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Mass Effect: Andromeda |OT| Ryders on the Storm

N

nOoblet16

Member
Zakalwe said:
No I'm not.The personal story of 2 enhances the overall plot. It ups your investment. Without it, the overall plot would lack impact.

Remember, this is not just a novel. This is a game where player investment, choice, experience is what makes the jouncy and destination meaningful. You absolutely cannot separate ME2 from the trilogy and not have it lessen the overall experience greatly.

Technically, yes, you might be able to discern the major plot points without looking at 2, but there's much more to these experiences than that.
Click to expand...

But neither me nor him is disagreeing when you say it ups the investment, building connection and such is what ME2 did but it only affects you...the player. In terms of the narrative not much happens which is what we are saying.

I played ME1 then waited a few years to see where this story would go after the Citadel attack, learn about the Reapers true nature and why they are beyond our understanding (which never really went anywhere even in ME3 lol), instead I got a game about building relationship and exposition into a whole lot of other stuff unconnected to the reapers...which was fine but not what I wanted or expected back then.
 
Z

Zakalwe

Banned
nOoblet16 said:
But neither me nor him is disagreeing when you say it ups the investment, building connection and such is what ME2 did...but it only affects you the player. In terms of the narrative not much happens which is what we are saying.

I played ME1 then waited a few years to see where this story would go after the Citadel attack, learn about the Reapers true nature and why they are beyond our understanding (which never really went anywhere even in ME3 lol), instead I got a game about building relationship...which was fine but not what I wanted or expected back then.
Click to expand...

A /lot/ happens to the narrative... it gets bolstered by the relationships you foster.

The narrative itself does not exist in a vacuum. Again, these games are about the player experience as much as the overall plot. Without 2, 3 becomes a shell in that regard.

The observation that "the plot doesn't advance" is really quite inane here, it ignores too much about how these games work. Mass Effect 2 allows us to invest to the point that the coming war has real impact (or at least in theory, depending how successful you found 3 to be with the pay off) without it the overall plot just isn't anywhere near as strong.

With the way these games are made, 2 is /essential/ to the overall plot.
 
Ascenion

Ascenion

Member
Maledict said:
Um, the revelation that Reapers are actually made from species they harvested is fairly important for them and the trilogy I feel. It's not just "we make them in a factory", it reveals a huge part of them we didn't learn in the first game. And the discovery that the Collectors were Protheans altered and corrupted by the Reapers also adds backstory to them (and sets up the enemy types in ME3). The Reapers not only possess unbeatable spaceships, they also have the ability to corrupt and enslave races they defeat and turn them into unthinking weapons who work for them. That goes a lot further than anything we've seen previously with the dragons teeth (which were thought to be Geth anyway. It's all lore and backstory to the species which I enjoyed and was interested to find out.

ME2 wasn't bungled, ME3 and the entire concept of the game having the reapers fighting us all from the start was the bungle. They had to *significantly* downgrade the power of the reapers to make it work, and it reduced them from an unstoppable force of god to a really, really strong enemy.

Re element of surprise - what do you think anyone could have done if the Reaper fleet just appeared in Batarian space, flew to the citedal, and shut down the relay network? Absolutely nothing at all - they would be totally unstoppable. They had the element of surprise had they just used that relay. Heck, it's more a surprise than a hundred year war involving the Rachnii slowly conquering the galaxy and the citedal, or the Geth doing the same!
Click to expand...
If they just blow in to Batarian space someone is gonna alert the council with evidence and they will mobilize. Not that it mattered but still, they didn't want that.

The entire point of the Reapers was they were unknowable and foreboding. That made them scary. What you describe is unnecessary exposition which led to the whole they aren't actually bad guys, they wanna save us garbage that damaged the Trilogy. In a vacuum ME2 is exemplary as a sequel it fails. And this isn't me saying I didn't enjoy it, I did. This is me saying it wasn't done well and based on the way it was presented you can skip ME2 and not miss a beat.

Zakalwe said:
No I'm not.The personal story of 2 enhances the overall plot. It ups your investment. Without it, the overall plot would lack impact.

