I read your rant and actually (as someone who has ranted too much about lore and timelines already) was a bit perplexed by what you are saying. Having the research options available from the moment research opens up in game seems *really* bizarre, and not at all fitting with what we expect from these games - shouldn't it just be locked away until the story progresses past a certain point? That's the standard from practically any open world game nowadays.
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The Mass Effect Community Thread
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I read your rant and actually (as someone who has ranted too much about lore and timelines already) was a bit perplexed by what you are saying. Having the research options available from the moment research opens up in game seems *really* bizarre, and not at all fitting with what we expect from these games - shouldn't it just be locked away until the story progresses past a certain point? That's the standard from practically any open world game nowadays.
BrassDragon
Member
It's hard for me to admit it but the 10 hour trial left me disappointed. I crave more Mass Effect and thought I was enough of a fan to gloss over some imperfections - but this is a bad first impression on so many levels. As with anything life, poor first impressions can be overcome and a 100 hour game has a fairly decent shot at building a comeback - but hot damn, that first impression counts.
I had already decided to overlook the animation jank because the promo materials prepared me for them but the clunky dialogue and poorly paced exposition are insufferable. It's like the start of ME3 all over again, the narrative tripping over itself, glossing over character development and exploration of its themes in a mad dash to get to the designated 'good parts'. To me, that stuff they're trying to gloss over ARE the good parts.
The mood is all over the place and the writing/acting can't compensate for the poor animations because you're in constant tonal whiplash. I feel the Citadel DLC worked so wonderfully because it was a contrast to the solemn and nihilistic main game but it seems BioWare took from it that everything has to be zingers and one-liners now. Often the stuff coming out of people's mouths has no context and is hard to follow for an ESL like myself.
The score has lost all personality, except for a few tracks. The main theme seems like it's building up to the 'Dawn Will Come' just when it's about to swell, reminding me of a much better and more consistent soundtrack. The introduction of the Big Bad has some over-the-top trailer orchestra behind it, with no sense of menace or otherworldliness at all. For a game about exploring the void and discovering awe, the music is distressingly generic.
The combat engine is... okay, I guess? The soft cover system and the AI reactions are both highly unpredictable which makes formulating tactics on the fly both frustrating and unrewarding. Can't knock it too much though, it's definitely an improvement to almost anything BioWare has done before and the main thing that kept me engaged.
I know a lot of you want to get away from the negativity that dominates other threads but my disappointment comes from a place of passionately wanting this game to deliver more than it shows in the first 10 (ten!) hours.
Feels bad, man.
I had already decided to overlook the animation jank because the promo materials prepared me for them but the clunky dialogue and poorly paced exposition are insufferable. It's like the start of ME3 all over again, the narrative tripping over itself, glossing over character development and exploration of its themes in a mad dash to get to the designated 'good parts'. To me, that stuff they're trying to gloss over ARE the good parts.
The mood is all over the place and the writing/acting can't compensate for the poor animations because you're in constant tonal whiplash. I feel the Citadel DLC worked so wonderfully because it was a contrast to the solemn and nihilistic main game but it seems BioWare took from it that everything has to be zingers and one-liners now. Often the stuff coming out of people's mouths has no context and is hard to follow for an ESL like myself.
The score has lost all personality, except for a few tracks. The main theme seems like it's building up to the 'Dawn Will Come' just when it's about to swell, reminding me of a much better and more consistent soundtrack. The introduction of the Big Bad has some over-the-top trailer orchestra behind it, with no sense of menace or otherworldliness at all. For a game about exploring the void and discovering awe, the music is distressingly generic.
The combat engine is... okay, I guess? The soft cover system and the AI reactions are both highly unpredictable which makes formulating tactics on the fly both frustrating and unrewarding. Can't knock it too much though, it's definitely an improvement to almost anything BioWare has done before and the main thing that kept me engaged.
I know a lot of you want to get away from the negativity that dominates other threads but my disappointment comes from a place of passionately wanting this game to deliver more than it shows in the first 10 (ten!) hours.
Feels bad, man.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Haha, I'm actually mostly positive about the game and still very exciting. It just didn't knock my socks off right out the gate like I was hoping. There's undoubtedly technical and production jank, more than I expected, and at times it can be quite jarring. It's little things and big things, from the shitful character editor to the robotic dead eyes during cutscenes. Frostbite 3 is a mixed bag; sometimes it looks incredible, other times regressive. And I'm not entirely sold on the cast and dialogue yet.
