• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Mass Effect: Andromeda |OT| Ryders on the Storm

mbpm1

Member
So much of this is subjective. Witcher 3 after a while bored me to tears, and ME:A is my GoTY. We exist.

I know, but he says he loved witcher 3 for the same reasons. Well, i can't get my head around it, but I'm glad he has the game he wanted.
 
Well I just finished it.

That was mostly terrible. It felt like an Advent Rising sequel. The writing was God awful. The lack of polish was painful. It starts so promising but uuugghhh it's bogged down with piss poor design choices that just honestly boggle my mind. Also, I can't understand why the cutscenes are so low resolution on ps4. It's a huge step back from the last 3 games. A lot of missed potential. I haven't given a game a numbered score in a long time but this deserves it 4/10

I can't imagine very many people who worked on this still have a job.

Edit: Just read all the praise it got on the previous page and I'm screaming on the inside. I'm at a complete loss.
 

Lucreto

Member
Well I just finished it.

That was mostly terrible. It felt like an Advent Rising sequel. The writing was God awful. The lack of polish was painful. It starts so promising but uuugghhh it's bogged down with piss poor design choices that just honestly boggle my mind. Also, I can't understand why the cutscenes are so low resolution on ps4. It's a huge step back from the last 3 games. A lot of missed potential. I haven't given a game a numbered score in a long time but this deserves it 4/10

I can't imagine very many people who worked on this still have a job.

Edit: Just read all the praise it got on the previous page and I'm screaming on the inside. I'm at a complete loss.

It's a flawed game and yes a few design decisions were a mistake but I bet what you consider a bad design choice and what I deem to be bad are completely different. The story is to me good not amazing but serviceable below ME1 story set up but not far off. Story and a few characters are the only highlight of Me 1 the rest is okay. I did two canon plays of ME1 so I don't have to play it again
 
I'm doing a side mission on Eos? The one where I'm supposed to scan the research project, but I'm stuck at the base where you need to scan the equipment, am I looking for a specific piece? I try to get into the base but am stuck by an invisible wall.

Does this game pick up?
 

Patryn

Member
I'm doing a side mission on Eos? The one where I'm supposed to scan the research project, but I'm stuck at the base where you need to scan the equipment, am I looking for a specific piece? I try to get into the base but am stuck by an invisible wall.

Does this game pick up?

Where are you in the main story? Has the radiation left Eos yet?

Depends on your definition of both "pick up" and where you are in the game.
 
Where are you in the main story? Has the radiation left Eos yet?

Depends on your definition of both "pick up" and where you are in the game.


Not yet, I have to remove the radiation but I came upon the base that asks me to scan all the equipment.

I'm early, just became the leader of the ship?
 

Patryn

Member
Not yet, I have to remove the radiation but I came upon the base that asks me to scan all the equipment.

I'm early, just became the leader of the ship?

Then I'd say that the game does pick up.

As for the quest, it's not a time sensitive one so you may want to wait until things improve on the planet before completing it. If you really want to do it, then the first thing you have to scan is some rubble in the room adjacent to the terminal you get that quest from, as I recall.

After that you'll have to travel a bit to scan some other stuff.
 
I'm still early in. Rescued the
Moshaee
and now supposed to head to Aya.

One thing that has me puzzled is how there are like 2 or 3 quests in my Additional Tasks folder that have all their check marks but are still listed in that folder. There isn't anything else to do with them. Not even a "on hold: wait for" showing. Is this normal?

Also: do I have to flirt with people to unlock their special mission? Or can I unlock it without flirting at all? I would rather not flirt at all with a few people..
 

Lister

Banned
Well I just finished it.

That was mostly terrible. It felt like an Advent Rising sequel. The writing was God awful. The lack of polish was painful. It starts so promising but uuugghhh it's bogged down with piss poor design choices that just honestly boggle my mind. Also, I can't understand why the cutscenes are so low resolution on ps4. It's a huge step back from the last 3 games. A lot of missed potential. I haven't given a game a numbered score in a long time but this deserves it 4/10

I can't imagine very many people who worked on this still have a job.

Edit: Just read all the praise it got on the previous page and I'm screaming on the inside. I'm at a complete loss.

Well someone's got to keep the ot going, and it's not going to be the people that disliked it.

If it makes you feel any better a lot of people agree with you, myself included. The writing and dialogue ranged from amateurish and juvenile to ok. Not a great range there. The narrative agency is non existent. And the side content is pretty lackluster in terms of both depth and payoff. And that's not even touching the issues with design and bugs, etc.
 