Remember, this is not just a novel. This is a game where player investment, choice, experience is what makes the jouncy and destination meaningful. You absolutely cannot separate ME2 from the trilogy and not have it lessen the overall experience greatly.

Technically, yes, you might be able to discern the major plot points without looking at 2, but there's much more to these experiences than that.
Click to expand...

You're still missing my point. ME2 sans DLC does not move the plot forward. It's in the same position that it was at the end of ME1. No one believes you really, and the Reapers are coming. You've found no way to stop them, you've not proved their existence to the Galaxy. You're still fucked atm. It's a waste of 60 hours to me to move the plot nowhere but on a BS tangent with collectors.
 
Z

Zakalwe

Banned
Ascenion said:
You're still missing my point. ME2 sans DLC does not move the plot forward. It's in the same position that it was at the end of ME1. No one believes you really, and the Reapers are coming. You've found no way to stop them, you've not proved their existence to the Galaxy. You're still fucked atm. It's a waste of 60 hours to me to move the plot nowhere but on a BS tangent with collectors.
Click to expand...

The point is the observation that 2 doesn't move the plot forward is utterly inane. It /bolsters/ the plot in a way that is /essential/.

Without 2, the overall plot is pretty meaningless in a game that requires player investment. 2 makes that investment happen.

Your assessment is pretty bizarre.
 
M

Maledict

Member
I just disagree fundamentally I think on what you consider to be moving the plot forwards or not. The way it was set up in ME1, I always expected the second game to be us foiling another Reaper plot - because the first game had made it very clear that if they actually showed up, we instantly lose. ME2 was about their second attempt, a much more subtle and hidden one that the first game, and how we stopped it (and saved countless lives, forged a crack team etc).

Re surprise, I'm not sure you get my point. If the reaper fleet turns up in Batarian space they will be at the citadel before the citadel can be alerted. The Batarian's aren't part of citadel space, they don't share anything. even if they did, citedal space doesn't have vast fleets on hand to stop an unbeatable attack anyways (Heck, we have to presume that the only reason they have such fleet sin ME3 is because of the attacks in ME1 by the Geth - it's not like there are any other hostile forces around).

Same issue of course happens in Me3 - why didn't the reapers just go to the citadel and deactivate the mass relay network?
 
M

Meowster

Member
I'm fine with the war table/strike mission stuff if they have a companion app like Andromeda has. That thing has been a life saver. I can just check on it while I'm at the store or at work and see how I did and start new missions, etc.
 
S

Sterling's_Gold

Member
Maledict said:
Same issue of course happens in Me3 - why didn't the reapers just go to the citadel and deactivate the mass relay network?
Click to expand...

Because they instead decided that attacking Earth was more important. Harbinger knew that to win, the Reapers must defeat Space Jesus. He knew that the only way this was possible was to exploit Shepard's weakness: Vent Kid. Killing Vent Kid would plague Shepard with nightmares, rendering him/her too psychologically damaged to win the war.
 
Ascenion

Ascenion

Member
Zakalwe said:
The point is the observation that 2 doesn't move the plot forward is utterly inane. It /bolsters/ the plot in a way that is /essential/.

Without 2, the overall plot is pretty meaningless in a game that requires player investment. 2 makes that investment happen.

Your assessment is pretty bizarre.
Click to expand...

It is not essential. If it was then those characters couldn't be dead. You can end ME2 with most of them dead play ME3 and it doesn't skip a beat. It bolsters the experience yes, and I definitely prefer ME3 with them and the bonds from 2. But they aren't necessary. Hell you can not even recruit some of them. My point stands. ME2 doesn't move the overall plot forward. Nothing you do in ME2 changes anything, or even really gives you an advantage going into 3. You're building variables to make ME3 a more enriching experience but you aren't affecting the plot.
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Asari ark primer quest:
Travel to Eos to speak to an Asari for 30 seconds. Travel to Voeld, drive out to signal. It's a false positive, so chase four more "relatively close" (read: not close) to find the right one
.

