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Mass Effect: Andromeda |OT| Ryders on the Storm

Cornbread78

Member
But I want Cora... if I keep flirting with Peebee and Cora... will I get punished later?

Or will there be a nice thing where the game tells me I must chose at a certain point?

I'm tempted to makeout with Peebee in the escape pod but Cora IS Cora. Lol


There is a point of no return that's pretty obvious, but it doesn't have flashing lights...
They do ask you straight out what they are to you.. I think I hurt Gil the most at this point...

I flirted with everyone at the start, but I had to break Vetra, Cora and Gil's hearts at tjose points and went with Peebee just so I could get the trophy in one playthrough..
 

Mediking

Member
There is a point of no return that's pretty obvious, but it doesn't have flashing lights...
They do ask you straight out what they are to you.. I think I hurt Gil the most at this point...

I flirted with everyone at the start, but I had to break Vetra, Cora and Gil's hearts at tjose points and went with Peebee just so I could get the trophy in one playthrough..

Hmmm.... I see.... so it sounds like... its okay to flirt with who you like... but there will be a point where it's not obvious that you hafta choose one person.

So... I'll makeout with Peebee in that escape Pod.... abd as long as I still do hearts with Cora..... I can be with her later.
 

RPGCrazied

Member
Also playing on regular PS4. Haven't really seen bad framerate.... its smooth for me. I'll go back to Havarl and see if I notice anything.

Really? Well, I looked on youtube for PS4 Havarl and it looked liked what I'm seeing. Just hitching. Its not like bad frame rate, just doesn't seem smooth. On Eos is more smoother, I'm guessing because its just really barren.

Do you have a slim? I'm still using the big fat one.
 

Mediking

Member
Really? Well, I looked on youtube for PS4 Havarl and it looked liked what I'm seeing. Just hitching. Its not like bad frame rate, just doesn't seem smooth. On Eos is more smoother, I'm guessing because its just really barren.

Do you have a slim? I'm still using the big fat one.

Nope Just a regular awesome PS4. Lol I might upgrade to Pro later this year when it gets a price drop.
 

Mediking

Member
I did Cora's Loyalty Mission.

It was amazing.

And I even got closer to her romantically! Yeah!

And I finally got the Nomad a paint job!

Krogan Hammer is SO good but I wanna try out this awesome Asari sword I found.

Also decided to pay tribute and buy the cool N7 outfit.

I'm so addicted to this game. I love it.
 

Cornbread78

Member
I did Cora's Loyalty Mission.
It was amazing.
And I even got closer to her romantically! Yeah!
And I finally got the Nomad a paint job!
Krogan Hammer is SO good but I wanna try out this awesome Asari sword I found.
Also decided to pay tribute and buy the cool N7 outfit.
I'm so addicted to this game. I love it.


Asari sword allows you to teleport as you melee, so it wins by default..
 

Adryuu

Member
Finally just started this today, three hours in and I wonder where the fuck did they learn anatomy, because sisryder is hunched as fuck outside planets and I thought it was just bro, but it affects both protags. Also the first turian's legs are screwed. It's definitely awkward to look at and the field of view doesn't help a bit.

Other than that and animations related to the same problem (weird anatomy), I'm having fun and digging the atmosphere (not every dialog indeed but it's fine and it's mass effect ish), and my Ryder face turn out just fine, so one terror less to worry about. Alec gave me the creeps, though, lol.

I've also noticed like some dialogue option didn't register, like the game chose the other option or it was programmed only for the other one. And only some isolated badly written lines. That with low expectations, if I came with very high ones I'd be somewhat disappointed though.

Can't wait to get my Tempest and crew anyway!


Really? Well, I looked on youtube for PS4 Havarl and it looked liked what I'm seeing. Just hitching. Its not like bad frame rate, just doesn't seem smooth. On Eos is more smoother, I'm guessing because its just really barren.

Do you have a slim? I'm still using the big fat one.

