EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Well, kinda, because I'm just winging it based on the info we know so far, the gameplay trailers, and patching shit together. There seems to be a lot of confusion so here's me in all my time wasting glory trying to clear some stuff up. Also to bounce my own thoughts around because fuck it.
What's different?
At it's heart Andromeda has cast aside the traditional, rigid class system of the trilogy. The classes are present but can be swapped on the fly (more in that in a minute). The current system is not simply the same old skill/class system with total freedom. The way you approach builds and swap between skill loadouts has changed. It's based on game systems and skills introduced in the trilogy, but the formula and levelling process has changed.
But why?
A multitude of reasons, most likely. In part accessibility; rigid class locking for 30+ hour experiences is becoming a thing of the past, as more and more RPGs and ARGs offer the ability to respec. The availability of respeccing varies, but it's more or less become the norm.
The other reason is likely due to the type of game Andromeda is. While the trilogy were fairly tightly contained narrative and gameplay arcs, Andromeda is attempting to emphasise more open play space less linear adventuring with a lot of side content and questing that can be done out of sequence. This includes post-game play, open planet zones, etc. Context and style of combat encounters is likely to vary wildly, and the amount of time a player could spend with a single Ryder playthrough will likely eclipse previous games. Thus the encouragement to leave more tools open to play with in one file versus locking skills off.
This decision may also have been influenced by Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, which is cited as a major influence on Andromeda's combat. In ME3's multiplayer half the excitement came from juggling multiple characters with different skills to try new things. Perhaps BioWare are attempting to translate that to single player.
I hate it! RPG is dead!
I dunno; fucking deal with it I guess? Don't buy it? Easy?
Again, it's basically the norm. It doesn't hurt other ARPGs (The Witcher 3, Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, etc), even if the means of doing it here is different. Honestly, the core of it isn't even respeccing. It's the skill loadouts.
HOW IT WORKS: A SHORT ASSY GUIDE BY EATCHILDREN
You play as Ryder. Ryder gains XP. XP levels up. Levels reward skill points.
Skill points are spent on skills. Skills are not dependant on classes. Skills include both action and passive abilities.
Ryder can have three skills active at a time (not sure if this is required for passive skills). These are used in gameplay. These can be swapped around based on unlocked skills.
Classes are gone. They are replaced with Profiles. Profiles are like classes and are named the same, with the addition of "Explorer".
Profiles are an active state of buffs and bonuses for your player. You can swap between active profiles to juggle buffs.
Profiles are levelled and buffed by active/unlocked skills.
Let's take a closer look, shall we.
Here is the main pause menu with its various options. Note both Skills and Profiles.
Two profiles (what were once classes) are demonstrated; Soldier and Engineer. Each offers various buffs to a style of play, in addition to a perk that is a special function or ability. In this case soldiers are granted escalating damage bonuses via consecutive kills, and engineers get a passive drone. Both soldier and engineer profiles are "Rank 1". Curiously Sentinel, Adept, and Vanguard are locked/unavailable.
Now we get into skills. They are divided into three categories: Combat, Biotics, and Tech. Pretty self explanatory.
Skills operate similarly to Mass Effect 3. They range from action (circle skills) and passive (upside down triangle skills). Skill points are used to unlock skills and upgrade them along a maximum path of six. Here we can see the tech action skill Flamethrower and its upgrade tree. This is identical to Mass Effect 3 in the sense that the first three tiers of upgrade trees are linear, while the last three are one of two options. This allows you to not only choose which skills to unlock, how far to upgrade them, but also how to spec those skills to your play style.
And now we get to the part where Skills are linked to Profiles. By unlocking certain skills best attuned to specific profiles, said profiles will likely be unlocked and upgraded. In the demo we see an example of this. By upgrading the tech skill Flamethrower to level six the player unlocks "TECHNICAL OVERSEER" which buffs the Engineer profile to Rank 4.
SUMMARY
While the old class system might have been replaced by profiles, the intent is to be more freeform in build diversity for a single character, with emphasis on skills.
You're still required to level up Ryder and use your points to unlock skills (action and passive), which depending on skills and how far you level them up will access to the class profiles (I suspect Explorer is the default starting profile), which in turn can only be levelled up by acquiring more skills relevant to that class profile.
So while yes in theory you can juggle between all six traditional Mass Effect classes via profiles, this isn't entirely true. Access to profiles and the effectiveness of said profiles will be limited by the skills you've chosen to buy and upgrade.
It's almost like a reverse of Mass Effect trilogy. In the trilogy you select a class/profile first, and that dictates available skills, which you then upgrade based on levelling.
Here you upgrade skills first by going up levels, which then allow you to access and by association level up class/profiles, which can be selected and swapped based on availability.
What we don't know: How skills are made available and if any are acquired. Given the context of certain skill descriptions I strongly believe that not all skills will be available up front. Example:
. It's entirely possible that like how completing loyalty missions in Mass Effect 2 unlocked new skills to add to your loadout, so too may certain skills be locked off until you meet criteria in the story and quests.