This is drivel.
 
M

Maledict

Member
Ascenion said:
It is not essential. If it was then those characters couldn't be dead. You can end ME2 with most of them dead play ME3 and it doesn't skip a beat. It bolsters the experience yes, and I definitely prefer ME3 with them and the bonds from 2. But they aren't necessary. Hell you can not even recruit some of them. My point stands. ME2 doesn't move the overall plot forward. Nothing you do in ME2 changes anything, or even really gives you an advantage going into 3. You're building variables to make ME3 a more enriching experience but you aren't affecting the plot.
Click to expand...

But it does?

If you don't stop the Collectors in Me2, what happens?

Well, the obvious main point is that at some point in the future, a new Sovereign class Reaper is going to be active in Citadel space again, made from humans. Obviously we don't know exactly what it will do, but its pretty much guaranteed to involve another attempt at taking the Citadel, locking the mass relay network down and bringing the reaper fleet in.

How exactly is that not important to the plot? You're literally preventing what you stopped in ME1 happening a second time around, at the same time as you save the lives of millions of humans across the Terminus systems.
 
M

Meowster

Member
EatChildren said:
Asari ark primer quest:
Travel to Eos to speak to an Asari for 30 seconds. Travel to Voeld, drive out to signal. It's a false positive, so chase four more "relatively close" (read: not close) to find the right one
.

This is drivel.
Click to expand...
I luckily found the right one on my first try lol.
 
N

nOoblet16

Member
Zakalwe said:
A /lot/ happens to the narrative... it gets bolstered by the relationships you foster.

The narrative itself does not exist in a vacuum. Again, these games are about the player experience as much as the overall plot. Without 2, 3 becomes a shell in that regard.

The observation that "the plot doesn't advance" is really quite inane here, it ignores too much about how these games work. Mass Effect 2 allows us to invest to the point that the coming war has real impact (or at least in theory, depending how successful you found 3 to be with the pay off) without it the overall plot just isn't anywhere near as strong.

With the way these games are made, 2 is /essential/ to the overall plot.
Click to expand...

I am not arguing about what significance it has to the player and the story that player experiences because I understand how it works and how you need to build a relationship in order for it to matter in the 3rd game. All I am saying is that it you can have plot progression and provide plot relevance via character interaction both at the same time as they aren't mutually exclusive. Instead of having those awesome character interaction built around a main plot that does not inherently go anywhere, they could have had it built around something else. I'll explain what I mean when I say go anywhere by talking about Andromeda itself, similar to ME2 the majority of the story in Andromeda is about your interaction with the world and the people in it, which is great actually as it involves you at a deeper level ! Yet despite that it has a plot has a very clear linear progression, by the end of the game you are definitely in a different place than you were at the start and things are different.

Contrast this to ME2 which starts right off where ME1 finished i.e. "The reapers are coming but council doesn't believe Shepard", it then introduces a new plot thread that seemingly builds upon previous story. You then spend an entire game's worth of time building relationship and getting invested into the world (which provides you the connection needed to experience ME3) but by the time this new plot is resolved you end up in the same place where you were at the start (plus the exposition and character building) i.e. "The reapers are coming but council doesn't believe Shepard". And what's funny is that the one group that believed you from the start, funded you, brought you back from the dead is the one group you spend half of the next game fighting against.
 
X

X-Frame

Member
BioWare needs to remove the zooming in on planets when traveling between them ASAP. And possibly speed up the movement a bit more.

It's crazy how quickly this gets old, especially when there doesn't seem to be that much benefit to exploring every planet.
 
Ascenion

Ascenion

Member
Maledict said:
But it does?

If you don't stop the Collectors in Me2, what happens?

Well, the obvious main point is that at some point in the future, a new Sovereign class Reaper is going to be active in Citadel space again, made from humans. Obviously we don't know exactly what it will do, but its pretty much guaranteed to involve another attempt at taking the Citadel, locking the mass relay network down and bringing the reaper fleet in.