But the draw is there, and the more I play and soak in the atmosphere the more drawn to the premise and setting I feel. I'm loving exploring the bits of Eos that we can, and I thought the prologue planet was great too. Unlike some others I'm actually drawn to the game hitting the ground running; it's 600 years later and everything is fucked. The combat feels wonderful now that I've got a hang of it. It doesn't feel as tight as ME3, which is disappointing. Hit detection definitely feels a bit wonky. But that's okay, because the flow is still very satisfying and I love the added mobility. Lack of AI control is objectively regressive in my opinion though. They're dumb as dogshit and it just feels like a step backwards on all fronts.
I think where each game in the trilogy opened with a massive punch, either narrative or combat or both, here it feels a bit more of a slow burn. Like this part of me is so excited based on preconceptions from the trilogy, understandably, but Andromeda isn't just trying to be Mass Effect 4 but instead its own Mass Effect. So my brain is wrestling with the fact it does indeed feel like a Mass Effect game, but is also shamelessly throwing the trilogy away and aggressively pushing its own agenda and premise. I'm at the tail end of the trail, only an hour or so left, and I'm enjoying it the most at this point now that I'm...comfortable, I guess.
I can't forgive the technical and production jank. I do legitimately think it's unusually poor compared to other games in the genre and even, to a degree, other BioWare games. I'm convinced production and technical rushing/issues occurred. And I can't really say how sold I am on the entire narrative until I actually experience the whole thing. Landing on Habitat 7 and going through the prologue motions were dope. I'm somewhat intrigued by SAM even if I kinda feel I know where it's going. Eos is wonderful and I'm hooked on that. Don't really give a shit about the Nexus so I hope that gets more interested. It's just hard to predict at this point. I don't have total faith in BioWare's writers, but at the same time I'm definitely in for the long haul.
Cautiously optimistic, I guess is how I feel.
Systolique
Member
Posts like this are fine, I get that newcomers and fans of the series can have different opinions. This isn't negativity, it's just feedback ; what differs are the constant bashing from people who clearly didn't play either games or the ones that are reposting shamelessly biased or inaccurate gifs.
I'm wary of the soundtrack too but I feel it's too early to judge how it'll panned out, but while I liked most of it I agree that I don't think the track playing during the villain reveal is successful in any way.
I think we were in the "good parts" from minute one, and I like the kind of stressed narration from the start, I thought it made a great sense of the overbearing rush Ryder has to deal with, since you can already see it settle down if you spend some time on the Nexus and start chatting with your crew
Tekomandor
Member
When I first checked on the R&D, the Remnant tech was definitely locked out.
LaunchpadMcQ
Banned
So this is where the sensible people were hiding.
I'm having a lot of fun of the game, despite hiccups. I just saw the wealth of options for the R&D system and I was pretty blown away. I've almost spent up my trial and it's going to be a long wait till Tuesday
I'm having a lot of fun of the game, despite hiccups. I just saw the wealth of options for the R&D system and I was pretty blown away. I've almost spent up my trial and it's going to be a long wait till Tuesday
Ryo Hazuki
Member
I experienced this last night:
Holy shit. HOLY SHIT. I closed the fucking game three hours ago on PC. The game closed as normal. Nothing in my taskbar. Went to close Origin like 3 hours later and I couldn't close it because it gave the error message that MASS EFFECT WAS STILL RUNNING. The trial timer kept going and I just lost three hours of trial time. :| FUCK.
I needed to post it in here too as I'm still sad. RIP Trial hours
Holy shit. HOLY SHIT. I closed the fucking game three hours ago on PC. The game closed as normal. Nothing in my taskbar. Went to close Origin like 3 hours later and I couldn't close it because it gave the error message that MASS EFFECT WAS STILL RUNNING. The trial timer kept going and I just lost three hours of trial time. :| FUCK.
I needed to post it in here too as I'm still sad. RIP Trial hours
wesleyshark
Banned
Eos is a beautiful planet. I can't wait to access more of the map.
JeffG
Member
So this is where the sensible people were hiding.
I'm having a lot of fun of the game, despite hiccups. I just saw the wealth of options for the R&D system and I was pretty blown away. I've almost spent up my trial and it's going to be a long wait till Tuesday
The combat is very solid. The cover system takes a few fire fights to get used too, but after that its all gravy.
I have ~5hrs left. I just passed the section where PeeBee jumps on you. I will need to manage that last 5 hrs so that I can not be without for too long.
The only bad thing is that my Screenshots are snafu'd No wallpaper for me.
Personally looking forward the most to the
ice
Systolique
Member
Same for me, it felt exactly like the Eden Prime mission from the first Mass Effect, that's why I still don't understand people dismissing the narration or atmosphere.
