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

"respect for my time" is such a nonsense phrase.
Sure there are parts of the game that could be more streamlined, as I've agreed to earlier in the thread, but in the the end the game is what it is.
If you can't fit it into your schedule, that's your problem, and not the developer being out to get you with their devious disrespect of your time.

 

[SliChillax]

"respect for my time" is such a nonsense phrase.
Sure there are parts of the game that could be more streamlined, as I've agreed to earlier in the thread, but in the the end the game is what it is.
If you can't fit it into your schedule, that's your problem, and not the developer being out to get you with their devious disrespect of your time.

I disagree. There are so many games filled with filler content just to get the playthrough times as high as they can for market purposes. I'm not sure I would use that phrase for ME:A though.

 

[prag16]

I disagree. There are so many games filled with filler content just to get the playthrough times as high as they can for market purposes. I'm not sure I would use that phrase for ME:A though.

I'd agree in cases where the bullshit side content isn't skippable (like MMOs, and Inquisition to the extent of the "power" meter or whatever).

But in ME:A you can disregard almost everything if you so choose without really being penalized.

The shitty quest design involving a lot of travel is a factor too obviously, but as I said maybe some people (console?) have much longer load times than I do, because it never bothered me TOO much. And on a long load you could always fire up gaf on your phone to make a post complaining about long loads to pass the time.

 

[Madness]

That's what I mean by tone; it's in the writing, structure, and design of quests and narrative flow. Mass Effect 3, for all its faults, is exceptionally consistent with its themes and how quests are structured and open up based on progress through the plot. An argument could be made that it's a lot of busywork given the Reaper war, but this is only really an issue with the silly scan-the-planet trinket hunts. For the structured, playable quests they all resonate strongly with the tone and pacing of a galactic war, and Shepard for most part has good reason for doing what she does when she does.

That's definitely something I felt lacking in Andromeda. Again, there's a lot of cool stuff in there (Arks, scourge, premise for the Initiative), but the questing structure and game doesn't support the narrative as well as the trilogy did, in my opinion. The kind of game that opens with you realizing your home planet is totally fucked, some of your crew die, you encounter an immediately hostile alien force, the Nexus hub is in shambles, they're cut off from everything, arks have gone missing, people could literally starve to death or never wake from stasis, the entire operation is on the brink of failure and there's no safety net of the Milky Way...but let's push you on your upbeat whirlwind adventure and please, take your time.

I honestly believe that the story should have revolved around Habitat 7 opening, then Eos, then the Nexus and then to Kadara and Elaaden, no Havarl, Voeld, or Aya until later, if at all. I get some people wanted new species, but I truly feel while Voeld and Havarl are good aesthetically, a story about being 600 years in the future, mutiny, death of the visionary and the first pathfinder, Nexus hub in shambles, the bureaucracy, missing arks. This all matters more than helping the Angarans. I get Heleus isn't humanity's but imagine we first meet Jaal and the Angarans on Kadara Port. We don't visit Aya until after. All we learn about Angarans is what Jaal our squadmate tells us. I honestly wanted more Kesh, Tann, Addison drama and we got nothing. In the leaked concept, apparently outposts would have all had the scientific of military choice and even 'ambassadorial' focus. I'd have liked that. However the game became, 15000 turians are missing, please find this lost Angaran music instrument for me please.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

I don't think each element of this game is worse than the trilogy- the companions, main story, world building, lore, gameplay, etc. I don't think these elements came together here as well as the main trilogy though.

Like a 1:1 comparison of the gameplay Andromeda would win every time for me. Same goes for the world building, lore, political setup, side-quest stories. But, they did I think a poor job of actually making a game with these elements.

Edit: To clarify, I do like this game but the pieces here IMO don't really fit well together.

For me, every moment I feel like the game is getting better, I am reminded of going from planet to planet.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

"respect for my time" is such a nonsense phrase.
Sure there are parts of the game that could be more streamlined, as I've agreed to earlier in the thread, but in the the end the game is what it is.
If you can't fit it into your schedule, that's your problem, and not the developer being out to get you with their devious disrespect of your time.

Witcher 3 was a very very long game, but (iirc) did I ever feel that I was being forced to do anything tedious, aside from having to find a sign post that was never all that far.

That game respected my time.

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

Man I recently came across the Star Trek dynamic theme, holy shit I wish they had a Mass Effect Dynamic theme like it.

 

[JeffG]

Witcher 3 was a very very long game, but (iirc) did I ever feel that I was being forced to do anything tedious, aside from having to find a sign post that was never all that far.

That game respected my time.

Really?

I tried to be a completest on W3. Killed the game for me on playthrough 2.

I am not sure why I did that...my fault. But the game can be boring as fuck if you go from point to point on the map

On the other hand. Played DA:I to complete 19 times. Almost done ME:A for the third time...I will hold off #4 until some DLC drops

 

[prag16]

Played DA:I to complete 19 times.

