I mean, just because you personally aren't vibing with the writing (even if it isn't perfect, to be fair) doesn't mean the writing is objectively terrible and the writers are idiots. I don't think it's that bad so far, but I guess I'm just idiotic?
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Mass Effect: Andromeda |OT| Ryders on the Storm
- Thread starter Blue Ninja
- Start date
I mean, just because you personally aren't vibing with the writing (even if it isn't perfect, to be fair) doesn't mean the writing is objectively terrible and the writers are idiots. I don't think it's that bad so far, but I guess I'm just idiotic?
Outrun
Member
I do feel some sympathy though. I am plodding away, but I am in constant disbelief how so many aspects of this game made it to the final sign off.
The writing is off.
The animation is off.
The graphical glitches are legion.
ME deserved better than this from EA and BioWare.
I would not blame those tasked with the job. I blame those managers that tasked those that needed more experience or talent on a major project.
Outrun
Member
That scene right after
Ryder losses his dad is objectively terrible because those characters did not respond to the death as they should have.
base shagohod
Member
Definitely.. it'll be interesting if we ever get to find out what went wrong in development to cause the things you listed, too. People are thinking it was rushed, right?
Wow I love this Steelbook. I'm not saying it's anything out of the ordinary, but it's great to at least have that with the conventional ME CE packaging no longer being available. I had no idea it was a BB exclusive when I got it though and find that to be kind of messed up. Free with game purchase, $20 if you want it on it's own. Damn you EA.
Yeah Ryder looks really good here, I'd say way above adequate for a realistic character model. It really has to be the animation system screwing with her in particular, just in terms of putting her face into unnatural positions that comes off as very off putting even in stills. To my surprise Peebee also looks beyond adequate here as well. It's crazy how goofy she can generally look, but it shows you the baseline structure is there for some characters to meet general standards for character models these days.
Some screens (tried to keep them as non spoilery as possible), default Sarah Ryder is actually quite alright. I think it's just that her animations have to be generalised as she can look like anything due to the character creator. The other characters don't have this limitation so they are a lot more expressive and fine tuned in comparison, while characters like Addison are bottom tier in terms of quality. Still I really think all of that pre release stuff about animations was way overblown as it was a culmination of all bad stuff/glitches and exploiting animations at one place.
Yeah Ryder looks really good here, I'd say way above adequate for a realistic character model. It really has to be the animation system screwing with her in particular, just in terms of putting her face into unnatural positions that comes off as very off putting even in stills. To my surprise Peebee also looks beyond adequate here as well. It's crazy how goofy she can generally look, but it shows you the baseline structure is there for some characters to meet general standards for character models these days.
BizzyBum
Member
I'd say the general consensus so far is that it's an average to good game but this is woefully abysmal for a new Mass Effect developed by two major studios for 5+ years. We traveled 2 million light years to another galaxy and its mind boggling how "samey" everything feels. It's just a very uninspired game.
I wish those people who want to pool "omg how bad this game is" vitriol would leave the OT ...
Anyway, fuck this decision at
Anyway, fuck this decision at
Voeld
Do I destroy the facility and kill countless angara including their scientists,
soldiers etc. OR do I leave it to the Kett who will inevitably fill it up again?!?
soldiers etc. OR do I leave it to the Kett who will inevitably fill it up again?!?
FrontalMonk
Banned
I think I may be the only one who really enjoys the new galaxy map.Swooping around from planet to planet.
I kinda like it, but I wish there was a fast forward button. I hate sitting through the whole animation, zoom in, zoom out, and then scan, just to find that there's nothing there.
Ryder didn't really know
Alec. The guy was for the most part if not entirely an absentee father.
I disagree, there's plenty of exotic alien looking stuff in where for it to feel different. You also see that Andromeda is far less culturally, socially, economically and structurally advanced compared to the Milky way society.
Mostly spoiler-free impressions from the first ten hours:
I hated Eos and was ready to quit the game. I didn't find driving the new Mako fun with enemies popping up out of nowhere to give me shit. (And oh the joy that when I decided to engage them, I jumped out of my vehicle to find that they had all disappeared.) The first task I did on the planet was shit. The main missions I did weren't interesting. Mining was boring and unintuitive. The combat itself was kinda fun but that's a whole lot of crap to wade through to get to the good stuff and even the shooting feels a bit off to me.
But here's the thing: I like the Nexus and Tempest. I enjoy walking around and hearing about people's histories and why they joined the Initiative. Or in the case of the Director, why I need to work harder. Or in the case of some lackey who refused to give me her name, why I'm a shithead. I even like running around the station doing the exact same fetch quests I hated on EOS. I enjoyed having a drink with one of my crew mates. I enjoyed investigating
I liked debating
Then I went to the next planet and,
I was home. I was finally playing a Mass Effect game.
