Support NeoGAF

[prag16]

Again, not shitting on ME:A, I gave it an 8 overall. But I really disliked the open world planet parts of the game. I just liked the characters and character interactions/relationships enough to still enjoy the game despite disliking the sidequests and planet exploration.

The combination of the questionable open world design and the questionable design for a lot of the optional quests... those mechanics combine to be easily the worst aspect of the game without a doubt.

I initially didn't like Havarl, but after dicking around on places like Kadara and Voeld for an inordinate amount of time, I came to appreciate the denser, tighter design (even if some of the traversal was kind of shitty; I wasted time trying to scale cliff faces at times before figuring out the roundabout 'actual' ways to access certain areas). Of course the Nomad isn't the only problem, and a lot of the bullshit regarding quest design applies to Havarl too. Add me to the list of people who always thought the mako sucked. It was never good. It was a fun novelty for about 5 minutes; after that I was awful and I have a VERY hard time believing no rose tinted nostalgia goggles are involved for everyone talking up the mako and ME1's "exploration".

The Ryder Family Secrets quest is a prime example to me of how shitty the design can be. It's a worthwhile story related quest with enough engaging stuff there to keep you motivated to see it through... but collecting stupid glowing points of light randomly scattered? What? Come on.

Spoiler

Completed the quest line last night...
two HUGE mysteries there that I'm assuming the ending doesn't address... or maybe one if the two are related... the Benefactor's identity and whereabouts (if it's not the Illusive Man) and the circumstances of Garson's murder.

Just about everything else is still hitting the right notes for me though, and I'll probably immediately start a NG+ run when I finish.

 

[Cornbread78]

The quest Journal is a little confusing...they tried to put things together but when you have a lot of quests,its a little hard to get back in there to find and track them...also a level suggested would of been nice but its no big deal...twice now I started a quest where the last part had a ''come back later'' feel to it,like the sidequest on Eos about

Spoiler

The Hammers lol

Glad I'm not the only one that gets highly frustrated at the way the menu's are organized. They should have made it much easier to track the sidequests, IMO. I get confused constantly when trying to figure out where to go next.

 

[mbpm1]

Collecting memories wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to like...scale a cliff for 5 minutes to locate the points.

Why would it not naturally be part of your main quest areas? You spent time and cinematic tech on those memories, but don't want people to see them?

 

[obeast]

Thresher maws actually reproduce via spores which are able to survive space and even atmospheric reentry iirc. I think that they are supposed to be spread accidentally by explorers or something. I dunno, it's been a long time since I read the codex.

The real answer (and it is also the answer to your other complaints) is budget. The UNC content in ME1 was put together with very little resources (ME1 was pre-EA money). I'm sure Bioware planned to have a lot more variety in terms of creatures that the player could encounter, but the game was a huge undertaking. For example, multiple characters in ME1 reference something called "nathak" which are some kind of hostile alien. Nathak do not appear anywhere in any Mass Effect game afaik.

Huh, interesting. I should have known that ME1 would have an in-game explanation for its preponderance of thresher maws. I probably knew that at some point. And I never caught that Nathak thing, either.

I totally agree re: the budget issue, as I think I mentioned lower down in my post. Actually, the article I linked has some interesting speculations about the various sacrifices made in ME1 due to development constraints, should you have a few minutes and some interest.

The Ryder Family Secrets quest is a prime example to me of how shitty the design can be. It's a worthwhile story related quest with enough engaging stuff there to keep you motivated to see it through... but collecting stupid glowing points of light randomly scattered? What? Come on.

They should honestly just patch this quest in particular to trigger based on main-story events. Most of the other really egregious quests you can skip in good conscience, but Ryder Family Secrets is just too important to the story to miss. I'll probably replay ME:A someday, and when I do I will grit my teeth and do the quest again.

 

[prag16]

Collecting memories wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to like...scale a cliff for 5 minutes to locate the points.

Why would it not naturally be part of your main quest areas? You spent time and cinematic tech on those memories, but don't want people to see them?

They should honestly just patch this quest in particular to trigger based on main-story events. Most of the other really egregious quests you can skip in good conscience, but Ryder Family Secrets is just too important to the story to miss. I'll probably replay ME:A someday, and when I do I will grit my teeth and do the quest again.