Holy shit. I only made it 20 hours on my initial playthrough before my extreme boredom prompted me to uninstall. (To be fair I only made it around 15 hours in Witcher 3 before the same thing happened, even if I feel like TW3 is the better game between the two; maybe I'll finish it some day... I'll never touch DA:I again with a 10 foot pole.)

Just one 65 hour run on ME:A so far. NG+ will get fired up after I finish Horizon... that one slowed WAY down for me lately. I may be in the minority here but I was enjoying it before I shelved it for ME:A, but now going back to it it feels super boring and I want to be playing ME:A...

 

[JeffG]

Holy shit. I only made it 20 hours on my initial playthrough before my extreme boredom prompted me to uninstall.

I have over 900 hrs

But its the perfect turn the brain off and fight. And yet it is probably the same reason some others would hate it.

I like the humor. The combat was brainless and yet kinda satisfying

ME:A requires a bit more skill, so I can just turn the brain off and plug my way through the game

I got my money's worth with ME:A, but I doubt I will get close to the play time that I got with DA:I

 

[diaspora]

DA:I has better QOL design than either Witcher or MEA by virtue of the fact that you can fast travel anywhere without either going to through a 13 step process or finding a signpost first. Makes it condusive for multiple playthroughs for me even if the power mechanics and most side-quests are daft.

Witcher 3 was a very very long game, but (iirc) did I ever feel that I was being forced to do anything tedious, aside from having to find a sign post that was never all that far.

That game respected my time.

Going to have to disagree a bit (unmodded), while there's no ridiculous 13 step process to go to another area, forcing players to use signposts was daft.

For me, every moment I feel like the game is getting better, I am reminded of going from planet to planet.

Yep, the writing, stories, and world are compelling to me and I'll be in the middle of a quest on Elaaden enjoying myself until they say to go to Kadara to continue.


Here's the thing, they don't need to reinvent anything to make the open world stuff work, they just need to take into consideration how many non-story related steps are required to actually complete the content you're engaged in. I've already illustrated the steps required to go anywhere but lets take the Contagion quest as an example. I don't think the writing in this one is bad- on the contrary I really liked it and that unto itself is part of why the travel mechanics getting in the way annoyed me so much. Once you've completed the requisite steps on nexus to track Ruth down, you're asked to follow her shuttle into space- okay fine. Then you have to fly to not one, but 5-6 systems in following her trail. Let me illustrate what that actually entails:

1. Hold E to board nexus
2. hold E to open galaxy map
3. hit space to zoom out from the nexus
4. hit space to see the cluster overview
5. click on the first system
6. watch the ship fly there
7. right click to scan for ruth's trail
8. launch probe
9. click anomaly
10. fly to trail/ hit tab to skip
11. click to scan/gather data
12. hit space to zoom out to system view
13. hit space to zoom out to cluster view
    [*]click on the second system
    [*]watch the ship fly there
    [*]right click to scan for ruth's trail
    [*]launch probe
    [*]click anomaly
    [*]fly to trail/ hit tab to skip
    [*]click to scan/gather data
    [*]hit space to zoom out to system view
    [*]hit space to zoom out to cluster view
    [*]click on the third system
    [*]watch the ship fly there
    [*]right click to scan for ruth's trail
    [*]launch probe
    [*]click anomaly
    [*]fly to trail/ hit tab to skip
    [*]click to scan/gather data
    [*]hit space to zoom out to system view
    [*]hit space to zoom out to cluster view
    [*]click on the fourth system
    [*]watch the ship fly there
    [*]right click to scan for ruth's trail
    [*]launch probe
    [*]click anomaly
    [*]fly to trail/ hit tab to skip
    [*]click to scan/gather data
    [*]hit space to zoom out to system view
    [*]hit space to zoom out to cluster view
    [*]click on the fifth system
    [*]watch the ship fly there
    [*]right click to scan for ruth's trail
    [*]launch probe
    [*]click anomaly
    [*]fly to trail/ hit tab to skip
    [*]click to scan/gather data
    [*]hit space to zoom out to system view
    [*]hit space to zoom out to cluster view
    [*]Click on Kadara's system
    [*]Watch the ship fly in
    [*]Click on Kadara
    [*]Watch the ship land
    [*]click on the lift to go to the slums
    [*]run out of the slums manually to the badlands
14. fast travel from the badlands to the nearest forward station
15. drive to find her crashed shuttle
16. track the footsteps of whomever took Ruth
17. deal with Roekaar

Bolded is what could easily have been cut out from the quest. Quests in general if they need to be continued on a different zone need to at least offer to take you to the next point of interest or somewhere close to continue the quest. It becomes a major pacing issue if you have to go through ridiculous steps that contribute fuck-all to the story to be able to get to actually play the game part of the game. The story of having to contain a cross-species disease is fine, good even, even better when the idea of the Roekaar trying to weaponize it comes into play. But Bioware needs to find a way to channel you between points of interest with far more efficiency because what they've got right now is not working for me.

