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Mass Effect: Andromeda |OT| Ryders on the Storm

B

bonesmccoy

Banned
Madness said:
I was speechless the first time it flew by, and nearby NPC's flocked to see it. I thought next gen, Mass Effect would be ten times better in this regard and yet the Nexus feels like it is from 2010. I honestly feel like the Outposts are more lively and impressive.
Click to expand...

Isn't that kind of the point though? The premise of the original games was that humanity had found out the Milky Way was crowded space, and that the Reapers were coming back because the major space-faring cultures had reached near-peak tech. In Andromeda, you're entering a small cluster of systems with limited resources and an at-best ramshackle hub-station, and the civilizations you meet aren't as advanced as your own.
 
A

arts&crafts

Member
Doodis said:
Okay, what exactly are the "right mods?" I need to know exactly how to make this thing! I haven't really dabbled in the research/development much because I'm scared I'll waste my points and augmentations on something stupid. But this looks amazing.
Click to expand...

Yea how do you get this "never reload again". I use dahn and I love it but I run out of ammo alot even with ammo mods and ammo shotgun skill.
 
A

abundant

Member
Alright, Peebee's loyalty mission is getting on my last nerve. Having to hop from one planet to another, sometimes just for a cut scene, is really annoying.
 
O

obeast

Member
bonesmccoy said:
Isn't that kind of the point though? The premise of the original games was that humanity had found out the Milky Way was crowded space, and that the Reapers were coming back because the major space-faring cultures had reached near-peak tech. In Andromeda, you're entering a small cluster of systems with limited resources and an at-best ramshackle hub-station, and the civilizations you meet aren't as advanced as your own.
Click to expand...

S/he means that all the NPCs are static, arguably more so than in ME1. They presumably didn't forget how to walk en route to Andromeda.

It's an immersion-breaking issue with every hub location in the game, really.
 
J

Jyrii

Banned
Damn the bugs in this game. Just spent 10 minutes figuring out why I couldn't ascend the Mithrava.

Apparently there is a bug that prevents you from grabbing the ledges, so I just fell down each time.
 
T

Tacitus_

Member
Doodis said:
Okay, what exactly are the "right mods?" I need to know exactly how to make this thing! I haven't really dabbled in the research/development much because I'm scared I'll waste my points and augmentations on something stupid. But this looks amazing.
Click to expand...

arts&crafts said:
Yea how do you get this "never reload again". I use dahn and I love it but I run out of ammo alot even with ammo mods and ammo shotgun skill.
Click to expand...

The main thing is the Bio Converter, I think it's in the Andromeda research tab. It makes it so that instead of reloading, you use a bit of health to fill the ammo bar. Then just put something fun in it. Maybe a bunch of kinetic coils if you want pure damage.
 
eot

eot

Banned
Darkstorne said:
To be fair Mass 2 and 3 had the same issue on insanity. I was regularly cursing squad mates for standing up behind cover and just soaking up bullets until they died. The dumbass AI just couldn't work out when cover was required and when shields were or weren't recharged. Even worse in those games was the "one button does everything" bullshit. Run over to team mate and press A to revive, but instead Shepard just sits in cover. Press A again hoping to revive and Shepard vaults over the cover into insanity-powered gunfire. Yay...

I basically learned that Insanity isn't something these games are even remotely designed around. All they do is crank up the damage enemies deal, and the damage they can absorb, and do nothing to tweak your squad mate AI to deal with it. If you want to enjoy the game, then don't play on this mode.
Click to expand...
What? If anything those games were designed to be played on insanity. In ME2 they don't simply tweak the damage, they give all the enemies additional layers of protection which makes the game way more tactical.
 
A

arts&crafts

Member
Tacitus_ said:
The main thing is the Bio Converter, I think it's in the Andromeda research tab. It makes it so that instead of reloading, you use a bit of health to fill the ammo bar. Then just put something fun in it. Maybe a bunch of kinetic coils if you want pure damage.
Click to expand...

I will try that, thanks. I am level 20 now so i can build the Tier 3 Dahn.
 
D

DeadlyParasite

Member
eot said:
What? If anything those games were designed to be played on insanity. In ME2 they don't simply tweak the damage, they give all the enemies additional layers of protection which makes the game way more tactical.
Click to expand...

oscar-nominees-2014-christian-bale.gif


Mass Effect 2 Insanity was awful. "We couldn't find a better way to make the game challenging so we added an extra layer of armour and barriers on all enemies to waste your time and negate all your abilities. Have fun"
 
T

thepenguin55

Member
DeadlyParasite said:
Mass Effect 2 Insanity was awful. "We couldn't find a better way to make the game challenging so we added an extra layer of armour and barriers on all enemies to waste your time and negate all your abilities. Have fun"
Click to expand...