Definitely not so smooth on Habitat 7 (whatever it's called, first planet) when you enter the secondary objective inside the alien budding and turn on the lights. Input went to lag shit. Outside of that it's mostly fine except the final combat in that intro mission, with every crew member plus Alec plus all the enemies... Could be better, but manageable.

I was very worried by this and I expected worse.
 

Ernest

Banned
Took some time (about 5 hours of game time), but this game finally clicked with me.

Of course it doesn't do everything well, but it does enough for me to enjoy it thoroughly.

[positives]
+ exploration/discovery
+ gameplay/mechanics
+ art-design/graphics

[negatives]
- characters/story
- guidance/mission progression

The stuff in the positives are what I primarily play videogames for, the negative stuff is just gravy, so not detrimental to me when they're weak.
 

prag16

Banned
Took some time (about 5 hours of game time), but this game finally clicked with me.

Of course it doesn't do everything well, but it does enough for me to enjoy it thoroughly.

[positives]
+ exploration/discovery
+ gameplay/mechanics
+ art-design/graphics

[negatives]
- characters/story
- guidance/mission progression

The stuff in the positives are what I primarily play videogames for, the negative stuff is just gravy, so not detrimental to me when they're weak.

If you're only 5 hours in, I wouldn't worry too much about the characters. The consensus there among people who have finished (or played a lot of hours of) the game has been mostly positive. They definitely flesh out along the way and I ended up liking most of them a lot.

And I never thought I would be saying this, but ME:A has the series's best krogan.
 

Mediking

Member
This game is way better than the negative reviews would have you believe. So glad I'm playing.

I know, right?! Andromeda is hecka good. This game got wayyy too much hate. It's not even that bad. Like I said... I WILL be making a passionate thread about this game after I beat it.
 

Option-

Member
I know, right?! Andromeda is hecka good. This game got wayyy too much hate. It's not even that bad. Like I said... I WILL be making a passionate thread about this game after I beat it.

yeah but the problem is that is was a bug fest when it got released which lead to humiliating reviews for the franchise
 

MartyStu

Member
I know, right?! Andromeda is hecka good. This game got wayyy too much hate. It's not even that bad. Like I said... I WILL be making a passionate thread about this game after I beat it.

That...won't go very well.

In gaming circles, the biggest sin a game can commit is not being bad, but being mediocre.

And compared with its competition, Mass Effect: Andromeda is mediocre. I have played much worse though.

yeah but the problem is that is was a bug fest when it got released which lead to humiliating reviews for the franchise

There is more to it than that. Bioware have released buggy games in the past. Obsidian as well. CDPR's Witcher 3 had some nasty bugs at launch. And Bethesda is the reigning champ of buggy RPGs.

The bigger issue was some remaining ill will from Mass Effect 3/DA:I in tandem with the game's overall quality not offsetting the bugs.
 

Patryn

Member
I know, right?! Andromeda is hecka good. This game got wayyy too much hate. It's not even that bad. Like I said... I WILL be making a passionate thread about this game after I beat it.
I wish you luck, but you'll only reap a thread of gifs and scorn.
 

prag16

Banned
I know, right?! Andromeda is hecka good. This game got wayyy too much hate. It's not even that bad. Like I said... I WILL be making a passionate thread about this game after I beat it.

I agree, and I will stop by your thread to agree there's too. But I won't be in the majority. Everywhere but the community thread and here, most pretty much claim the game is worse than drinking diarrhea, and you will be met with much scorn.

In gaming circles, the biggest sin a game can commit is not being bad, but being mediocre.

And compared with its competition, Mass Effect: Andromeda is mediocre.
Disagree. It's my current GoTY. After all this is all subjective. And nevertheless, mediocre isn't what most of the dogpilers that will descend on Mediking when he makes his thread will be calling it. They will be calling it steaming awful garbage feces and the like. Probably worse.
 

Mediking

Member
Thanks for the advice and support about the future thread I'm gonna do about Andromeda when I beat the game.