Yeah, just have SAM "work" on unlocking them throughout the game, and have him periodically notify you that a new memory is available. Collecting the stupid shit makes no sense. They could still make the quest optional in that you could ignore SAM and decide not to go and view the memories. But collecting points of light is silly and it funny to think that a person actually proposed that, and that it was approved by the leads on the game.

Glad I'm not the only one that gets highly frustrated at the way the menu's are organized. They should have made it much easier to track the sidequests, IMO. I get confused constantly when trying to figure out where to go next.

None of the menus and interfaces bother me at this point.

That doesn't mean they aren't bad. The R&D interface, and the journal are both not very good. I just got used to them. At least they aren't straight up broken like the ME3 journal could be at times (and still is afaik).

 

[Sober]

Yeah, just have SAM "work" on unlocking them throughout the game, and have him periodically notify you that a new memory is available. Collecting the stupid shit makes no sense. They could still make the quest optional in that you could ignore SAM and decide not to go and view the memories. But collecting points of light is silly and it funny to think that a person actually proposed that, and that it was approved by the leads on the game.

This is really dumb and I wanted to say considering the way the game makes SAM to function basically like a team mate on the ship, having to go out of the way for these things (with almost no context whatsoever as to why it's just light dots on the map) is really odd.

 

[Lashley]

The Architect fight on Voeld is really pissing me off

 

[Steve.1981]

They should honestly just patch this quest in particular to trigger based on main-story events. Most of the other really egregious quests you can skip in good conscience, but Ryder Family Secrets is just too important to the story to miss. I'll probably replay ME:A someday, and when I do I will grit my teeth and do the quest again.

I agree with this. Especially since I've now collected all the balls of light, but SAM still isn't giving up that last memory anyway (until I hit a main story trigger, probably).

 

[Bisnic]

I agree with this. Especially since I've now collected all the balls of light, but SAM still isn't giving up that last memory anyway (until I hit a main story trigger, probably).

The quest is already gated by the main story(well that last part at least), so it makes the whole point of gathering glowing balls even more stupid.

The Ryder Family quest is so important in the game, I wonder who had the idea of making it like this. If you decide to skip it, you miss so many important plot points, it's crazy.

 

[shawnoftheshred]

This is really dumb and I wanted to say considering the way the game makes SAM to function basically like a team mate on the ship, having to go out of the way for these things (with almost no context whatsoever as to why it's just light dots on the map) is really odd.

Especially when there are other memory triggers/reconstructed scenes that use the scanner and at least make for a somewhat interesting visual and add some context. Kind of felt like different teams working on different quests and not really spending the time making them feel consistent.

 

[shawnoftheshred]

The Architect fight on Voeld is really pissing me off

I had my AR fully maxed out (Valkyrie) and it seemed like I could rip a leg to shreds in before needing to heat up, using the architect's flying away step as a chance to heat up instead. While the first architect probably took me over 10 minutes to beat, and would've been a pain with environmental hazards, the last few, felt like 4-5 mins tops, relatively safe.

 

[MCD250]

Yeah, the one on Voeld is for sure a pain. I think it took me two tries to get it. I think the one on the krogan planet was easiest.

I was really surprised that

Spoiler

they didn't make you fight the one in Meridian as a final boss.

 

[Staf]

New youtube clip about "Scoring a new galaxy". Personally i thought there was way too little music in the game and what was there was forgettable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR6MnzxOE64

 

[MCD250]

I like the main theme a lot.


The music definitely feels a bit sparse though. Plus no romance theme is super weird.

 

[TC McQueen]

The music is bugged and needs to be set to 200% via config file to be audible.

 

[dreamer3kx]

Im about 6 hrs in, I just dont like the mission structure at all, everything is all over the place, Im just going to stick to main missions and friend missions (do these pop up at random?) I could care less about crafting, hopefully not missing out on anything by not doing so.

 

[Scottish Sin]

Im about 6 hrs in, I just dont like the mission structure at all, everything is all over the place, Im just going to stick to main missions and friend missions (do these pop up at random?) I could care less about crafting, hopefully not missing out on anything by not doing so.