For me personally the only part of the game where I feel like this is true is the start. Especially if you go to Omega first as you'll definitely have a rough time there. Fighting Vorcha and Krogan at the start of the game on Insanity sucks!!! Once you get past that though I feel like Insanity is actually pretty well balanced.
 
JohnnyFootball

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
thepenguin55 said:
For me personally the only part of the game where I feel like this is true is the start. Especially if you go to Omega first as you'll definitely have a rough time there. Fighting Vorcha and Krogan at the start of the game on Insanity sucks!!! Once you get past that though I feel like Insanity is actually pretty well balanced.
Click to expand...
Beating ME2 on insanity was satisfying, although I agree that not every damn thing needed armor.

However being able use Dominate on the Collectors really thinned the ranks.
 
D

DeadlyParasite

Member
thepenguin55 said:
For me personally the only part of the game where I feel like this is true is the start. Especially if you go to Omega first as you'll definitely have a rough time there. Fighting Vorcha and Krogan at the start of the game on Insanity sucks!!! Once you get past that though I feel like Insanity is actually pretty well balanced.
Click to expand...

Nope, the aggravating assault on your personal time continues
well into the collector ship, the derelict reaper (mindless waves of armoured husks), and Horizon.
 
O

obeast

Member
thepenguin55 said:
For me personally the only part of the game where I feel like this is true is the start. Especially if you go to Omega first as you'll definitely have a rough time there. Fighting Vorcha and Krogan at the start of the game on Insanity sucks!!! Once you get past that though I feel like Insanity is actually pretty well balanced.
Click to expand...

Garrus' recruitment mission in particular can be a bit brutal on insanity, but I agree - the combat in ME2 is best balanced on insanity. This is even more true in ME3, where most classes can sort of break the game once they get enough skill points.

Actually, this reminds me that ME:A difficulty settings are kinda awkward, in that 1) the difficulty of encounters varies wildly and 2) the inability to save in many scripted encounters -- and the total lack of a quicksave button -- makes dying really frustrating. I ended up dialing the difficulty down to "normal," which is not typically where I play shooter RPGs, just because I found death so punishing.
 
F

FrontalMonk

Banned
DeadlyParasite said:
Mass Effect 2 Insanity was awful. "We couldn't find a better way to make the game challenging so we added an extra layer of armour and barriers on all enemies to waste your time and negate all your abilities. Have fun"
Click to expand...

Insanity with a Soldier was only ever difficult when fighting Harbinger. just make sure you have one party member with something strong against shields, one with something strong against armor, get a mattock and pump the shit out of your bullet time skill. have your dudes hit 'em with skills til their defenses dropped, then hit Y, pop out, and head shot until dead, then repeat. Enemies rarely ever actually got close enough to you to force you to switch it up. The problem was if you were ever exposed you were dead.
 
Y

Yopis

Member
Do you need to finish planets in a specific order? Or can you jump around? Are enemie levers higher on certain world's?
 
Lashley

Lashley

Why does he wear the mask!?
Went to Voeld first. Did I make a bad choice?

Also, I think I prefer Sara Ryder to Sheperd. She has more character, I like her wisecracks
 
bati

bati

Member
Just got to Kadara Port and I'm starting to think this was a cross gen title at some point. Those door transitions are suspiciously long.
 
U

UberLevi

Member
I'm really interested in hearing what you guys chose to do at the end of
Jaal's
loyalty mission. I
didn't press the interrupt and I'm so glad I didn't.
It was absolutely dope.
 
R

Revas

Member
The Kett bases on insanity are just stupid. When I beat one I don't feel satisfied, I just got lucky between the waves of enemies that spawn out of thin air, the borked save system, and the roundabout mission objectives.
 
eot

eot

Banned
DeadlyParasite said:
oscar-nominees-2014-christian-bale.gif


Mass Effect 2 Insanity was awful. "We couldn't find a better way to make the game challenging so we added an extra layer of armour and barriers on all enemies to waste your time and negate all your abilities. Have fun"
Click to expand...