I'm gonna try my best to be passionate yet still mature in the thread.

But still... this game isn't bad at all and I enjoy playing it. I can't stop playing. It's alotta fun and content bursting from it. I'm not even doing all the side-quests. I'm just doing the ones that generally interest me. The writing isn't even bad either!!!
 

Stormus

Member
I have a question for you guys. Let me preface this by saying the following: I was excited for this game when it was announced but was warded off by the lackluster reviews and reported unpolished state of the game. I played the first two ME and really enjoyed them, never touched the third one. It sounds like this game has gone through a fair amount of patching and the price has come down to ~$30ish on PC. In its current state, is the game worth that price?

Thanks in advance!
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Reception is decisively mixed, but I think the main problem you'll face with generally high praise is that you're in a minority. And that's fine, but I don't consider Andromeda necessarily a clear cut case of unwarranted negative bias. The hysteria surrounding certain production deficiencies? Sure. But a lot of people who went in without any inherent negative bias, including huge series fans like myself, still left Andromeda feeling deeply underwhelmed and disappointed.

If it's Game of the Year tier for someone, that's cool, but it definitely seems like a very small percentage of people who played Andromeda and just a reality of the game BioWare made. I wish I could praise it, like I did all three mainline games, but I doubt it'll be in my Top 10 list at all come 2017's end.
 

Ushay

Member
So I'm nearing the end of the game after a solid 65 hour slog with it on Insanity difficulty, here are my thoughts.

Pros
+ Excellent combat, I mean the best the series has had. I feel like this is one the games saving graces.
+ Some of the companions are well done and genuinely relatable and funny. Their loyalty missions were all very cool, but short. Drack and Jaal were the best, by far. Drack is probably the best Krogan in Mass Effect ever.
+ Visually stunning most of the time.

Cons
- Some exceptionally weak writing at times, especially when compared to other games from Bioware.
- I played on patch 1.08, but there were still very obvious scenes were animations were an afterthought.
- Exploration felt very bloated outside of the core story and companion missions. There were simply too may systems to explore, and the tasks (scanning etc) were boring at best. There was no sense of wonder or excitement. They should have reduced the number of systems to 5-6 and made them much more dense in content and story.
- On the back of exploration, I felt side missions were very disjointed and had terrible pacing. Go to THIS side of the galaxy, now go to THIS side. Poor design was obvious.
- Cora, Liam, Peebee and Vetra were very weak companions. Drack and Jaal were the saving graces among the companions.
- Asari faces... ... ...
- UI and interface in general was confused, although pretty.

Overall I would give this game 7/10. It wasn't a terrible game, but had too many flaws next to its sibling games from Biowares roster. They can do much better than this, there were small glimmers of excellence in the game, but too few and far apart to give the game the shine it could have had.
 

Ashtar

Member
I finished this recently, although not an abomination it did have some annoying things that kept me from fully enjoying it. It actually reminds me of AC: Unity in that at some points I was really enjoying it and at others it felt like a total slog and I questioned why i was even bothering with it.

I think tonally it was a lot different than the earlier ME games, it felt to me a lot like a saturday morning cartoon. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not though but some of the dialogue, and action scenes were pretty bad.

The glitches were pretty annoying as well form the persistent hitching when driving the nomad, to ryder's head being on a swivel during some conversations to the game soft crashing during loyalty missions.

I'm not a fan of soft cover, with the only excpetion being Tomb Raider Reboot and this didn't do much to help my feelings. It's just imprecise and at times I would be right in front of what I think should be cover but instead he just stands there taking shots to the face.

On the bright side I did really like some of the characters: Drack was a boss, Cora was my romance and Peebee was pretty good, Vetra and Suvi were also nice. Didn't care for Liam or Jaal though. I thought I was gonna like Liam but he was too much of a cornball and Jaal constantly sounded like he was gargling.