Was this posted before?

Mass Effect Andromeda's One Scene w/ Genuinely GREAT Facial & Body Animation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kai60rnAMxs&list=WL&index=110

Just found this video. At first I thought it was a joke video, but after watching it I have to agree: Mass Effect Andromeda has fantastic facial animation - for one sex scene only.
Romance scenes tend to have generally better animations than your average non-romance scene. I remember this was the case in the trilogy as well.

But yeah, it's cool to see.
 

prag16

Banned
Was this posted before?

Mass Effect Andromeda's One Scene w/ Genuinely GREAT Facial & Body Animation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kai60rnAMxs&list=WL&index=110

Just found this video. At first I thought it was a joke video, but after watching it I have to agree: Mass Effect Andromeda has fantastic facial animation - for one sex scene only.

iirc an ex-Naughty Dog guy did the animation on that scene. There are other good scenes too, but obviously a ton of scenes got nowhere near the attention to detail that this one did.
 

Mediking

Member
I finally witnessed the romance sex scene with Cora.... Cora was like, "Let's go to your quarters, Ryder."

I was like, "LET'S GOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

It was hot.....


....


I need a girlfriend.

Lmao

All joking aside, Cora is true waifu and I love her character. It's a shame the Mass Effect community (in general) didn't cling to her like they did with Miranda.

Heck, Peebee is amazing yet the ME community (in general) doesn't care at all.
 

Patryn

Member
I finally witnessed the romance sex scene with Cora.... Cora was like, "Let's go to your quarters, Ryder."

I was like, "LET'S GOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

It was hot.....


....


I need a girlfriend.

Lmao

All joking aside, Cora is true waifu and I love her character. It's a shame the Mass Effect community (in general) didn't cling to her like they did with Miranda.

Heck, Peebee is amazing yet the ME community (in general) doesn't care at all.
Speaking as a person who liked Andromeda: Miranda is far less annoying than Cora. Her inability to shut up about the Asari
(although that does temper down a lot after her loyalty mission...)
just puts a lot of people off.

And I romanced Cora.
 

Pilgrimzero

Member
Got passed the first real planet and I have like no sense of urgency.

While I play I just think how awesome he original games were.

I want to keep going but not sure I have the will
 

mauaus

Member
Played for 2 hours, hated every minute of it, deleted immediately after my play session.

Don't know what it was but the gameplay feels off, too many games in my backlog to play something I'm just not enjoying
 

RedAssedApe

Banned
is rest mode broken for this game on ps4? everytime i resume the game seems frozen and i have had to re-load each time.

one time i had resumed into a conversation and i could pick dialogue options but the characters would never speak. the only way i could proceed is by skipping the dialog
 

Lucreto

Member
is rest mode broken for this game on ps4? everytime i resume the game seems frozen and i have had to re-load each time.

one time i had resumed into a conversation and i could pick dialogue options but the characters would never speak. the only way i could proceed is by skipping the dialog

I never had either problem on my PS4. My guess is the game doesn't like losing the Internet connection to the EA servers when it goes into rest mode.
 

Maledict

Member
Played for 2 hours, hated every minute of it, deleted immediately after my play session.

Don't know what it was but the gameplay feels off, too many games in my backlog to play something I'm just not enjoying

My issue with the gameplay is that the actual moment to moment gunplay and movement is great, definitely better than the original trilogy. But the encounter design is *fucking awful*. Partly because of the open world aspect, partly because of poor design in general, but half way through the game and there hasn't been a single memorable fight. Nothing to compare to the fight with Archangel in Me2, or going inside the collector ship, or the dead reaper, or even the staged battles in me3 like Tuchanka and the Asari academy.

The previous games felt like every fight was designed, with mobs being placed in specific locations and entry points to present a particular scenario. That doesn't happen at all in me:a - even the staged fights in the remnant cores are random mobs so wildly different depending upon what the game throws at you.

It makes the game weirdly harder but also much less fun. You have all these tools and mobility, and yet the encounter design just makes combat unfun and uninteresting.
 
My issue with the gameplay is that the actual moment to moment gunplay and movement is great, definitely better than the original trilogy. But the encounter design is *fucking awful*. Partly because of the open world aspect, partly because of poor design in general, but half way through the game and there hasn't been a single memorable fight. Nothing to compare to the fight with Archangel in Me2, or going inside the collector ship, or the dead reaper, or even the staged battles in me3 like Tuchanka and the Asari academy.