That tells me you didn't explore the systems. Mass Effect 2 on anything but Hardcore and Insanity trivialises the game to the a point where it's not interesting. It makes no difference what squad mates you pick, what powers you choose to level up or even if you use them poorly. Biotics are insanely overpowered when you can lift almost every enemy up into the air, using a multitude of powers.

Insanity is more tactical because how you spec your character and your squad actually matters, and you need to manage their ability usage in combat as well. Like making sure that you do a biotic combo that strips the armor off of nearby enemies, so that you can do another one straight away, or using singularity to lock down enemies rather than trying to kill them. If you do that you can tear through even the most difficult encounters, like the Collector ship ambush, but if you don't you'll get destroyed.
 
S

Staf

Member
I finally found a side-quest/main-quest i really like, though 'm only about 50-60% through it. It's the quest
Ryder Family secrets after finding out about Jien Garson's death
. It seems to go places!
 
B

Bisnic

Really Really Exciting Member!
Is there any point in bringing someone you're trying to romance in your missions? Any special banter?
 
J

jrcbandit

Member
Is there any advantage to getting planets to 100% viability? Eos was easy even while avoiding the busy work/Task MMORPG-lite crap. Now, I finished Havarl storyline and I am at ~ 80% viability with no easy way to max it other than doing Tasks that don't interest me in the least.
 
T

thepenguin55

Member
DeadlyParasite said:
Nope, the aggravating assault on your personal time continues
well into the collector ship, the derelict reaper (mindless waves of armoured husks), and Horizon.
Click to expand...

There's no real way to say this without sounding like an elitist but once I got off of Omega I didn't really have many problems. The game was a challenge for me but never felt busted or anything. Having said that I think you kind of have to spec (been awhile since I've played it) a certain way which I do kind of think is bad design.
 
D

DeadlyParasite

Member
thepenguin55 said:
There's no real way to say this without sounding like an elitist but once I got off of Omega I didn't really have many problems. The game was a challenge for me but never felt busted or anything.
Click to expand...

Nothing in my posts indicated I found Insanity to be a challenge. My argument was that doing nothing but putting increased layers of crap like health, shields, and armour to shoot through just enhances the boring slog. Mass Effect 2 and ME:A Insanity share the same issue: The combat isn't challenging or difficult. It's just dragged out by the fact that everything takes obnoxiously long to kill.
 
M

moustascheman

Member
eot said:
That tells me you didn't explore the systems. Mass Effect 2 on anything but Hardcore and Insanity trivialises the game to the a point where it's not interesting. It makes no difference what squad mates you pick, what powers you choose to level up or even if you use them poorly. Biotics are insanely overpowered when you can lift almost every enemy up into the air, using a multitude of powers.

Insanity is more tactical because how you spec your character and your squad actually matters, and you need to manage their ability usage in combat as well. Like making sure that you do a biotic combo that strips the armor off of nearby enemies, so that you can do another one straight away, or using singularity to lock down enemies rather than trying to kill them. If you do that you can tear through even the most difficult encounters, like the Collector ship ambush, but if you don't you'll get destroyed.
Click to expand...

The problem with insanity in ME2 is that it simply makes the majority of your abilities useless and turns you into a gimped soldier. Having armor, shields, or barriers on any enemy means that if you're an adept there's only one ability you should ever use, warp, due to the fact that it can hurt armor and barriers. Even then, against shields, all you can do is play it like a soldier and shoot. It's why weapon damage builds are ridiculous in me2, since weapons are effective against everything whereas powers are heavily limited in what they can do. Adepts can't even use biotic combos since the me2 versions are incredibly rigid and require you to use warp on a lifted enemy, which is simply slower than just shooting the enemy, and is also not feasible when fighting bosses. It also heavily restricts what squadmates you should bring where certain squadmates (jacob, jack, tali) are terrible and miranda is damn near necessary since she can deal with anything as she has both warp and overload.
 
N

Nekrono

Member
eot said:
That tells me you didn't explore the systems. Mass Effect 2 on anything but Hardcore and Insanity trivialises the game to the a point where it's not interesting. It makes no difference what squad mates you pick, what powers you choose to level up or even if you use them poorly. Biotics are insanely overpowered when you can lift almost every enemy up into the air, using a multitude of powers.

Insanity is more tactical because how you spec your character and your squad actually matters, and you need to manage their ability usage in combat as well. Like making sure that you do a biotic combo that strips the armor off of nearby enemies, so that you can do another one straight away, or using singularity to lock down enemies rather than trying to kill them. If you do that you can tear through even the most difficult encounters, like the Collector ship ambush, but if you don't you'll get destroyed.
Click to expand...