I was actually intrigued by some of the Kett story line stuff and the mission on Harvl (i think) kind of snapped me back into caring until I did the mission on Kadara and stopped caring again. In the end I didn't think the bad guys were as good as prior mass effect games and the Archon himself wasn't very charismatic.
end game spoilers
more specifically the kett turning angarans and krogans into their species caught me off guard and woke me up from the sleep walking i was doing through the game, the angaran also being a created species by the remnants (unless I'm misremebering) was also surprising.

My favorite parts of the game was the interactions with the crew and the combat, i ragged on the soft cover earlier and I think ME3 combat was superior, MEA was still pretty fun and offered more options. I'm not a fan of the R&D though, I wish it was more streamlined, I still didn't have the hang of it after playing for like 40 hours. I ended up with a shot gun with tracking fragments and a laser hurricane SMG.

I probably wouldn't have bought any DLC so no big loss for me.
 

MartyStu

Member
I agree, and I will stop by your thread to agree there's too. But I won't be in the majority. Everywhere but the community thread and here, most pretty much claim the game is worse than drinking diarrhea, and you will be met with much scorn.


Disagree. It's my current GoTY. After all this is all subjective. And nevertheless, mediocre isn't what most of the dogpilers that will descend on Mediking when he makes his thread will be calling it. They will be calling it steaming awful garbage feces and the like. Probably worse.

Right, but we have been around the internet block long enough to know how this works. We love our hyperbole.

I didn't enjoy it that much myself, boiled down my personal gripes to several points:

  • Remnant terraform magic felt cliched and cheapened the struggle
  • SAM as yet another Cortana/Dinklebot exposition + hacking bot
  • The Angaran look awful
  • Facial expressions
  • Unimaginative golden worlds - desert, ice, jungle, mountain, asteroid
  • Busywork sidequests like visit 4 different points on a map
  • Solid combat mechanics let down by the open-world structure watering down encounter design

This cannot be said enough. Every time the main combat is--rightfully--praised I have to stop myself from interjecting and pointing out that the bad encounters pretty much negates all that progress.
 

Renekton

Member
I didn't enjoy it that much myself, boiled down my personal gripes to several points:

  • Remnant terraform magic felt cliched and cheapened the struggle
  • SAM as yet another Cortana/Dinklebot exposition + hacking bot
  • The Angaran look awful
  • Facial expressions
  • Unimaginative golden worlds - desert, ice, jungle, mountain, asteroid
  • Busywork sidequests like visit 4 different points on a map
  • Solid combat mechanics let down by the open-world structure watering down encounter design
 
It's definitely not a bad game, and €30 is a decent price for the amount of content you're getting. Just don't expect a quality level anywhere near the original trilogy.
 

Xenoflare

Member
I'm 30 hours in and overall enjoyed the game more than I thought, thanks to the price tanking so hard. Biotic combos for days


Do you think they will fix the framerate and make it more smooth on PS4? Never had this problem with Inquisition.

From a tech stand point it was very shocking for me to see the performance issues Andromeda has but Inquisition did not. I also don't recall Inquisition downgrades in game cutscenes. Andromeda does this for both console releases where XB1 can dip to a place that is just barely over 720p which is the version I'm on, can be really last gen in certain places. Framerates also tanks pretty hard on the Nexus where loads of NPCs appear. DA:I was completely smooth for me.

I don't think there is a difference between fat and slim PS4s, hell based on DF's analysis the Pro doesn't even have a framerate advantage over the base PS4. Judging by the footage 25-26fps is quite common and you'll notice it if you are sensitive to that
 

K.Jack

Knowledge is power, guard it well
Good luck making a thread on the GOTY worthiness, especially if it's going to be coming from a slant which suggests that people who shit on it were either objectively wrong or exaggerating.

I beat the game with like a 95% completion, and I feel with all certainty, that ME:A deserved all of the scorn and criticism. And I actually enjoyed it.
 
