moustascheman
Member
Head to the strike team desk on the tempest. On one of the tabs (the one with the lootbox icon) you'll find your reward boxes.
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Mass Effect: Andromeda |OT| Ryders on the Storm
- Thread starter Blue Ninja
- Start date
Head to the strike team desk on the tempest. On one of the tabs (the one with the lootbox icon) you'll find your reward boxes.
yankeehater
Member
Every time it tells me I need to be online. Is there no way to make yourself be online in game?
I hate what they did to special ammo in this game, like Cryo and Incendiary ammo.
Now it's a consumable which goes away so damn quickly it's almost pointless. Instead of 3 clips of use it should last for like 30 minutes. Therefore at least I know it'll last though an encounter.
Now it's a consumable which goes away so damn quickly it's almost pointless. Instead of 3 clips of use it should last for like 30 minutes. Therefore at least I know it'll last though an encounter.
Absoludacrous
Member
Right, but I'm saying the spot for the common crap is there no matter what. If you've already gotten all the commons, you just get a consumable instead.
Let's say you buy a rare pack. The game immediately decides you get 1 rare, 1 common, and 3 consumables. The game then checks and sees that you've gotten all the commons. So now your pack is 1 rare and 4 consumables. All you've done is waste your time buying a common pack for something you would have gotten later on anyway.
About 60 hours in and nearing the end, but I've been pleasantly surprised by this, actually. The game does not put its best foot forward, and starts pretty slow, but I think it ultimately hits a great stride just before Kadara or so. I honestly haven't hit many bugs. A few funny ones like Peebee standing backwards, but nothing terribly big. Otherwise the game feels pretty smooth. I'd say it feels less buggy and awkward than Mass Effect 1 did at the time. ME2 and 3 were more polished but they were also much more pared down compared to Andromeda. I also got a few bugs in those games anyway.
As I said, the game doesn't put its best foot forward, but what's weird is some of the things pointed to in pre-release really seem like exceptions to me. Addison is way way way worse than anyone else in the game for VA and looks, and the "my face is tired" conversation was even worse than her normal stuff. Something tells me that conversation was cut up and moved, partially from how weird it was but also because the face portion is a direct reference to the previous conversation which had something about "I bet it's good to see some friendly faces." Still awkward and weird, though.
And overall animations aren't terribly bad, in my opinion, when you consider how much animation is even needed. Honestly I'd say the lip syncing is some of the best non-hand-done lip syncing I've seen in games. We all laud Horizon for the conversations, but the actual syncing didn't really seem on to me through most of the game, especially side stuff. Here the syncing is nice. The other animations aren't great for side stuff, though, I do admit that. Didn't take that much away for me. I'm used to RPGs with side characters that barely fucking move or have zero lip syncing.
Other than some anomalies like that and some really background characters I don't see the huge drop in quality that others are seeing here. Mass Effect has never been a literary masterpiece of writing. They get inspiration from pulpy old sci-fi stuff and it feels the same here. I like that it's a bit lighter, and seems to fit that inspiration well enough. Personally I think people are mistaking the fact that they got connections to characters and the world built up through 2-3 games by the time ME3 hit and now they're starting over and so the writing feels worse because they're not as connected.
I feel better about this cast than ME1. Hell, I feel better about the entire game than ME1. The only thing ME1 did better was maybe the overarching story, but otherwise it will always be a strange janky mess that I had to slog through to get to ME2 and 3. Worth it in the end but ultimately not my favorite at all.
The overarching plot isn't much to write home about (but really Bioware has NEVER been good at overarching plots and I don't play the games for that), but I'm finding a lot to invest in with all he connected characters. It feels like it has breadth.
Gameplay-wise, I the game also doesn't put its best foot forward either. I thought it was kind of cruddy for the first 10-15 hours (really depending on how quickly you go), but it really starts to shine later when you're hoping around punching shit and using all sorts of abilities. I do wish my squad had more control, though.
I'm about 60 hours in and haven't finished but as you can probably tell, overall I'd say ME 2 > ME 3 > ME: A > ME1.