I did not play ME2 or 3 on Insanity (played on Normal) but I definitely agree with what you're saying. For ME:A I was looking for a challenge so I started at Hardcore difficulty and I definitely think about my squad comp and abilities to a certain degree (I assume this will increase on Insanity), at the start of the game I had to emphasize on my squad survival so I had to invest heavily on their defense attributes. Later on I was the one dying so I had to bring in Cora with her Shield Boost and invest in it. It made a world of difference.

I really look forward to my second playthrough since I'll be playing on Insanity, I really like figuring out what the best squad/build combo suits best each combat situation.
 
T

thepenguin55

Member
DeadlyParasite said:
Nothing in my posts indicated I found Insanity to be a challenge. My argument was that doing nothing but putting increased layers of crap like health, shields, and armour to shoot through just enhances the boring slog. Mass Effect 2 and ME:A Insanity share the same issue: The combat isn't challenging or difficult. It's just dragged out by the fact that everything takes obnoxiously long to kill.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I could see that. I definitely remember there being some enemies that are massive bullet sponges. I'm also playing Andromeda and feel like many of the enemies are borderline bullet sponges even on normal so insanity sounds pretty awful.
 
S

Sterling's_Gold

Member
moustascheman said:
The problem with insanity in ME2 is that it simply makes the majority of your abilities useless and turns you into a gimped soldier. Having armor, shields, or barriers on any enemy means that if you're an adept there's only one ability you should ever use, warp, due to the fact that it can hurt armor and barriers. Even then, against shields, all you can do is play it like a soldier and shoot. It's why weapon damage builds are ridiculous in me2, since weapons are effective against everything whereas powers are heavily limited in what they can do. Adepts can't even use biotic combos since the me2 versions are incredibly rigid and require you to use warp on a lifted enemy, which is simply slower than just shooting the enemy, and is also not feasible when fighting bosses. It also heavily restricts what squadmates you should bring where certain squadmates (jacob, jack, tali) are terrible and miranda is damn near necessary since she can deal with anything as she has both warp and overload.
Click to expand...

Yep, if you're gonna play ME2 on Insanity, you gotta play sentinel. Warp and overload are by far the most useful powers in that game, and you get them both. You also get tech armor to increase your survival odds. The only drawback is you can only use pistols and smgs until you get to the collector ship. Though once you get there you can pickup assault rifle training, which lets you use the Mattock (probably the best all around weapon in ME2).
 
D

DeadlyParasite

Member
thepenguin55 said:
Yeah, I could see that. I definitely remember there being some enemies that are massive bullet sponges. I'm also playing Andromeda and feel like many of the enemies are borderline bullet sponges even on normal so insanity sounds pretty awful.
Click to expand...

It's not great. The
Cardinal
fight in particular was just a massive waste of time because I wasn't dying but the boss had a ridiculous amount of health and crap to blow through. A 5 minute fight turns into a 20 minute fight.

It does get a bit better once you're near the end of the game and your weapons/abilities are fully upgraded but the first 20-30 hours on Insanity are brutal for that issue alone.
 
P

Poodlestrike

Banned
ME2 Insanity was a disaster for anybody playing Adept or Vanguard, yeah. Crippled 90% of the moveset. Infiltrator, Soldier, and Engineer have an alright time of it, though. The former two more than the last.

I'm really enjoying MEA Insanity, though. It's punishing, but I don't feel like I'm just wading through enemies. Keeping your weapons up to date is the trick, I feel. If you're still running with Whatever I by Voeld/Havarl, you're gonna have a bad time. Do that, play smart, and for the love of god don't get flanked, and you'll be alright.

Also, you really need to spec into one branch and one branch only, at least at first. Later on you can diversify more, but in the beginning trying to spread your points around is just a bad idea, considering how the passive skills work this go 'round.
 
D

Durrzerker

Banned
Doodis said:
Okay, what exactly are the "right mods?" I need to know exactly how to make this thing! I haven't really dabbled in the research/development much because I'm scared I'll waste my points and augmentations on something stupid. But this looks amazing.
Click to expand...


The important bits -

Dhan Shotgun with Bio Converter augment. Make sure you have the Remnant shield sensors augment researched. Theres some shitty glitch preventing you from equipping bioconverter if not.

I also recommend the doublemod extension augment.

For mods, the heavy melee, long barrel, and other damage boosters work. Ammo is irrelevant.

Happy hunting!
 
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