How exactly is that not important to the plot? You're literally preventing what you stopped in ME1 happening a second time around, at the same time as you save the lives of millions of humans across the Terminus systems.
Click to expand...

They are arguing that it's essential due to character interactions, which it isn't due to how ME3 carries on without those characters. If you don't stop the collector's in ME2 the same thing that happens 6 months later simply happens anyway. And you save humans that died 6 months later anyway.

ME3 undermines 2, but still works fine with ME1. This invalidates ME2's already weak plot in the grand scheme because you go from the reapers are coming and I'm going to stop them, to the reapers are coming and instead of finding a way to stop them they are still coming and I've done nothing. Which is nowhere.
 
P

Pedersen

Member
Ehh

If you needed to scratch your butt Peebee you could've just asked

masseffect_andromeda2hzueq.png
Click to expand...
 
M

Maledict

Member
Ascenion said:
They are arguing that it's essential due to character interactions, which it isn't due to how ME3 carries on without those characters. If you don't stop the collector's in ME2 the same thing that happens 6 months later simply happens anyway. And you save humans that died 6 months later anyway.

ME3 undermines 2, but still works fine with ME1. This invalidates ME2's already weak plot in the grand scheme because you go from the reapers are coming and I'm going to stop them, to the reapers are coming and instead of finding a way to stop them they are still coming and I've done nothing. Which is nowhere.
Click to expand...

Which is my entire point. ME2 works with ME1, and yes ME3 works with ME1 as well - but ME3 does't work with ME2, and as it's the game that came later the fault for that has to lie on it surely?

I'd also say that without ME2, Me3 would be a terrible game. It has enough faults already, but it also has some unbelievable highs which are purely as a result of the pay-off from ME2. Mordin, Thane, Legion, Garrus etc - basically everything good in Me3 relies on ME2 to work. Take ME2 out and the series to be frank would be a bit of a pile of poo, and definitely not the best ever... ;-)
 
H

HariKari

Member
EatChildren said:
Asari ark primer quest:
Travel to Eos to speak to an Asari for 30 seconds. Travel to Voeld, drive out to signal. It's a false positive, so chase four more "relatively close" (read: not close) to find the right one
.

This is drivel.
Click to expand...

The game really falls apart when you start running around to do basic things once the major self-contained planet quests are completed. I feel like the back third is really propped up by the good loyalty missions, with the rest being nonsense. If you want to 100% clear a place, you'll spend a ton of time just going through the flying and loading animations.
 
S

Solid Sora

Member
I was enjoying the game since the beginning, but damn it got a lot better since I arrived on Kadara. Tension, opposing factions, memorable charismatic NPCs, and great loyalty missions to boot. Last 5 hours were classic ME goodness.
 
R

RedlineRonin

Member
EatChildren said:
Asari ark primer quest:
Travel to Eos to speak to an Asari for 30 seconds. Travel to Voeld, drive out to signal. It's a false positive, so chase four more "relatively close" (read: not close) to find the right one
.

This is drivel.
Click to expand...

Just did that one.

Agreed.

I just don't get all the busy work in this game. I will gladly play a shorter game if the trade off is less meaningless content.
 
Z

Zakalwe

Banned
Ascenion said:
It is not essential. If it was then those characters couldn't be dead. You can end ME2 with most of them dead play ME3 and it doesn't skip a beat. It bolsters the experience yes, and I definitely prefer ME3 with them and the bonds from 2. But they aren't necessary. Hell you can not even recruit some of them. My point stands. ME2 doesn't move the overall plot forward. Nothing you do in ME2 changes anything, or even really gives you an advantage going into 3. You're building variables to make ME3 a more enriching experience but you aren't affecting the plot.
Click to expand...

And their deaths would have consequence and impact on the player character...