Will I hate the game again on the next planet? We'll see. So far it's been a whirlwind of disappointment, hate, and, yes, grudging appreciation.
I hated Eos and was ready to quit the game. I didn't find driving the new Mako fun with enemies popping up out of nowhere to give me shit. (And oh the joy that when I decided to engage them, I jumped out of my vehicle to find that they had all disappeared.) The first task I did on the planet was shit. The main missions I did weren't interesting. Mining was boring and unintuitive. The combat itself was kinda fun but that's a whole lot of crap to wade through to get to the good stuff and even the shooting feels a bit off to me.
But here's the thing: I like the Nexus and Tempest. I enjoy walking around and hearing about people's histories and why they joined the Initiative. Or in the case of the Director, why I need to work harder. Or in the case of some lackey who refused to give me her name, why I'm a shithead. I even like running around the station doing the exact same fetch quests I hated on EOS. I enjoyed having a drink with one of my crew mates. I enjoyed investigating
why there were power outages all over the station.
my co-pilot about religion.
Then I went to the next planet and,
while stupidity abounds in the diplomatic negotiations required to contrive the arrival of a new team member, I didn't mind. I was walking on an alien planet in an alien city surrounded by aliens. Not the best designed aliens, or the most alien aliens, but aliens nonetheless.
Will I hate the game again on the next planet? We'll see. So far it's been a whirlwind of disappointment, hate, and, yes, grudging appreciation.
Blue Ninja
Member
Feel free to put one up!
Now that I'm on a PC and not on my phone, figured I'd throw my hat into the ring with some quick impressions after 22 hours of game play.To give a quick idea of where I'm at: I've got all six squad mates unlocked and have had the last for a couple of hours now.
From a technical perspective: I'm not impressed at all. Not even counting the issues with facial animations, lip syncing and animations in general -- this game has been rough for me technically. In 22 hours, I've have quest objects I needed to scan not scan -- or I did scan them, and it didn't update the quest journal to trigger the next part of the quest. Both were fixed by reloading the most recent save, and I've now taken to saving before any quest scans now because of it.
I've had the signature Bioware exorcist moment (the spinning head). Multiple times where I've had clone squad mates wandering around each other, either just chilling or having one walking around in the background while I was already talking to the same squad mate. I've had emails referencing things a squad mate did when I hadn't even met them yet. I've had the nomad fall through the ground and get stuck.
Weird performance issues (I'm on PS4 Pro). Let me preface these by saying I'm not sure if this is because its an issue with the PS4 version, or if its an issue with me playing the game off an external hard drive via usb. That said, I platinumed Horizon off the same drive without having any issues.
Textures not loading in properly, or taking sometime to load in. I don't mean popup (which got much worse and far more noticable once I actually got ahold of the Nomad). I mean there will be a cinematic conversation, where the screen has a closeup of a character and the character's texture takes a few moments to load in fully, leaving a blurry smudgy look -- and these can happen multiple times in the same conversation with the same character.
The game just freezing for upwards of 3 seconds when going very fast in the Nomad, or constantly boosting forward as Ryder. (Has anyone had this happen on a stock internal drive?)
The in game map loading with messed up textures / appearance -- like broken polygons everywhere. Sometimes I have to exit and re-load the map twice before it loads correctly.
Those are just things from a technical standpoint that have been a disappointment.
As far as the writing there's really only been a handful of things that I have outright cringed at or wondered what the hell they were thinking -- for the most part the story and writing hasn't bothered me and I've found it fine. But for me, this game IS Mass Effect. Despite all the glaring technical issues, all the jank, some of the complaints I have with things that are game play designs that I disagree with or issues with how the side quests have been done. I am loving my time with it.
Even the 'loading' screens when you're going from planet to planet (or from system to system) -- I love that it gives the feeling of standing there, on the bridge of the Tempest, watching space go by like you're really the Captain of the ship in the moment. It's possible it'll get tedious, but after a dozen or so hours it hasn't yet.
I'm enjoying the different personalities of the crew and squad you interact with on the tempest, and the random little conversations they have among themselves that you can wander into randomly when exploring the ship. How that when exploring off the beaten path, that yes you can actually find things you probably wouldn't if you just followed the quests and quest markers. This game invokes similar feelings I had the first time I played the first Mass Effect game. It's not a perfect game, it's not a technically competent game -- but for me, it's a fun game that I'm having a great time with.
From a technical perspective: I'm not impressed at all. Not even counting the issues with facial animations, lip syncing and animations in general -- this game has been rough for me technically. In 22 hours, I've have quest objects I needed to scan not scan -- or I did scan them, and it didn't update the quest journal to trigger the next part of the quest. Both were fixed by reloading the most recent save, and I've now taken to saving before any quest scans now because of it.