The previous games felt like every fight was designed, with mobs being placed in specific locations and entry points to present a particular scenario. That doesn't happen at all in me:a - even the staged fights in the remnant cores are random mobs so wildly different depending upon what the game throws at you.

It makes the game weirdly harder but also much less fun. You have all these tools and mobility, and yet the encounter design just makes combat unfun and uninteresting.
Going back to the GDC talk on how ME2's levels were designed really makes the difference in encounter and environment design standout, although it's hard to tell how much of the problems boil down to the short amount of time they had to whip this thing together as 3 years of stumbling about.
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
My Remnant VI was following me on the Tempest after Liam's loyalty mission.
Would be fun if it was like this all the time. :p

Fzkpdql.jpg


Speaking of Liam, it was good to basically tell him "you're a fucking idiot" during all the mission, and after it on the Tempest too. I was too nice to him in my 1st playthrough.
 

RedAssedApe

Banned
I never had either problem on my PS4. My guess is the game doesn't like losing the Internet connection to the EA servers when it goes into rest mode.

Seems to be the case. Forgot to mention I get a "you have lost your connection to the server" message. Just happened to me again when I resumed and was stuck on the galaxy map. Pretty stupid but I guess that's how the game is designed with the mp component part of the game -_-
 

RAIDEN1

Member
Well let's hope it's a case of lesson's learnt as we aren't likely to get another instalment of this franchise till probably 2020 or 2022...after this debacle..
 
Well someone's got to keep the ot going, and it's not going to be the people that disliked it.

If it makes you feel any better a lot of people agree with you, myself included. The writing and dialogue ranged from amateurish and juvenile to ok. Not a great range there. The narrative agency is non existent. And the side content is pretty lackluster in terms of both depth and payoff. And that's not even touching the issues with design and bugs, etc.
Damn, that's a good point lol

I was still watching the credits when I posted that and the disappointment was fresh
 

Lucreto

Member
Seems to be the case. Forgot to mention I get a "you have lost your connection to the server" message. Just happened to me again when I resumed and was stuck on the galaxy map. Pretty stupid but I guess that's how the game is designed with the mp component part of the game -_-


The best thing to do is not go into rest mode while in the galaxy map or during conversations. What I did was save the game and leave Ryder in front of the research and development station, pause the game and used rest mode. When I turned it back on and get the disconnect warning. I just do two laps on the stairs to the meeting room above or run to the bridge. It seems to be enough time for the console to right itself and stops causing the freezing.
 

mbpm1

Member
I finally witnessed the romance sex scene with Cora.... Cora was like, "Let's go to your quarters, Ryder."

I was like, "LET'S GOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

It was hot.....


....


I need a girlfriend.

Lmao

All joking aside, Cora is true waifu and I love her character. It's a shame the Mass Effect community (in general) didn't cling to her like they did with Miranda.

Heck, Peebee is amazing yet the ME community (in general) doesn't care at all.
I'm not sure if anyone has clung to any character. It feels like the game never happened with how sparse fan stuff is
 

Griss

Member
Got to the end of the free trial. They said '10 hour trial' but in fact it only took me 4 to reach the end of it.

If that was a pitch to sell me the full game, it failed, but not by a huge amount. The game isn't quite as bad as I was expecting, it's just mediocre, unpolished and unfocused in almost every way, and unfortunately the key draw of these games - the writing - is the most glaringly flawed and mediocre piece of the puzzle.

The 'tone' of the characters feels off in almost every situation they're in - they're too jokey, too 'quippy', and each of them almost feels like they're speaking with the same voice at times. Making the characters so lighthearted in these amazing situations like their ship hitting the scourge for the first time or first contact on an alien planet etc doesn't serve to make you like the characters, it serves to make those experiences feel less important and serious.

They totally spoil the premise of being the first to a new galaxy by having the Nexus have already been there for 14 months, having colonies already on the ground, and by repeating plot points from the first game (bad aliens investigating ruins of a departed civilisation). It doesn't feel fresh at all, when that was supposed to be the point. Not only that, but the typical 'family drama' that Bioware is obsessed with is bloody trite at this point and makes the main character feel like the benefit of undeserved nepotism rather than an impressive person you'd want to play as. The bizarre messianic 'Pathfinder' shit is awful, too. Makes what should be a collection of intelligent and co-operative scientists and explorers feel like some kind of religious cult of personality.

As for gameplay, it's already apparent that mission design in this game is going to be rubbish, and that there are way too many systems layered upon each other when simplicity would have been a better idea - do i really need to spend all this time scanning crap to unlock research blueprints etc etc.