Honestly, you're not doing yourself any favours with these arguments. Your point remains pretty pointless in the context of what these games are about: the player experience.
 
formasymphonic

formasymphonic

Member
Ascenion said:
The entire point of the Reapers was they were unknowable and foreboding. That made them scary. What you describe is unnecessary exposition which led to the whole they aren't actually bad guys, they wanna save us garbage that damaged the Trilogy. In a vacuum ME2 is exemplary as a sequel it fails. And this isn't me saying I didn't enjoy it, I did. This is me saying it wasn't done well and based on the way it was presented you can skip ME2 and not miss a beat.
Click to expand...

Unknowable and foreboding is only usable to a point. While its initially valuable for adding mystery and interest — there comes point where your audience wants answers. While many people enjoy speculation, they do so because on some level they find the pursuit of those answers enjoyable. In that sense, exposition itself isn't a flaw of a narrative. And its not wrong for the audience to have expectations that a sequel would provide them with answers to questions, or fleshing out of information and ideas that were initially unknowable.

Mass Effect 2 doesn't just provide answers/information/expansion of ideas for the reapers — it provides them for the game universe itself, not to mention the setup for some of what it provides for ME3. That's as much a part of the story as the antagonists.

You're free to disagree with that of course, but I can't see the ME franchise being anything other than weaker in the absence of what Mass Effect 2 brought to it.
 
Z

Zakalwe

Banned
nOoblet16 said:
I am not arguing about what significance it has to the player and the story that player experiences because I understand how it works and how you need to build a relationship in order for it to matter in the 3rd game. All I am saying is that it you can have plot progression and provide plot relevance via character interaction both at the same time as they aren't mutually exclusive. Instead of having those awesome character interaction built around a main plot that does not inherently go anywhere, they could have had it built around something else. I'll explain what I mean when I say go anywhere by talking about Andromeda itself, similar to ME2 the majority of the story in Andromeda is about your interaction with the world and the people in it, which is great actually as it involves you at a deeper level ! Yet despite that it has a plot has a very clear linear progression, by the end of the game you are definitely in a different place than you were at the start and things are different.
Click to expand...

Except your missing another reason why 2 is the way it is: downtime.

Sometimes having a quiet before the storm is a very effective way to help build tension, and 2 does this very well with the insidious reaper/collector plot and the focus on character development.

A story that's full throttle the entire time will have terrible pacing, for example.

Again: yes, the overall plot is slower in 2, but sometimes /that very thing/ is whats required, and 2 proves that to be an effective narrative device.

formasymphonic said:
Unknowable and foreboding is only usable to a point. While its initially valuable for adding mystery and interest — there comes point where your audience wants answers. While many people enjoy speculation, they do so because on some level they find the pursuit of those answers enjoyable. In that sense, exposition itself isn't a flaw of a narrative. And its not wrong for the audience to have expectations that a sequel would provide them with answers to questions, or fleshing out of information and ideas that were initially unknowable.

Mass Effect 2 doesn't just provide answers/information/expansion of ideas for the reapers — it provides them for the game universe itself, not to mention the setup for some of what it provides for ME3. That's as much a part of the story as the antagonists.

You're free to disagree with that of course, but I can't see the ME franchise being anything other than weaker in the absence of what Mass Effect 2 brought to it.
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
Allnamestakenlol

Allnamestakenlol

Member
X-Frame said:
BioWare needs to remove the zooming in on planets when traveling between them ASAP. And possibly speed up the movement a bit more.

It's crazy how quickly this gets old, especially when there doesn't seem to be that much benefit to exploring every planet.
Click to expand...

For me, it's become a deterrent to space travel. I spend as much time as possible on each planet, and I refuse to go to any I can't land on.

Pedersen said:
Ehh

If you needed to scratch your butt Peebee you could've just asked
Click to expand...

Lol, she will do that randomly throughout the ship.
 
H

HariKari

Member
Allnamestakenlol said:
For me, it's become a deterrent to space travel. I spend as much time as possible on each planet, and I refuse to go to any I can't land on.
Click to expand...

Doesn't seem like there's any real point to exploring like the old games. I've yet to find anything really interesting. Not missing the small amount of materials you get from it, so I stopped doing it as well. They could have at least tossed you some AVP for scouting out planets but nope.
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
EatChildren said:
Asari ark primer quest:
Travel to Eos to speak to an Asari for 30 seconds. Travel to Voeld, drive out to signal. It's a false positive, so chase four more "relatively close" (read: not close) to find the right one
.