I've had the signature Bioware exorcist moment (the spinning head). Multiple times where I've had clone squad mates wandering around each other, either just chilling or having one walking around in the background while I was already talking to the same squad mate. I've had emails referencing things a squad mate did when I hadn't even met them yet. I've had the nomad fall through the ground and get stuck.
Weird performance issues (I'm on PS4 Pro). Let me preface these by saying I'm not sure if this is because its an issue with the PS4 version, or if its an issue with me playing the game off an external hard drive via usb. That said, I platinumed Horizon off the same drive without having any issues.
Textures not loading in properly, or taking sometime to load in. I don't mean popup (which got much worse and far more noticable once I actually got ahold of the Nomad). I mean there will be a cinematic conversation, where the screen has a closeup of a character and the character's texture takes a few moments to load in fully, leaving a blurry smudgy look -- and these can happen multiple times in the same conversation with the same character.
The game just freezing for upwards of 3 seconds when going very fast in the Nomad, or constantly boosting forward as Ryder. (Has anyone had this happen on a stock internal drive?)
The in game map loading with messed up textures / appearance -- like broken polygons everywhere. Sometimes I have to exit and re-load the map twice before it loads correctly.
Those are just things from a technical standpoint that have been a disappointment.
As far as the writing there's really only been a handful of things that I have outright cringed at or wondered what the hell they were thinking -- for the most part the story and writing hasn't bothered me and I've found it fine. But for me, this game IS Mass Effect. Despite all the glaring technical issues, all the jank, some of the complaints I have with things that are game play designs that I disagree with or issues with how the side quests have been done. I am loving my time with it.
Even the 'loading' screens when you're going from planet to planet (or from system to system) -- I love that it gives the feeling of standing there, on the bridge of the Tempest, watching space go by like you're really the Captain of the ship in the moment. It's possible it'll get tedious, but after a dozen or so hours it hasn't yet.
I'm enjoying the different personalities of the crew and squad you interact with on the tempest, and the random little conversations they have among themselves that you can wander into randomly when exploring the ship. How that when exploring off the beaten path, that yes you can actually find things you probably wouldn't if you just followed the quests and quest markers. This game invokes similar feelings I had the first time I played the first Mass Effect game. It's not a perfect game, it's not a technically competent game -- but for me, it's a fun game that I'm having a great time with.
Darkstorne
Member
I hope they dig into "why" though (haven't played more than the trial yet myself). My thoughts going in were: "All intelligent life in the Milky Way's history has been reset every 50k years by the Reapers, stunting how far they can develop. How have other galaxies developed without that hard reset button?"
I was expecting to meet civilizations competely different and significantly more advanced, but at first glance it looks like... just more bipeds without any noticeable technological differences. Certainly nothing significant technologically. But maybe that's where the Remnant story fits in? I'm looking forward to playing this one day but with the low quality of writing on display I'm worried they haven't even THOUGHT about the 50k reset thing, let alone created some decent explanations...
yankeehater
Member
I keep hoping so.
I'm not clear on what the Strike team rewards are. I understand that they are AI teams that you recruit and send them on timed missions, and if they succeed they get XP and rewards, but are those rewards for MP or SP? What specifically are the rewards for successfully completing a strike mission?
My thoughts exactly.
Ivory Samoan
Gold Member
I think I may be the only one who really enjoys the new galaxy map.
I'm with you mate, I'm digging the swoop as well.
I'm playing this like a space MMO, taking my time and smelling all the (alien) flowers, like a relaxing 70s space adventure, with Thundercats.
Says who?
They're for SP. In the strike team interface, you can navigate to another tab where you can claim your rewards.
Ivory Samoan
Gold Member
In all honesty, I'm enjoying this more than ME3 after 30 hours.
One thing I don't understand about reviews that are out so far though...why are they nearly totally ignoring multiplayer? MP is a big factor in Andromeda, and it's extremely good...so why is it being ignored in most part?
Boggles my Volus mind. They have put a ton of effort into it, and it shows.
One thing I don't understand about reviews that are out so far though...why are they nearly totally ignoring multiplayer? MP is a big factor in Andromeda, and it's extremely good...so why is it being ignored in most part?
Boggles my Volus mind. They have put a ton of effort into it, and it shows.
Damn, I just upgraded my PC a month ago and haven't tried to make any physical PC game purchases since Witcher 2, but it's interesting that you can buy a physical case for the PC version of ME:A that comes with no disc. I still like having a case sitting on the shelf for games and got the steel book case for ME anyway, but I'm beginning to realize that I haven't cared a lick for a case with all the PC game purchases I've made over the last few years. I've bought so many Steam deals that I couldn't even play until I built this new computer, and I think getting great prices through them and digital retailers is making me care less about having the case or physical disc.