Example of a good quest (IMO) the Voeld AI.

1. Quest giver tells you about the gave and forced labour
2. open map
3. click closest forward station
4. drive to cave
5. do quest involving freeing slaves, fighting kett, uncovering lore, making decisions

This quest is a really meat and potatoes type of quest where it doesn't really waste your time with frivolous bullshit. You get the quest, then go to the cave on the same planet then do the quest. You're not doing any bullshit by travelling to another planet, nor are you doing that Witcher garbage where you have to use your scanner/senses to follow some stupid trail or whatever.

 

[diaspora]

.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Witcher 3 was a very very long game, but (iirc) did I ever feel that I was being forced to do anything tedious, aside from having to find a sign post that was never all that far.

That game respected my time.

nonsense, the game is what it is, if it works for you then it works for you, but it's not (dis)respecting anyone's anything because these aren't tailormade experiences, nobody is out to get you just for the sake of purposefully giving you an experience you can't fit in your ultra tight schedule.

 

[Madness]

nonsense, the game is what it is, if it works for you then it works for you, but it's not (dis)respecting anyone's anything because these aren't tailormade experiences, nobody is out to get you just for the sake of purposefully giving you an experience you can't fit in your ultra tight schedule.

Nah, SAM definitely disrespects my intelligence with his Navi level trolling in 2017... Pathfinder this area can be mined for resources. You have new email at your terminal Pathfinder. Pathfinder, even though you have put a waypoint on the plant, and have selected it as a quest in the menus and are actively looking for the nearby plant, I have to inform you that there is a nearby plant etc.

 

[diaspora]

Nah, SAM definitely disrespects my intelligence with his Navi level trolling in 2017... Pathfinder this area can be mined for resources. You have new email at your terminal Pathfinder. Pathfinder, even though you have put a waypoint on the plant, and have selected it as a quest in the menus and are actively looking for the nearby plant, I have to inform you that there is a nearby plant etc.

Mercifully there's a mod for this.

nonsense, the game is what it is, if it works for you then it works for you, but it's not (dis)respecting anyone's anything because these aren't tailormade experiences, nobody is out to get you just for the sake of purposefully giving you an experience you can't fit in your ultra tight schedule.

I think there's a case for a badly designed user experience that by design wastes time and clicks for being disrespectful of people's time. If one were to argue in favour of the... very long process of traveling anywhere then any quest that forces you to use an arduous means of traveling with nothing added to the narrative as being disrespectful of the player's time. Or at least thoughtless.

Either way the game has a ridiculous number of steps required to go anywhere and there are quests that require you to use, arbitrarily, these steps- often multiple times. Either it's the arduous traveling that's disrespectful of the player's time, or the quest design that uses it.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Nah, SAM definitely disrespects my intelligence with his Navi level trolling in 2017... Pathfinder this area can be mined for resources. You have new email at your terminal Pathfinder. Pathfinder, even though you have put a waypoint on the plant, and have selected it as a quest in the menus and are actively looking for the nearby plant, I have to inform you that there is a nearby plant etc.

You'd be surprised at the attention span some people have.

I think there's a case for a badly designed user experience that by design wastes time and clicks for being disrespectful of people's time.

As I mentioned before, there are points that can be streamlined, but you can only go so far until it becomes a subjective tailormade experience; if the creative vision behind the game is that they want you to experience some kind of "space exploration" feel, which tested positively with a 3D system map, than that's what they will use.

Streamlining to the extent where you are just teleporting everywhere instantly because "muh time", completely strips away the intended vision behind the game which has nothing to do with being out to get people with "disrespecting time" nonsense; it simply is what it is and not some malicious inclination from the developers.

 

[diaspora]

You'd be surprised at the attention span some people have.



As I mentioned before, there are points that can be streamlined, but you can only go so far until it becomes a subjective tailormade experience; if the creative vision behind the game is that they want you to experience some kind of "space exploration" feel, which tested positively with a 3D system map, than that's what they will use.

Streamlining to the extent where you are just teleporting everywhere instantly because "muh time", completely strips away the intended vision behind the game which has nothing to do with being out to get people with "disrespecting time" nonsense; it simply is what it is and not some malicious inclination from the developers.

They cannot have both this and quests that require you to go to multiple places; taking advantage of both is by any understanding a waste of time. The 13+ step process of going anywhere done say 3 times is basically an execution of 36 steps that don't carry any narrative value.