You could do that if you're so inclined to. There's definitely a lot of busy work quests that are really basic. I ended up doing pretty much everything because I'm an idiot but I feel you'll have a better time just ignoring the additional task quests in general.

 

[prag16]

Im about 6 hrs in, I just dont like the mission structure at all, everything is all over the place, Im just going to stick to main missions and friend missions (do these pop up at random?) I could care less about crafting, hopefully not missing out on anything by not doing so.

Yeah, you'll miss some ancillary stuff but not too bad.

Priority: Everything is basically mandatory.
Allies/Relationships: Most of these are worthwhile, especially with regard to your crew.
Heleus: A lot of this is worthwhile but a lot of it probably isn't. The main planet quests are mostly decent. Main missions involving the other arks or major factions should be done.
Tasks: Most of this isn't worthwhile.

 

[BeauRoger]

This latest update is mess. My character is now limping during certain cutscenes, a lot of post processing effects just seem to switch on and off, framerate is worse and a lot of strange developer text now appears, such as asset load text during the loading screens, [numpad] indicators in conversation options, etc. Any word on when they will release an update to fix this update?

 

[obeast]

The Architect fight on Voeld is really pissing me off

This was driving me crazy until I realized you could fight inside the surrounding structures without needing to worry about the environment killing you.

If I remember correctly, you'll always have a building that's far away enough that its zappy field doesn't fry you but close enough for you to pop out and shoot it.

 

[mbpm1]

This was driving me crazy until I realized you could fight inside the surrounding structures without needing to worry about the environment killing you.

If I remember correctly, you'll always have a building that's far away enough that its zappy field doesn't fry you but close enough for you to pop out and shoot it.

Yep. It's the best cover in the place.

 

[prag16]

This latest update is mess. My character is now limping during certain cutscenes, a lot of post processing effects just seem to switch on and off, framerate is worse and a lot of strange developer text now appears, such as asset load text during the loading screens, [numpad] indicators in conversation options, etc. Any word on when they will release an update to fix this update?

The [numpad] stuff can be turned off in the key bindings. Unmap those keys. The asset loading text during loading screens, meh, saw it here and there but don't care. Haven't seen any of the other issues; maybe slightly worse performance here or there but not by much. Regardless, wonder how long until the next patch. Probably at least a couple weeks.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

So this is a really minor detail, but I thought it was super cool that the star system that Nexus is in is named Zhang He, presumably after the famed captain of the Chinese treasure fleet

 

[Sterling's_Gold]

New youtube clip about "Scoring a new galaxy". Personally i thought there was way too little music in the game and what was there was forgettable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR6MnzxOE64

Ugh. Mass Effect's music did not need to be "modernized" or "brought into 2017" (what did he even mean by this). The sound of ME has always been fundamentally retro in nature.

Regardless of my preference for synths, the majority of music in Andromeda is just bland and forgettable. I can't recall any motifs other than the piano stuff in the main theme or the galaxy map (which is just a lesser re-imagining of the original theme).

Bring back Sam Hulick please.

 

[GameAddict411]

I have clocked 50 hours in this game so far, and quite honestly I have been really enjoying it. The game is very rich in content especially when compared to the original trilogy and that excludes all the filler quest in the game. I think that the animations need work for sure, and the writing quality is pretty inconsistent. There are some instances where it's great, and some where it's borderline awkward and bad. The emails in this game are surprisingly very well written and add a lot of depth to the game. The game is also extremely beautiful and the art design is breathtaking at times. (Elaaden and Harvarl are incredible).

I think that the game biggest weakness is that it just needed more time. 6 months of polishing would have done wonders to this game. I really hope we see a sequel address all the problem from Andromeda. I still have another 20-30 hours to go still! I haven't even touched the multiplayer that much yet. Looking forward to that as well. So far I don't regret paying $48 for the game(Amazon prime member).

 

[Deacan]

I've noticed a few big budget games have had subdued soundtracks recently, Andromeda, Uncharted 4 and even Gears of War 4 soundtrack was a massive disappointment.

 

[GameAddict411]

Im about 6 hrs in, I just dont like the mission structure at all, everything is all over the place, Im just going to stick to main missions and friend missions (do these pop up at random?) I could care less about crafting, hopefully not missing out on anything by not doing so.