TLR It's still weird to me to see you can buy a case for a game disc with no game disc.
How have the connections been for MP, and on what platform are you playing? If the connections are smooth then me so excited.
TL
R It's still weird to me to see you can buy a case for a game disc with no game disc.Still like staring at my collection of PS4 games on the shelf and will avoid digital for that for as long as I can!
How have the connections been for MP, and on what platform are you playing? If the connections are smooth then me so excited.
Exploratory
Banned
There's a leather jacket you can get. Anyone know where it is?
Don't think so, they dress themselves.
Weird. So all of the weapons and armor cluttering my inventory that I'm not going to use on Ryder I can just sell?
I just had it, it was in my list of casual outfits when I went to customize the colors.
I would break down items you can break down. I've had a hard time finding some materials for crafting, and breaking down unwanted armor and weapons has given me quite a lot. You get a good chunk of credits from trash items as is. (Note that the pre-order / deluxe edition stuff doesn't break down into items. It just gets destroyed).
Nollemaster
Member
Why can't I pre-order/pre-load the regular edition in the Xbox store? There are no options for buying it on the console and the Microsoft store on my browser says that I need EA access to buy it.
Ivory Samoan
Gold Member
I'm playing on PC and the connections have been about 75% great (1 in 4 games I rubberband like no-one's business lol). This could be because the game wasn't out here til a few hours ago (New Zealand/Aussie), so I was probably getting paired with people in SEA and the US mostly.
Add me up if you like on Origin: ivorysamoan.
It's so fun when the connection is great!
Royal_Phalanx
Member
The nightclubs in this game suck compared to Afterlife. One
. There are dancers in full armor in cages in the
club which they look like they can't get out of for some reason and there are only like 10 NPCs inside it. The problems with worldbuilding are pretty apparent at times. I can see where the "rushed game" comments were coming from.
I'm finding interesting stuff whilst exploring though. For all the problems, the lore is great and I'm always interested in reading it, and the guns sound great.
tiny bar on the Nexus and a big empty one on Kadara
Kadara
I'm finding interesting stuff whilst exploring though. For all the problems, the lore is great and I'm always interested in reading it, and the guns sound great.
VenomousCoffee
Member
Why do some of the female characters sound they're talking through a synthesizer?
Hasphat'sAnts
Member
How many clubs are better than Afterlife tho...
Ivory Samoan
Gold Member
Might want to spoiler tag that my brother
In other news: anyone else try to craft a Pathfinder II weapon, and keep get given a Pathfinder I weapon? The blueprints say level 2, but no matter what, they always come out Level 1....other weapons aren't affected it seems thankfully.
RedlineRonin
Member
Royal_Phalanx
Member
Might want to spoiler tag that my brother
In other news: anyone else try to craft a Pathfinder II weapon, and keep get given a Pathfinder I weapon? The blueprints say level 2, but no matter what, they always come out Level 1....other weapons aren't affected it seems thankfully.
Hmm, thought it didn't need one because of the lack of story details. I'll add them then just in case
arts&crafts
Member
I keep coming in everyday to hope someone found a cheat code or mod that can remove that 2 minute travel from planet to planet. The worst is you swoop in and you are like..finally its over...and then it zooms out and repositions.
Allnamestakenlol
Member
I agree, but I also feel that way about almost all of your companions. Shit just seems to jump from "hi" to "welcome to the team" way too quickly, imo.
I have a general question, I haven't played this yet but how does this game compare to dragon age 3? Does this game look better then that because I can't remeber if the face issue was this big in the last dragon age? And overall is it a lot different then mass effect 1-3?
Forceatowulf
G***n S**n*bi
So can I use assault turret and Remnent VI together, or no?
Nah man, me too, for sure. I'm a geek for anything space related though, especially a birds eye view of planets, so my opinion is shit. I completely understand why many people would be annoyed by it. I just wish there was a cock-pit view when traveling as an option though, just to mix things up.I think I may be the only one who really enjoys the new galaxy map.
Good tip thanks.
VenomousCoffee
Member
The human faces do look kind of bad, but it's been blown way out of proportion imo. The rest of it looks pretty great.
I'm not very far in SP, but it feels like a prettier ME1 but with worse writing and way better combat.
Bam Chowder
Member
Curious about all this as well.
Also, in general, how are the quests so far? On par or better than the ME2 Loyalty missions?
True, although I can't say that it bothered me that much, you could say that their love for the initiative and dad Ryder brought them together.
But Jaal.... I mean it's a new species! In a new galaxy! It's a big moment for the series and yet BioWare did not introduced them in a proper logical way. I thought it would be more about first contact as you see it in movies or something, a moment filled with mystery and wonder, etc.
I don't know, they really fucked that up but hopefully the rest of the story makes up for it, a real shame as it was a big missed opportunity.