[*]Solid combat mechanics let down by the open-world structure watering down encounter design
Aside from sorting out their shit earlier, I feel like the dev team could've possibly made a stronger game by just ditching the open world element.

Then again, I feel like having the open world stuff flop in such an obvious way benefits the franchise as a whole, because at least they know that stuff like that isn't what people really want when playing a Mass Effect game.
 

SpartanN92

Banned
I just picked it up the other day for $20.
I'm a huge fan of the original trilogy but since announcement day I've been uneasy about this one and when I saw all the reviews I told myself I wouldn't buy it for more than $20.

I'm a few hours in (Just finished the first major mission on EOS) and it's not as bad as I was expecting! That said I'm sure they've done a few patches since launch and fixed some stuff that day 1 people had to deal with.

Really my only gripe is how obnoxious it is when thy say "Pathfinder" like he's Jesus or something.
Like I could understand why people revered Spectres in the original trilogy. They were badass James Bond types basically. I have zero clue why I should be impressed that my character is a "Pathfinder."
 

BumRush

Member
Good luck making a thread on the GOTY worthiness, especially if it's going to be coming from a slant which suggests that people who shit on it were either objectively wrong or exaggerating.

I beat the game with like a 95% completion, and I feel with all certainty, that ME:A deserved all of the scorn and criticism. And I actually enjoyed it.

Did you play post patches?

I'm suuuuuuper curious how things have changed
 
Did you play post patches?

I'm suuuuuuper curious how things have changed
There's a GIF comparison between launch and patched versions of Addison's intro buried in this thread, but I'm not sure what the other animation improvements are.

I know that when I got to Elaaden, I saw a hilariously bad fight between Krogan and that was with a few patches already.
 
Supposedly they fixed the HDR settings so it works without needing it set in the W10 OS. It doesn't work, I just tried it. Maybe they'll have another attempt in the future?
Though to be fair the patch just said - "Improved HDR functionality on Windows 10 Creators Update". Still I think the assumption was you didn't need HDR on in W10 for it to work. But it hasn't worked unfortunately.

I should add that even with HDR on it's washed out and horrible. In fact HDR doesn't work because my TV doesn't notify me. Could be an issue with the latest nvidia driver. But whatever the issue it should be fixed asap.
 

SliChillax

Member
Supposedly they fixed the HDR settings so it works without needing it set in the W10 OS. It doesn't work, I just tried it. Maybe they'll have another attempt in the future?
Though to be fair the patch just said - "Improved HDR functionality on Windows 10 Creators Update". Still I think the assumption was you didn't need HDR on in W10 for it to work. But it hasn't worked unfortunately.

I should add that even with HDR on it's washed out and horrible. In fact HDR doesn't work because my TV doesn't notify me. Could be an issue with the latest nvidia driver. But whatever the issue it should be fixed asap.

Posts like this it's why I haven't bought an HDR monitor/ TV yet. It's still new tech, give it time before it's perfected.
 

Lucreto

Member
I know, right?! Andromeda is hecka good. This game got wayyy too much hate. It's not even that bad. Like I said... I WILL be making a passionate thread about this game after I beat it.

I 100% agree it's a good game and I enjoyed the 80 hours I played the game. People were going to hate on it either way but the buggy beginnings gave them a legitimate reason to hate. If the game wasn't buggy they would complain it wasn't like Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect 1 or Jade Empire. Those style of games are gone. Inquisition style is what the Mass market want. Assassin's Creed sales show this every year.

I will be in your thread posting supporting you in your opinion assuming it remains the same by the end.

The game has its flaws and they could have handled things differently but it's a good Mass Effect game.
 
Posts like this it's why I haven't bought an HDR monitor/ TV yet. It's still new tech, give it time before it's perfected.
The annoying thing is it used to work but it's been fucked up since. And as far as I know HDR in Resident Evil 7 still works. Seems to be an issue with ME:A though the Creators Update hasn't helped at all.
 