I'd probably rather they go back to what they're best at with the more secluded areas and really lower the amount of open space with any sequel. It seems we're saying this is all the new developer's fault, but honestly I don't see the main Bioware team doing this formula much better either. Montreal nailed some of the smaller areas just like 2 and 3, and the only big difference here isn't even the quantity of those areas. It's what's in between. I don't mind that in between, but I guess I can see how some just want to get to the better bits. I think if Montreal was able to really concentrate on those things they'd knock it out of the fucking park. There's a pretty nice spark of creativity in the loyalty missions that could be expanded on if they were able, and I'd love to see that in DLC or a next game.
And last but not least, Peebee/Drak combo is the best. Love those characters.
I really hope the reception doesn't scuttle a sequel to this game. I really think they could tweak some things and concentrate on what they're good at and give us something really amazing. I want to see what happens to society in Andromeda and I'd love to keep some of these characters around and learn even more about them. They also relegated everything to one cluster here, so I think they have a lot of freedom with introducing more aliens and other civilizations throughout a sequel.
As I said, the game doesn't put its best foot forward, but what's weird is some of the things pointed to in pre-release really seem like exceptions to me. Addison is way way way worse than anyone else in the game for VA and looks, and the "my face is tired" conversation was even worse than her normal stuff. Something tells me that conversation was cut up and moved, partially from how weird it was but also because the face portion is a direct reference to the previous conversation which had something about "I bet it's good to see some friendly faces." Still awkward and weird, though.
And overall animations aren't terribly bad, in my opinion, when you consider how much animation is even needed. Honestly I'd say the lip syncing is some of the best non-hand-done lip syncing I've seen in games. We all laud Horizon for the conversations, but the actual syncing didn't really seem on to me through most of the game, especially side stuff. Here the syncing is nice. The other animations aren't great for side stuff, though, I do admit that. Didn't take that much away for me. I'm used to RPGs with side characters that barely fucking move or have zero lip syncing.
Other than some anomalies like that and some really background characters I don't see the huge drop in quality that others are seeing here. Mass Effect has never been a literary masterpiece of writing. They get inspiration from pulpy old sci-fi stuff and it feels the same here. I like that it's a bit lighter, and seems to fit that inspiration well enough. Personally I think people are mistaking the fact that they got connections to characters and the world built up through 2-3 games by the time ME3 hit and now they're starting over and so the writing feels worse because they're not as connected.
I feel better about this cast than ME1. Hell, I feel better about the entire game than ME1. The only thing ME1 did better was maybe the overarching story, but otherwise it will always be a strange janky mess that I had to slog through to get to ME2 and 3. Worth it in the end but ultimately not my favorite at all.
The overarching plot isn't much to write home about (but really Bioware has NEVER been good at overarching plots and I don't play the games for that), but I'm finding a lot to invest in with all he connected characters. It feels like it has breadth.
Gameplay-wise, I the game also doesn't put its best foot forward either. I thought it was kind of cruddy for the first 10-15 hours (really depending on how quickly you go), but it really starts to shine later when you're hoping around punching shit and using all sorts of abilities. I do wish my squad had more control, though.
I'm about 60 hours in and haven't finished but as you can probably tell, overall I'd say ME 2 > ME 3 > ME: A > ME1.
I'd probably rather they go back to what they're best at with the more secluded areas and really lower the amount of open space with any sequel. It seems we're saying this is all the new developer's fault, but honestly I don't see the main Bioware team doing this formula much better either. Montreal nailed some of the smaller areas just like 2 and 3, and the only big difference here isn't even the quantity of those areas. It's what's in between. I don't mind that in between, but I guess I can see how some just want to get to the better bits. I think if Montreal was able to really concentrate on those things they'd knock it out of the fucking park. There's a pretty nice spark of creativity in the loyalty missions that could be expanded on if they were able, and I'd love to see that in DLC or a next game.
And last but not least, Peebee/Drak combo is the best. Love those characters.
I really hope the reception doesn't scuttle a sequel to this game. I really think they could tweak some things and concentrate on what they're good at and give us something really amazing. I want to see what happens to society in Andromeda and I'd love to keep some of these characters around and learn even more about them. They also relegated everything to one cluster here, so I think they have a lot of freedom with introducing more aliens and other civilizations throughout a sequel.