This is drivel.
Click to expand...

I don't see the issue with this. Cora gets a lead you follow it to Eos, follow that lead to Voeld and that lead eventually to the Ark.
It's busywork sure but that isn't inherently bad. All the while you have Cora with you and can talk to her between the missions and listen to her in the Nomad. I didn't go through every map doing all of it at once so whenever I make a trip I can discover something new.
 
S

Smiley90

Stop shitting on my team. Start shitting on my finger.
Does anyone have a good sentinel build? I've been getting by with full Angaran armor, singularity/energy drain/backlash but... i feel like I'm playing it all wrong. I JUST realized nova&lance at higher levels can use shields instead of recharge so with my build already being all shield-y I'll probably switch to that. Maybe pair it with Annihilation for closer range than singularity?

(Not wanting to go the melee/vanguard route)
 
N

nOoblet16

Member
dubq said:
Why do the Omni tools look like shit in this game? They're all blocky and pixelated on ps4..
Click to expand...
They look the same on PC too.
I don't know why they made it that way, maybe they wanted to make it look "busy" without actually having any screens pop up anytime you used it but that still doesnt make much sense.
 
H

HariKari

Member
nOoblet16 said:
They look the same on PC too.
I don't know why they made it that way, maybe they wanted to make it look "busy" without actually having any screens pop up anytime you used it but that still doesnt make much sense.
Click to expand...

It's a weird choice, given that nearly every computer screen in the game is just a still image (the same one to boot).
 
F

Familienoberhauptvogel

Banned
Smiley90 said:
Does anyone have a good sentinel build? I've been getting by with full Angaran armor, singularity/energy drain/backlash but... i feel like I'm playing it all wrong. I JUST realized nova&lance at higher levels can use shields instead of recharge so with my build already being all shield-y I'll probably switch to that. Maybe pair it with Annihilation for closer range than singularity?

(Not wanting to go the melee/vanguard route)
Click to expand...
I don't like using shields to power abilities on higher difficulties. I went Energy Drain, Backlash, Lance. If you take the right passives you can get shields from low health and regen health whenever you use a tech skill. Tech abilities can also reduce currently active CDs, which lets you rapidly lance anyways.
 
S

Smiley90

Stop shitting on my team. Start shitting on my finger.
Familienoberhauptvogel said:
I don't like using shields to power abilities on higher difficulties. I went Energy Drain, Backlash, Lance. If you take the right passives you can get shields from low health and regen health whenever you use a tech skill. Tech abilities can also reduce currently active CDs, which lets you rapidly lance anyways.
Click to expand...

But aren't you completely missing out on combo primers that way? And the combo damage bonuses? Together with the weapon mod that restores shields on each kill I wouldn't feel so bad about using shields to power abilities
 
Lashley

Lashley

Why does he wear the mask!?
Hasphat'sAnts said:
O my god I died on the last leg of the conduit.

Autosave knocked me all the way back to the beginning of the boss fight.

Fuck this game.
Click to expand...

I HATE the save system in this, it's my biggest complaint. WHY limit when we can save? The autosaving is useless
 
Z

Zakalwe

Banned
Smiley90 said:
But aren't you completely missing out on combo primers that way? And the combo damage bonuses? Together with the weapon mod that restores shields on each kill I wouldn't feel so bad about using shields to power abilities
Click to expand...

You can spec energy drain to prime for combos. It's the top second alt-option in the tree.
 
M

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
dragn said:
im lvl 12 and dont get xp from battles anymore, are the enemies to lowlvl?
Click to expand...

Somtimes, instead of getting xp for each individual enemy, you get them just for 'clearing' an area

I.e. instead of seeing 50 xp or w/e show up, it shows nothing until you clear out the area, and then you get 200 or w/e.

I also don't appear to get any xp from just random world encounters with the native wildlife. It's definitely odd.
 
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