Cartho

Member
One thing I dislike is the checkpointing. It's dreadful. I've had, on several occasions, to redo huge portions of a mission just because I got one shot by a boss at the end of a Kett fort.

Really irritating that they lock out saving anywhere for certain missions.
 

Ivory Samoan

Gold Member
The annoying thing is it used to work but it's been fucked up since. And as far as I know HDR in Resident Evil 7 still works. Seems to be an issue with ME:A though the Creators Update hasn't helped at all.

That Creators update made me turn HDR off in W10 also; hopefully they get it sorted soon: annoying as hell.

Came to post this.

Then again this is my first Mass Effect game so I had no clue what to expect.

Probably a good thing playing ME:A first I'd say, then you can move onto the Trilogy....and be significantly more impressed/stoked on life on the Citadel.
 

Isak_Borg

Member
I think it's good with significant and deep flaws.

Yeah, I kind of feel like it lacks directions.

I picked it up after finishing Horizon: Zero Dawn and felt like a huge step down.

I did love the last level and felt epic in proportion but I would have made it the middle of the game and the rest of it about exploration and colony development.

Not a horrible game but really didn't live up to the expectations I had for it.
 
One thing I dislike is the checkpointing. It's dreadful. I've had, on several occasions, to redo huge portions of a mission just because I got one shot by a boss at the end of a Kett fort.

Really irritating that they lock out saving anywhere for certain missions.

Oh yeah I had that on Eos the other day. It's a shame the checkpoint system is so borked because the general combat is really good and the profiles work to diversify the combat while still providing big buffs to what you want to focus on etc...I think the Lead Combat Designer was behind Kingdoms of Amalur which, imo, was another game with a really good combat system but poor encounter design (basically being victims of an open world means there's less chance for well crafted encounters and everything feels like spawn waves of mobs).
 

diaspora

Member
Yeah, I kind of feel like it lacks directions.

I picked it up after finishing Horizon: Zero Dawn and felt like a huge step down.

I did love the last level and felt epic in proportion but I would have made it the middle of the game and the rest of it about exploration and colony development.

Not a horrible game but really didn't live up to the expectations I had for it.

It doesn't have any direction and it's clear in the game; it's like BioWare Montreal took a bunch of talented writers, developers, and artists and had them make a game with zero leadership or creative direction. I still don't know why Alec's memories are unlocked by finding glowing shit across the cluster in random places.

edit; Schreier made this clear when talking about the games development too right? They pissed around for the first 3 years making prototypes and throwing ideas around and actually ended up making a game in the last 18 months. Inquisition for all of its flaws is not directionless.
 
Yeah, I kind of feel like it lacks directions.

I picked it up after finishing Horizon: Zero Dawn and felt like a huge step down.
The Kotaku article about MEA's development raises as many questions as it answers. I know MEA as it exists now is the result of 18 months of effort, but before that article, I had an easier time comprehending the story's failings as the result of a writing staff that wrote themselves into a corner and didn't have much inspiration to draw on. I just wonder how many things the writers had were just little blurbs at best and they had to whip together all this stuff while making sure they could actually accomplish the goals in a realistic manner.

Then again, it doesn't help that I'm not sure when Mac Walters took over. If he only took over in the last 18 months, then the disjointed nature of MEA is more forgivable. If it was even a few months earlier, it makes you wonder whether he was too lenient in some places or Bioware Montreal was too stubborn to let things go.
 
I'm still on the fence. For every good moment there is a mission critical enemy that spawns into a rock, or something similar.

Really want to vent about the stupid little stumble Ryder does after every jetpack boost but whatever. One thing I can't forgive is the awful images of space from the bridge of the ship. 240p jpegs. I thought it was just going to load in slowly but nah.

All around I'm mostly enjoying it. My real frustration comes from seeing how easily you could make this a much better game and the confusion of why the developers couldn't deliver. I hope the franchise isn't dead, but I also feel like if this is the best they can do going forward than maybr it should die. If you can't do it well then just don't do it.
 
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