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
Agreed. Just too much busy work, made even clunkier by boring planets, shitty controlling Mako and tons of loading when traveling between systems/planets for certain side missions.
I've got EOS and Voeld at 100%. Think Havrl is at 80 something. Kadara I think is in the 20s.
I actually appreciate this a lot. They could have gone crazy with getting 100% and I thought they would when I first saw the bar go up so little. Ultimately though it was easy as hell and I got 100% on every planet so far.
Other thing I appreciate was that I've honestly had to fiddle with hitting my inventory limit far, far less than almost any other open world or RPG I can remember in the last decade or so. Horizon was terrible with this as was Witcher 3.
Absoludacrous
Member
Just to add on this, it gets even more hilarious in some fringe situations. Let's say you've maxed all the commons and rares, so you're buying the silver packs to max your uncommons.
You buy a pack, and the game decides to upgrade your uncommon drop to a rare, so your pack is now 1 rare, 1 common, and 3 consumables. Then it checks and sees you've maxed rares and commons and replaces them with consumables.
So you've bought a silver pack looking for uncommons and it turned out your entire pack was consumables.
S
Steve.1981
Unconfirmed Member
I agree with everyone saying they like the characters. So do I. The whole cast are all revealing their own personalities and little quirks as I progress through the game, it's good stuff.
It's kinda a mixed bag, yeah. Like when it comes to Peebee, I get being able to flirt with her from the get go because of the type of person that she is, but with Cora it's just weird. Most of the time she's very serious and very professional and sometimes she talks about her resentment towards you for taking her job as Pathfinder and also about the grief she feels over losing her mentor, and I get that...but then when you flirt with her it's like a switch flips in her mind and she becomes super flirty/aggressive. It's a weird transition, heh.
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
Yep. The characters and character interactions have always been the main draw to Bioware games for me. ME:A is no different. I don't like the crew as much as the OT or KOTOR or the DA games, but they're still good and have a lot of great interactions--though hampered some by bad writing in places.
If not for that, I'd probably have abandoned the game by now/switched to the MP mode.
I agree, mostly. The ambient crew dialogue on the Tempest in particular is entertaining, and generally superior to the original trilogy, with the possible exception of ME3.
For whatever it's worth, I think that the end of the game pays off your investment to a certain extent. I started to get pretty fatigued with the planetary grind (land -> assess basic conflict -> solve basic conflict via long questlines with dubious writing and production values -> solve Remnant towers -> solve Remnant vault, again -> place settlement -> do some fetchy sidequests, if you can stomach it -> repeat), which occasionally reminded me of DA:I's weaker moments. But the final series of main-story missions is quite solid, in my opinion, and do a decent job of tying together your various accomplishments leading up to them. The companion loyalty missions are also a highlight.
Really, having finished the game, my overwhelming impression is that it's about 50% bigger than it needs to be. If you simply went in and chopped out a lot of the weaker content -- especially the fetch quests that purposelessly bloat otherwise decent chains -- ME:A would be a much stronger game. To pick one of many possible examples, why do I need to activate towers on every freaking planet before doing the vault? What does this add to the game, really, beyond bloating the time invested?
Soo, how many people did
in Jaal loyalty mission? I didn't
How much is left for me after I'm done with
not shoot Akksul
shot him, and now Jaal got a nice permanent scar and it was apparently the right decision, even though shooting him was very tempting.
How much is left for me after I'm done with
Eladeen? The next main plot quest is finding the Archon ship, is that one of the last missions? Or is there plenty left?
I am two or so priority missions beyond the one you mentioned there and am still not done. Been trying to clean up relationship/ally missions and the game really is testing my patience with the missions that have you goto 3-4 different locations.
I think I'm near the end though maybe 1-2 more missions.
Hawkeye 131
Member
I have about 6 hours in so far and I'm enjoying it but they really need to add an option to disable depth of field. It's probably the worst implementation I've ever seen in recent memory. I find really hinders the immersion during cutscenes and it looks absolutely atrocious in some places.