It's definitely overwhelming in the beginning to how much you can do. There are some decent side quest. I think there might be a guide somewhere to highlight some of the important quest, but not sure. I think you should at least install an outpost to every new world you visit and do the loyalty missions(which be highlighted and presented as you progress the story).

 

[Rodney McKay]

I've noticed a few big budget games have had subdued soundtracks recently, Andromeda, Uncharted 4 and even Gears of War 4 soundtrack was a massive disappointment.

Zelda BOTW too. Barely any music outside of villages.

What's there is really good, but having lots of iconic songs is something I love about Zelda and I did miss not having more of it in BOTW.

 

[mbpm1]

I can't remember a single track. Pretty disappointing.

 

[MCD250]

Would love to hear Jack Wall's take on this game tbh.

 

[Arklite]

Yeah Andromeda's soundtrack is disappointing, lackluster. Mixing issues as well; a battle theme towards the end of the game kept cutting out whenever I cloaked. Worse, I wish it'd stayed off considering how generic it sounded. The low key atmospheric themes fare batter but they're really low volume. The rest is silence.

I keep feeling like I'm too hard on this game, but this quarter has just been high quality after high quality release for this to trip up so hard.

 

[mbpm1]

The trailers had decent music too

 

[Sterling's_Gold]

I've noticed a few big budget games have had subdued soundtracks recently, Andromeda, Uncharted 4 and even Gears of War 4 soundtrack was a massive disappointment.

Game developers/publishers that make story-driven games are always trying to follow film/television. It has been popular for a while now for a lot of filmmakers to prefer that scores be more focused on background ambience rather than drawing attention to themselves with melody. This is impacting AAA games now due to developers/publishers preferring to bring on composers with current tv/film resumes for prestige or something. Andromeda replaced the previous Mass Effect composers:

Jack Wall
Sam Hulick
Sascha Dikicyan
Cris Velasco
David Kates
Jimmy Hinson
Christopher Lennertz

with John Paesano. Paesano has zero experience composing for video games. And while it is true that Lennertz has done some film/tv work and that Mansell came on board for ME3 to compose a grand total of two tracks (one was co-composed with Hulick), this is a marked change for the series. Uncharted 4 also replaced Greg Edmonson with Henry Jackman (same situation: Edmonson has worked in film/tv but nothing popular in the last several years). Just because someone composes for tv/film does not mean that they are better or worse than a primarily game composer; it's a different skill set.

I don't know why Bioware doesn't understand that when a player is spending hours wandering around large environments, they are going to at least want some ambience to set a mood/atmosphere. Melodic loops should also be used in important locations to make them more memorable. Both Inquisition and Andromeda are silent like 80% of the time.

Compare this to another open world game, The Witcher 3.

Ambience: The Fields of Ard Skellig

Location based melody: Oxenfurt

Edit: In fact, now that I think about it, TW3 is rarely silent. There is almost always music playing. Voeld or Havarl or the Nexus or whatever would be much more fun to explore if they had unique ambient music at the very least.

 

[Renekton]

I've noticed a few big budget games have had subdued soundtracks recently, Andromeda, Uncharted 4 and even Gears of War 4 soundtrack was a massive disappointment.

Movies as well, eg Civil War.

 

[truestatic]

The soundtrack from Mass Effect Andromeda reminds me of that Marvel Symphonic Universe video. Nothing identifiable, kinda bland, and totally forgettable. It melts into the scenery.

Every time you level up, they play the first NOTE of Vigil. What a fucking tease. Does Andromedas soundtrack use any synth at all? I'm leaning towards no. Whoops. :\

 

[mbpm1]

The soundtrack from Mass Effect Andromeda reminds me of that Marvel Symphonic Universe video. Nothing identifiable, kinda bland, and totally forgettable. It melts into the scenery.

Every time you level up, they play the first NOTE of Vigil. What a fucking tease.

That's exactly the video I was thinking!

At least if there was music it would distract me from the fact that my main challenge on the map is figuring out how to navigate toward a point through a steep slope.

 

[MCD250]

The Witcher 3 has amazing background music.