Malice has nothing to do with it- thoughtlessness is a type of disrespect unto itself. A designer that makes a quest jump to 3 locations forcing the player to take upwards of 40 steps to do so without those steps being a part of the actual narrative is completely asinine.

Again, take the Contagion quest as an example and say we grant them following her trail to one system before Kadara, do we need the other 4-5 additional sections totaling 35-40 additional steps? Does it add anything to the story? To the player?

Whenever I've suggested dealing with the problem of the 13+ step process of inter-zone travel, I've granted that some might like the process. But there is no way I think to reconcile this with quests requiring inter-zone travel a multiple times. There are like 8 places the player can actually travel to- Eos, Nexus, Aya, Havarl, H-047c, Voeld, Elaaden, Kadara. Besides fixing the inherent design problem of quests taking you to multiple planets the other option is having the option to open the maps of other zones and fast traveling to those areas.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

I don't think you're actually reading what I'm saying.
I've said around 5 times now that there are many parts of the game that can be streamlined. But saying it's disrepecting you is complete and utter bullshit, because these aren't tailor-made experiences.

"uh-oh, diaspora only has 30minutes a day to play this game, sooo we should just scrap the 3D galaxy map entirely and replace it with a 2D system that allows you to warp anywhere at any time!"
"but what about the people that enjoy the "space feel" we envisioned?"
"lol fuck them, we don't want to be disrepectful to diaspora's tight schedule, they can play something else."

 

[diaspora]

I don't think you're actually reading what I'm saying.
I've said around 5 times now that there are many parts of the game that can be streamlined. But saying it's disrepecting you is complete and utter bullshit, because these aren't tailor-made experiences.

"uh-oh, diaspora only has 30minutes a day to play this game, sooo we should just scrap the 3D galaxy map entirely and replace it with a 2D system that allows you to warp anywhere at any time!"
"but what about the people that enjoy the "space feel" we envisioned?"
"lol fuck them, we don't want to be disrepectful to diaspora's tight schedule, they can play something else."

Besides fixing the inherent design problem of quests taking you to multiple planets the other option is having the option to open the maps of other zones and fast traveling to those areas.

The entire premise behind user experience development as an entire field is to not waste the user's time, and that includes giving them the option to get from A to B if there are 13 steps in between that don't actually contribute anything. Sure in DA:I and Witcher 3 you could ride your horse between signposts/camps to give yourself the feel of exploring a world. But you don't have to. Designing a system requiring over a dozen steps to get anywhere then making quests that make you do it multiple times is thoughtless and consequently disrespectful. Either design quests to not require traveling to 3+ zones because reasons, or offer the option to jump to the area you need to go to because the current model is asinine.

"Disrespect" doesn't mean they said "we're gonna make people jump through 50 hoops on a quest for shits and giggles" it's about a level of thoughtlessness when designing a game to not ask "we have a 13+ step process to switch zones, some quests take you to multiple places, does it make sense to have both?".

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

I don't know why you keep responding with the same stuff, I've said [lost count] times now that "parts of the game can be streamlined".
This isn't a website, it's a videogame with creative vision behind it, if the devs want you to use the tempest to go places, then that's what it is; streamlined UX doesn't mean that you just strip out everything creatively in favour of time, it means you do the best you can within the creative boundaries.

The creative boundary here is: "use the tempest and the 3d map".
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, giving the option to completely circumvent this, makes it a redundant option, one that has no use at all if it is considered "less effecient".

Being the less efficient option is fine bcause it's what they intended the experience to be like (again, let me stress this, streamlining in certain parts is possible, but it's always going to be the tempest and the 3d map) and is not a disrespect to anyone if they can't fit it in their schedule.

 

[diaspora]

I don't know why you keep responding with the same stuff, I've said [lost count] times now that "parts of the game can be streamlined".
This isn't a website, it's a videogame with creative vision behind it, if the devs want you to use the tempest to go places, then that's what it is; streamlined UX doesn't mean that you just strip out everything creatively in favour of time, it means you do the best you can within the creative boundaries.

The creative boundary here is: "use the tempest and the 3d map".
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, giving the option to completely circumvent this, makes it a redundant option, one that has no use at all if it is considered "less effecient".

Being the less efficient option is fine bcause it's what they intended the experience to be like (again, let me stress this, streamlining in certain parts is possible, but it's always going to be the tempest and the 3d map) and is not a disrespect to anyone if they can't fit it in their schedule.

Being an "intended" experience does not absolve it from being bad and inefficient. It's not a question of schedules for fucks sake, it's about a system at odds with the game its in.

Again, other games like Witcher, Inquisition, even something like Pokemon can change their 4~ step process of traveling to one that's a dozen steps long by design, that does not absolve it from being bad, it does not absolve it from being inefficient, or unnecessary. Calling it a part of their creative vision is a condemnation of their vision.