Despite it all, the basic idea of Mass Effect - a strongly narrative based third person shooter set on distant planets kept me going. And the bugs have obviously been ironed out - didn't encounter any. Had they convinced me the story was going anywhere interesting - or had I enjoyed even one of the main characters - I would probably have bit. But ultimately there are 10+ better games clamouring for my time.
 

Cornbread78

Member
I'm not sure if anyone has clung to any character. It feels like the game never happened with how sparse fan stuff is

I will say, I wish that they dug a little deeper into the romance options outside of flirt, flirt, flirt, flirt, fool around, flirt, lets fu(k Ryder.....


Maybe some extra bonding events mixed in there?
 

obeast

Member
They totally spoil the premise of being the first to a new galaxy by having the Nexus have already been there for 14 months, having colonies already on the ground, and by repeating plot points from the first game (bad aliens investigating ruins of a departed civilisation).

Yeah, this was a really baffling design decision, given that providing a feeling of exploration was allegedly a central area of focus during development. Without going into spoilers regarding the rest of the game, you essentially never explore anything that hasn't been explored before, usually by your own people (there are couple of quasi-exceptions at the very end of the game, but that's about it). And you never actually have a "first contact" moment, given that the races you meet have already been engaged in diplomacy/warfare with your people for a year plus before the game's timeline even starts.

In retrospect, I think they did it backwards - your Ark should have gotten there first, totally alone in a strange new galaxy, and the Nexus and the rest of the Milky Way crew could arrive later.
 

Ralemont

not me
Yeah, this was a really baffling design decision, given that providing a feeling of exploration was allegedly a central area of focus during development. Without going into spoilers regarding the rest of the game, you essentially never explore anything that hasn't been explored before, usually by your own people (there are couple of quasi-exceptions at the very end of the game, but that's about it). And you never actually have a "first contact" moment, given that the races you meet have already been engaged in diplomacy/warfare with your people for a year plus before the game's timeline even starts.

In retrospect, I think they did it backwards - your Ark should have gotten there first, totally alone in a strange new galaxy, and the Nexus and the rest of the Milky Way crew could arrive later.

Yeah, the only time you feel like an explorer is in the Vaults. Even then, once you've seen the first one, the later ones don't really contain new surprises. In fact I think there's even voice lines where Ryder starts to feel jaded about the Vaults.

In a game about exploration you need to have actual discoveries. Mostly it's just normal RPG side quests spread out over a greater distance.
 

Kadayi

Banned
Yeah, this was a really baffling design decision, given that providing a feeling of exploration was allegedly a central area of focus during development. Without going into spoilers regarding the rest of the game, you essentially never explore anything that hasn't been explored before, usually by your own people (there are couple of quasi-exceptions at the very end of the game, but that's about it). And you never actually have a "first contact" moment, given that the races you meet have already been engaged in diplomacy/warfare with your people for a year plus before the game's timeline even starts.

Also, consider this. Your Ark is supposedly the one carrying the bulk of the human colonists where as the Nexus was supposed to be a skeleton crew of a few thousand ostensively there to get things up and running.

As Ryder it's fair to say by the end of the game, you'd probably killed hundreds of Exiles (even more if you fitted in MP as well during your campaign). It felt like a clear case of ludo-narrative dissonance that there were so many Exiles out there to me.
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
Yeah, the only time you feel like an explorer is in the Vaults. Even then, once you've seen the first one, the later ones don't really contain new surprises. In fact I think there's even voice lines where Ryder starts to feel jaded about the Vaults.

In a game about exploration you need to have actual discoveries. Mostly it's just normal RPG side quests spread out over a greater distance.

Funnily enough, Ryder & SAM reuse the same damn lines every time you reach the end of a vault on one of the main planets. Bioware themselves knew how repetitive doing this would be to the point of just doing a copy & paste on voice lines.
 

Griss

Member
Yeah, this was a really baffling design decision, given that providing a feeling of exploration was allegedly a central area of focus during development. Without going into spoilers regarding the rest of the game, you essentially never explore anything that hasn't been explored before, usually by your own people (there are couple of quasi-exceptions at the very end of the game, but that's about it). And you never actually have a "first contact" moment, given that the races you meet have already been engaged in diplomacy/warfare with your people for a year plus before the game's timeline even starts.

In retrospect, I think they did it backwards - your Ark should have gotten there first, totally alone in a strange new galaxy, and the Nexus and the rest of the Milky Way crew could arrive later.