The trailers had decent music too

I'M ONLY HUMAN




AFTER ALL

 

[Jibbajabbawockky]

I don't know why Bioware doesn't understand that when a player is spending hours wandering around large environments, they are going to at least want some ambience to set a mood/atmosphere. Melodic loops should also be used in important locations to make them more memorable. Both Inquisition and Andromeda are silent like 80% of the time.

Compare this to another open world game, The Witcher 3.

Ambience: The Fields of Ard Skellig

Location based melody: Oxenfurt

Edit: In fact, now that I think about it, TW3 is rarely silent. There is almost always music playing. Voeld or Havarl or the Nexus or whatever would be much more fun to explore if they had unique ambient music at the very least.

Yeah, I feel like the music issue is just one of many issues BioWare has in sort of not understanding how to make a good open world game. For me, great atmospheric music like the stuff from the Witcher 3 or something like Jeremy Soule's soundtrack in Skyrim are great additions to the atmosphere of those worlds that makes me want to take my time exploring.

I'm not opposed to BioWare doing more open world stuff but they really need to make actual worlds that feel more like cohesive worlds as opposed to just really big MMO themepark levels, which is what Inquisition at least felt like (haven't played ME:A yet myself, but it looks awfully similar to DA:I in this regard).

 

[Ascenion]

Game developers/publishers that make story-driven games are always trying to follow film/television. It has been popular for a while now for a lot of filmmakers to prefer that scores be more focused on background ambience rather than drawing attention to themselves with melody. This is impacting AAA games now due to developers/publishers preferring to bring on composers with current tv/film resumes for prestige or something. Andromeda replaced the previous Mass Effect composers:

Jack Wall
Sam Hulick
Sascha Dikicyan
Cris Velasco
David Kates
Jimmy Hinson
Christopher Lennertz

with John Paesano. Paesano has zero experience composing for video games. And while it is true that Lennertz has done some film/tv work and that Mansell came on board for ME3 to compose a grand total of two tracks (one was co-composed with Hulick), this is a marked change for the series. Uncharted 4 also replaced Greg Edmonson with Henry Jackman (same situation: Edmonson has worked in film/tv but nothing popular in the last several years). Just because someone composes for tv/film does not mean that they are better or worse than a primarily game composer; it's a different skill set.

I don't know why Bioware doesn't understand that when a player is spending hours wandering around large environments, they are going to at least want some ambience to set a mood/atmosphere. Melodic loops should also be used in important locations to make them more memorable. Both Inquisition and Andromeda are silent like 80% of the time.

I disagree. It's not a different skill set. It's probably more the film composers don't care about the game score or the people in charge of approving the music shouldn't be. First off most of your complaints have little to do with the composer. They have nothing to do with how the score is implemented and in most cases the way it sounds is directly influenced by the studio in these contract cases. You tell the composer what you want, and he writes some pieces and you judge from there. You want looping music? It's not hard to find a place for a track to loop and write in a coda. BioWare just came up short or didn't want to pay Paesano. The OST only has about an hour of music. That's fucking pathetic. This lies solely on BioWare. If the music is shit then scrap it and get another composer.

 

[Renekton]

There has to be a reason behind OSTs nowadays getting more muted or pushed far into background for movies and games. Someone needs to ask a lead designer or movie director about this prevailing trend.

 

[The Dude]

Other than some suspect animations and writing, this game honestly delivers in just about every other aspect. Really enjoying it and I love exploring as much as I do the combat.

 

[Sterling's_Gold]

I disagree. It's not a different skill set. It's probably more the film composers don't care about the game score or the people in charge of approving the music shouldn't be. First off most of your complaints have little to do with the composer. They have nothing to do with how the score is implemented and in most cases the way it sounds is directly influenced by the studio in these contract cases. You tell the composer what you want, and he writes some pieces and you judge from there. You want looping music? It's not hard to find a place for a track to loop and write in a coda. BioWare just came up short or didn't want to pay Paesano. The OST only has about an hour of music. That's fucking pathetic. This lies solely on BioWare. If the music is shit then scrap it and get another composer.

Maybe it's not a different skill set per say, but there are obvious differences between scoring a film and a game. Composing effective music for the background of a level is not the same as coming up with a memorable sting for a cutscene, which would be more like film scoring. Paesano even talks about this in the video that Staf posted. Scoring a game requires an ability to think more conceptually as opposed to writing a piece to go with edited together footage.