Additionally, and as a side, armour/gear now has a similar approach to the first Mass Effect. Gear is ranged from Roman numerical level I to X, and has percentage buffs for specific skill types and play styles.
The end.
What's different?
At it's heart Andromeda has cast aside the traditional, rigid class system of the trilogy. The classes are present but can be swapped on the fly (more in that in a minute). The current system is not simply the same old skill/class system with total freedom. The way you approach builds and swap between skill loadouts has changed. It's based on game systems and skills introduced in the trilogy, but the formula and levelling process has changed.
But why?
A multitude of reasons, most likely. In part accessibility; rigid class locking for 30+ hour experiences is becoming a thing of the past, as more and more RPGs and ARGs offer the ability to respec. The availability of respeccing varies, but it's more or less become the norm.
The other reason is likely due to the type of game Andromeda is. While the trilogy were fairly tightly contained narrative and gameplay arcs, Andromeda is attempting to emphasise more open play space less linear adventuring with a lot of side content and questing that can be done out of sequence. This includes post-game play, open planet zones, etc. Context and style of combat encounters is likely to vary wildly, and the amount of time a player could spend with a single Ryder playthrough will likely eclipse previous games. Thus the encouragement to leave more tools open to play with in one file versus locking skills off.
This decision may also have been influenced by Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, which is cited as a major influence on Andromeda's combat. In ME3's multiplayer half the excitement came from juggling multiple characters with different skills to try new things. Perhaps BioWare are attempting to translate that to single player.
I hate it! RPG is dead!
I dunno; fucking deal with it I guess? Don't buy it? Easy?
Again, it's basically the norm. It doesn't hurt other ARPGs (The Witcher 3, Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, etc), even if the means of doing it here is different. Honestly, the core of it isn't even respeccing. It's the skill loadouts.
HOW IT WORKS: A SHORT ASSY GUIDE BY EATCHILDREN
You play as Ryder. Ryder gains XP. XP levels up. Levels reward skill points.
Skill points are spent on skills. Skills are not dependant on classes. Skills include both action and passive abilities.
Ryder can have three skills active at a time (not sure if this is required for passive skills). These are used in gameplay. These can be swapped around based on unlocked skills.
Classes are gone. They are replaced with Profiles. Profiles are like classes and are named the same, with the addition of "Explorer".
Profiles are an active state of buffs and bonuses for your player. You can swap between active profiles to juggle buffs.
Profiles are levelled and buffed by active/unlocked skills.
Let's take a closer look, shall we.
Here is the main pause menu with its various options. Note both Skills and Profiles.
Two profiles (what were once classes) are demonstrated; Soldier and Engineer. Each offers various buffs to a style of play, in addition to a perk that is a special function or ability. In this case soldiers are granted escalating damage bonuses via consecutive kills, and engineers get a passive drone. Both soldier and engineer profiles are "Rank 1". Curiously Sentinel, Adept, and Vanguard are locked/unavailable.
Now we get into skills. They are divided into three categories: Combat, Biotics, and Tech. Pretty self explanatory.
Skills operate similarly to Mass Effect 3. They range from action (circle skills) and passive (upside down triangle skills). Skill points are used to unlock skills and upgrade them along a maximum path of six. Here we can see the tech action skill Flamethrower and its upgrade tree. This is identical to Mass Effect 3 in the sense that the first three tiers of upgrade trees are linear, while the last three are one of two options. This allows you to not only choose which skills to unlock, how far to upgrade them, but also how to spec those skills to your play style.
And now we get to the part where Skills are linked to Profiles. By unlocking certain skills best attuned to specific profiles, said profiles will likely be unlocked and upgraded. In the demo we see an example of this. By upgrading the tech skill Flamethrower to level six the player unlocks "TECHNICAL OVERSEER" which buffs the Engineer profile to Rank 4.
SUMMARY
While the old class system might have been replaced by profiles, the intent is to be more freeform in build diversity for a single character, with emphasis on skills.
You're still required to level up Ryder and use your points to unlock skills (action and passive), which depending on skills and how far you level them up will access to the class profiles (I suspect Explorer is the default starting profile), which in turn can only be levelled up by acquiring more skills relevant to that class profile.
So while yes in theory you can juggle between all six traditional Mass Effect classes via profiles, this isn't entirely true. Access to profiles and the effectiveness of said profiles will be limited by the skills you've chosen to buy and upgrade.
It's almost like a reverse of Mass Effect trilogy. In the trilogy you select a class/profile first, and that dictates available skills, which you then upgrade based on levelling.
Here you upgrade skills first by going up levels, which then allow you to access and by association level up class/profiles, which can be selected and swapped based on availability.
What we don't know: How skills are made available and if any are acquired. Given the context of certain skill descriptions I strongly believe that not all skills will be available up front. Example:
various Remnant tech based skills are available, and given their importance to the plot I can't imagine you have access to them straight away
Additionally, and as a side, armour/gear now has a similar approach to the first Mass Effect. Gear is ranged from Roman numerical level I to X, and has percentage buffs for specific skill types and play styles.
The end.