Son Of Sparda
Member
I did the same. And yeah that was definitely the right decision.
I'm at least a few hours ahead of you and I still think I have a few more story missions to go through. If you do the relationship missions, then you still have a lot to look forward to.
Here is a Gamefaq post explaining how all that shit works. Unfortunately someone at Bioware forgot to make a tutorial worth a damn for APEX management and you have to learn it all from the internet.
The game overall improves noticeably after the first ~5-10 hours, but the dialogue remains uneven, in my opinion. Some quips work, most don't (although you can control this a bit by establishing a logical/professional/emotional personality rather than a smartass one). I can't say if the facial animations ever change much in quality, because I pretty quickly stopped looking at the characters' faces when they spoke in favor of reading the subtitles.
I will say that the writing improves in a more holistic sense: you're given more reasons to care about the people and places you interact with, and the plotlines get somewhat more interesting.
If you play a bit past the first planet and the writing is still nails-on-a-chalkboard for you, though, it may be time to bail.
Blue Ninja
Member
I'm having a lot of fun with Pull/Backlash and Charge. Detonations for days, and you'll never run out of shields.
It definitely improves. How long it takes might be up to what you actually do in the game, but the absolute worst of the worst dialogue was right in the beginning, in my opinion. That said, if you want a dour character and a serious plotline this probably isn't the game for you either. You can choose more serious answers and kind of make it better that way, but the game definitely is more lighthearted than the series has been in the past. I'm fine with that personally, but if you're not then you might want to bail out I guess.
If you paid $60 for it I'd say you should try at least to get to the 20-30 hour mark where things really open up and hit a good stride. If you're playing someone else's copy and haven't invested money then maybe before that you'll know.
TimHortons
Member
Playing on PS4 and finding Harvarl a real pain. Performance is horrible, was experiencing loot lag in areas even. Loot something then get the dialog box 30 seconds later. Painful.
Wow, never experienced this anywhere in the game. Maybe a system reboot would fix it? I feel like DA: I had something like that happen until I rebooted, but I might be remembering wrong.
It gets better, specifically the banter and character development aboard the Tempest, but you're still on an expedition with adolescents, shitty comedians and forgettable NPC's for the most part. There's more lame and inappropriate quipping to come.
My late game experience wasn't 30 seconds lag bad, but performance became increasingly strained the longer I played. The last two planets were slideshows during drives and fights, with the game outright pausing for a second at a time regularly to try and keep up. Would experience the same returning to earlier planets as well. Felt like a save file/memory leak issue.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
Son Of Sparda
Member
Didn't experience anything this bad, but the game does run like crap on PS4. Each time that I try to talk to Suvi after coming back from a planet, the game completely freezes for a solid 15-20 seconds.
any guesses as to what Bioware will be announcing tomorrow as far as their big announcement?...can't be something simple as patch notes or a few bug fixes...has to be something bigger right?...Enhanced Edition with overhauled animation, dialogue etc (like Witcher 1 and 2)?...too much to hope for?
I wouldn't hold my hopes that high. We're probably just getting some sort of "explanation" or apology for the animations and general lack of polish, a patch fixing some bugs and some sort of roadmap for future patches/fixes.
That's my guess at least, I really doubt they'll tackle the animations/dialogue, etc.
I wish they really did some sort of enhanced edition in the long run though, this game would be absolutely amazing if they're able to address the animations, dialogue, etc, that most people complain about, I don't really need that as I'm enjoying the game far too much in it's current state but addressing the major issues and eventually coming out with an fresh coat of paint like en enhanced edition would really bring this game to it's full potential.
has to be more then an apology or roadmap for future patches...they could have just announced that last week
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
What I hope:
An 'above normal' patching/fixing effort to tackle the major issues with the game, possibly revamping facial animations, adding more options to the character creator, giving more accessibility options like being able to skip planet intro/exit video files and shorten or skip galaxy traveling, improve frame rate in console version, add 1080p/high frame rate mode for PS4 Pro, add more casual clothes for non-combat mission segments.
And hopefully free story DLC for the Quarian Ark.