How does my complaint have nothing to do with the composer? Paesano delivered an uninspired collection of pieces.

Also in the video, one of the production guys states that Paesano compsed hundreds of minutes of music, which was distilled down to the 70 minutes or so that they wanted. Doesn't seem like it's a pay issue, more so Bioware's creative direction, as Inquisition is also largely bereft of music.

 

[Madness]

Other than some suspect animations and writing, this game honestly delivers in just about every other aspect. Really enjoying it and I love exploring as much as I do the combat.

What? I think animations are a red herring for this game. I can handle shitty faces. I cannot handle the poor quest, level design, even some enemy encounters. Writing, dialogue, voice acting is sub-par. I literally think they just wrote a rudimentary script, went to some British theatre school and paid some amateur actors to read lines. It is why so many have a British accent and don't really do a good job.

What is the exploring really? Traverse through a bare map with sparse to nothing but recycled assets every 50 meters.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

The Witcher 3 has amazing background music.


I'M ONLY HUMAN




AFTER ALL

DON'T PUT THE BLAME ON ME

 

[watershed]

Is there no Game Informer Game Club thread on gaf or something similar? I've been following their game club podcasts for ME Andromeda but do these get talked about her on gaf?

 

[Ascenion]

Maybe it's not a different skill set per say, but there are obvious differences between scoring a film and a game. Composing effective music for the background of a level is not the same as coming up with a memorable sting for a cutscene, which would be more like film scoring. Paesano even talks about this in the video that Staf posted. Scoring a game requires an ability to think more conceptually as opposed to writing a piece to go with edited together footage.

How does my complaint have nothing to do with the composer? Paesano delivered an uninspired collection of pieces.

Also in the video, one of the production guys states that Paesano compsed hundreds of minutes of music, which was distilled down to the 70 minutes or so that they wanted. Doesn't seem like it's a pay issue, more so Bioware's creative direction, as Inquisition is also largely bereft of music.

I hadn't seen that video. Just watched it. If he really created hours of music and they picked what we have I'm not sure. Heleus as a track makes me think they threw out some of his better stuff, but them wanting it to sound like Maze Runner makes me feel like they didn't want him leaning to heavily on the past games sound. It still looks like it's BioWare's sound team at fault, because Heleus sounds like Mass Effect and loops well. No to mention we don't know how involved Peasano was. He could've literally just composed and took a backseat orchestration and arrangement wise, which honestly I would say has more to do with what you're hearing than basic composition.

 

[rjcc]

What? I think animations are a red herring for this game. I can handle shitty faces. I cannot handle the poor quest, level design, even some enemy encounters. Writing, dialogue, voice acting is sub-par. I literally think they just wrote a rudimentary script, went to some British theatre school and paid some amateur actors to read lines. It is why so many have a British accent and don't really do a good job.

What is the exploring really? Traverse through a bare map with sparse to nothing but recycled assets every 50 meters.

we must be playing games that are actually different, there are very few British accents in my copy.

 

[Ascenion]

I like the main theme a lot.


The music definitely feels a bit sparse though. Plus no romance theme is super weird.

What even is the main theme. iTunes marks it as A Better Beginning, but A Trail of Hope sounds better and based on utilization in game it's like they couldn't make up their minds.

 

[mbpm1]

Man, they really took steps backwards on several fronts.

 

[Sterling's_Gold]

I hadn't seen that video. Just watched it. If he really created hours of music and they picked what we have I'm not sure. Heleus as a track makes me think they threw out some of his better stuff, but them wanting it to sound like Maze Runner makes me feel like they didn't want him leaning to heavily on the past games sound. It still looks like it's BioWare's sound team at fault, because Heleus sounds like Mass Effect and loops well. No to mention we don't know how involved Peasano was. He could've literally just composed and took a backseat orchestration and arrangement wise, which honestly I would say has more to do with what you're hearing than basic composition.

Well, you could absolutely be right about Paesano's involvement or lack thereof. The problems with the music could have more to do with orchestration or arranging as you said, or even sound engineering/mixing by Bioware's audio team. Doubt we'll ever know for sure.

I guess in the end I just preferred the creative direction of the previous composers/audio team.