Well, cheers for letting me know that I made the right decision. What a bizarre misstep in the very conception of the game.

The bolded is obviously what it should have been, and honestly it's what I expected it to be. Reminds me of Xenoblade Chronicles X and No Man's Sky - in both you're apparently pathfinding shit (in No Man's Sky you're naming discoveries!) but in both there's all kinds of buildings and bases there before you taking the wind out of your sales. In XCX it's your own people, in NMS it's other races, but in both cases it hurts the core feature of the game - exploration.
 

Mediking

Member
I finally beat the game... that was amazing. One of my favorite games this gen. Also really liked the ending and that there's an actual epilogue.

I got a few more games to beat before I do a female Ryder playthru.
 

Patryn

Member
Well, cheers for letting me know that I made the right decision. What a bizarre misstep in the very conception of the game.

The bolded is obviously what it should have been, and honestly it's what I expected it to be. Reminds me of Xenoblade Chronicles X and No Man's Sky - in both you're apparently pathfinding shit (in No Man's Sky you're naming discoveries!) but in both there's all kinds of buildings and bases there before you taking the wind out of your sales. In XCX it's your own people, in NMS it's other races, but in both cases it hurts the core feature of the game - exploration.

They wanted to have their cake and eat it too in terms of exploration, but also having these lived-in towns and cities.

I've previously suggested in other outlets that they should have done something with time manipulation. Have you Ark arrive first, and really be the one to explore. Probably do some actual first contact and stuff.

Then you have Ryder and your crew either go into a vault that deals with time manipulation, or possibly use one of the many black holes and the Tempest such that your character would basically find that serious time has passed (10 years? 20 years?) and things have gone to shit. So now you have to basically put things back right, and you have a population that doesn't entirely trust you because you disappeared.
 
Hey guys, so after the free trial i wanna see how this game plays out, i just don't want to play it myself. Is there a non-blind let's play out there by somebody who knows what they're doing? Sort of like a guided tour through the game? Thanks for any suggestion!
 

Ludens

Banned
I have a question. I completed the game by doing main missions only, how can I get the buddy missions? I tried to talk with my comrades on the Tempest, but I found just a couple of them like the Krogan.
Are those missions worth? Are there many of them and are they fast to complete?
 

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
I have a question. I completed the game by doing main missions only, how can I get the buddy missions? I tried to talk with my comrades on the Tempest, but I found just a couple of them like the Krogan.
Are those missions worth? Are there many of them and are they fast to complete?

Those loyalty quests end with a "big" mission in an unique location, and yeah, they're worth doing. They're usually labeled with the name of your squadmate in the journal, so it's hard to miss. Maybe check there is you already talked to everybody on the Tempest, there could be an old mission that's been waiting there for a while.

Edit : Don't forget to check your emails.
 

Ludens

Banned
Those loyalty quests end with a "big" mission in an unique location, and yeah, they're worth doing. They're usually labeled with the name of your squadmate in the journal, so it's hard to miss. Maybe check there is you already talked to everybody on the Tempest, there could be an old mission that's been waiting there for a while.

Edit : Don't forget to check your emails.

On the ship I can find only the Krogan, where are other teammates?
I think I checked all mails too.
 

Replicant

Member

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
You can only initiate their loyalty quests by talking to them on the Tempest and reading emails. Maybe there is some that starts on the Nexus, but I doubt it.

Like I said, look at your journal and search for any quests that have the names Peebee, Liam, Drack, Cora, Vetra or Jaal. If you can't find get any new quests on the Tempest, you most probably have quests already waiting in the journal...

Unless, for some unexplainable reason, you can't start missed loyalty quests after the epilogue, which would be pretty dumb imo.
 

prag16

Banned
Just walk around the ship and you'll see them around, it's not that big.

Their current locations are generally on the map too. I like how in ME:A the squadmates actually move around and interact a lot on the ship. Unlike the trilogy in which 99% of the time they were static mannequins. (Except for ME3, but there were very few instances in which members actually moved around.)
 

RedAssedApe

Banned
The best thing to do is not go into rest mode while in the galaxy map or during conversations. What I did was save the game and leave Ryder in front of the research and development station, pause the game and used rest mode. When I turned it back on and get the disconnect warning. I just do two laps on the stairs to the meeting room above or run to the bridge. It seems to be enough time for the console to right itself and stops causing the freezing.

i think the reconnect just seems to take a really long time sometimes. i've left my console sitting there for a couple of minutes sometimes and after awhile it seems to work again
 
Top Bottom