RPGCrazied
Member
It definitely needs a performance patch on base PS4's. At least fix the pacing issues.
Son Of Sparda
Member
That is waaaay too much to hope for.
It's just gonna be a patch road map and promises that they'll fix bugs and stuff. I doubt they even mention animations outside of bugs. They announced that date last week to let people know that they are listening. They just didn't want players to get even more mad at them. That's it.
I doubt it, the game got so much negative attention that EA/BioWare was pressured to release some sort of statement just to give people hope or at least acknowledge that they are listening, thinking they will do something about it is much better than being completely silent.
They were vague in their announcement and I think they will be vague tomorrow as well. Addressing all the negative feedback this game has received is a huge endeavor and I really doubt they have a solid plan that they can commit to in just 2 weeks after release.
I hope I'm wrong though.
I saw someone use an electric shotgun (Reegar I think) with a grenade launcher aug on it, it looked sick.
bati
Member
If you like to use your abilities then try the one that gives 20% more power damage when the clip is full. It's what I use on my sentinel and it's great. Haven't fired a gun in a while
You can do it in one. There are multiple characters who are flings in this game.
Pfft. You should've seen how many playthroughs it takes to get ME1 1000G/Plat.
Also three, iirc
Just finished the game. Probably biggest disappointments I have played.
Bugs, uninteresting quests, cut & paste game design, horrible writing and pretty bad voice acting to sum it up.
It had some high points, like the premise, the arks and some characters.
Luckily the game I have waited for ages, Persona 5, is out tomorrow and seems to be excellent.
Bugs, uninteresting quests, cut & paste game design, horrible writing and pretty bad voice acting to sum it up.
It had some high points, like the premise, the arks and some characters.
Luckily the game I have waited for ages, Persona 5, is out tomorrow and seems to be excellent.
Ah, ok. Haven't "done" any of the romance stuff so had no idea. I don't really care about trophies, just felt bad for my buddies who are trophy fanatics lol.
It helped me when I stopped picking the Casual and whatever the top left dialogue options were. Once I picked only Logic and Professional and it seemed to make a big difference, to me at least. Seems to affect Ryder but also the responses from companions in little ways.
This.
I really think a commitment to fixes and a healthy expansion would really make this game great.
But, I'm not deluding myself, if history is any indicator they'll do some bug fixing and release a couple marginal DLCs and move the fuck on. It'll be better, but not nearly as satisfying as it could be.
Same. The Logic/Professional responses are so much better it's insane. Probably different writers.
prag16
Banned
Yeah anybody hoping for changes to animations (barring major bugs) or dialogue/writing are kidding themselves.
They'll probably discuss the commitment to a series of patches to fix obvious bugs and issues, plus some quality of life improvements to reduce some of the annoyances of the experience.
On the DLC front, probably free multiplayer DLC, and vague plans to put out a couple single player DLCs down the line. If we're lucky maybe they'll offer something that was previously going to be paid as free to get some good will.
Dre_G_Writer
Member
WIth the biotic powers, you need to make a build around the use of the powers. On their own, they can seem weak, but once you set up a build around the use of some powers and find ways to make them stack on one another, they can be stupidly over powered.
For example, in these gifs
Ive posted these before and some people would copy the same skills I use and they come back saying that theirs are no where near as effective as mines.
Even if you saw the skills im using in those gifs and try to do the same, you'd fail at recreating the same effect because those effects goes deeper than just skill selection. The weapon, the weapon augs, the armor im wearing, the armor augs, the armor mods, the passives, the profile, all that is focuses on strengthening the effects of those skills. When you get it just right, as you can see, the effects are devastating. And those gifs are on insanity
Beam aug is complete garbage. it drops the dps of any weapon that has it. dont kow if thats a bug or that is intended, but stay farrrr away from that unless your doing a build where you dont want the enemy to die from the gun itself, maybe you just want the gun to prime the target or something.
But for killing, hells fuck to the no
Bioware have flat-out stated they don't do expansions anymore. Apparently Dragon Age Awakenings bombed and it scared them off forever. =/ Expect 3 or so $15 DLC sets.
Dre_G_Writer
Member
Asari duelist is a beast