The early questions raised by the first settlers who understand they are going to die but are still proud and eager to discover and try to understand a new world in a new galaxy, it's fascinating stuff
wesleyshark
Banned
Ooooo. I haven't really looked at what the other planets will be. That's exciting.
The sense of optimism crushed by the desert sands. It's haunting and captivating.
The more recent RPS article being used by people as confirmation that the game is just more Dragon Age Inquisition's MMO style gameplay seems strange to me.
The things it lists as being like DAI aren't what i remember people complaining about. I'm sure some people didn't like the crafting, 'random battles' and loot but that didn't seem to be the most common complaints i saw.
The random battles complaint is weird to me in particular. People said they wanted exploration like in ME1 so surely it's only logical to have combat pop up in areas of the map. If the world's were completely empty and there was only combat in buildings I'm sure it would be criticised too so hard to see how Bioware could win with that complaint.
Not that the game is beyond criticism of course but that stood out to me as a bit odd. All in all i haven't been completely grabbed by the game yet but it ended at a point i thought was promising and it's getting better for me as it's gone on. The combat and it's mobility in particular.
The things it lists as being like DAI aren't what i remember people complaining about. I'm sure some people didn't like the crafting, 'random battles' and loot but that didn't seem to be the most common complaints i saw.
The random battles complaint is weird to me in particular. People said they wanted exploration like in ME1 so surely it's only logical to have combat pop up in areas of the map. If the world's were completely empty and there was only combat in buildings I'm sure it would be criticised too so hard to see how Bioware could win with that complaint.
Not that the game is beyond criticism of course but that stood out to me as a bit odd. All in all i haven't been completely grabbed by the game yet but it ended at a point i thought was promising and it's getting better for me as it's gone on. The combat and it's mobility in particular.
I agree, there are so many entitled gamers out there it's become quite toxic to participate for too long in certain threads.
My only gripe with the few hours I have played the game is the weak character creator, they have forgone so many things this time around, there are no options to select nose type, mouth type, eyebrows, face shape. It's Biowares weakest effort so fat (CC that is). I hope Bioware take the feedback and make changes down the road at some point.
Everything else has been pretty damn good for me.
I think he could use the break tbh. it was getting to the point where all of his posts were about other posters and derailing almost as much as anyone else. Just means more time for him to game in Andromeda!
moustascheman
Member
On a more positive note, I have to say I'm really interested in the Kett. Having not played the trial, my opinion is based solely on the promotional material Bioware's released and from that Jaal introduction video I've noticed something interesting. While it seems like the Kett are also a colonial force much like the andromeda initiative, they seem to resemble a colonial empire similar to european countries in the 16th century with how they
, which is in opposition to the exploration focused andromeda initiative. It'd be really interesting to see their goals and motivations, as well as how their society works in general.
captured the angaran homeworld and enslaved the species
wesleyshark
Banned
They'll patch more features into the CC, thankfully, but that definitely is the most glaring issue for me. My Ryder turned out pretty good, regardless, but that's not an excuse for their barebones creator.
Systolique
Member
Literally everybody agrees, but after 50+ pages of the same one liners complaints it gets tiring to read again and again
Tony Redgrave
Member
Indeed, Inquisition overall didn't look anywhere as good at this IMO but conversation animations, eyes etc. were not a problem -they were an improvement in fact- so it's puzzling.
DA and ME have different teams alright but it's still baffling.
I'm starting to believe this wasn't ready for launch yet and that's why the marketing campaign has been so weird, along with stuff like the unfinished CC. Someone mentioned EA probably wanting to get it out before the end of the fiscal year and maybe that's what happened, I have no doubts that they'll patch it day in and day out until most grievances are corrected but this circus will nevertheless affect them going forward.
Yeah, I think I'm basically in the same place. Having played a bit more of the early access game, I'm grudgingly accepting that the animation really is awful, at least in places- I hit a few scenes that seemed totally unfinished while playing last night, and they were very jarring.
I'm especially concerned about it because it puts a cap on how engaging or subtle NPC interactions can be. Consider, for instance, Yennefer's facial expressions in Bioware's old foil, The Witcher 3. She spends a lot of the game berating or mocking Geralt, and very little of it expressing warm emotions in dialogue, but there are many moments where she looks at him and subtle cues in her face tell the player that she adores him. It turns the character from a stereotypical ballbreaking shrew, which would have been a catastrophe, to a complex love interest with palpable chemistry with he player's avatar, all without having to spell it out in dialogue. This, in turn, raises the emotional stakes for her entire character arc. I think this sort of thing is essentially impossible in a game with ME:A's animations and faces (although that sort of writing is not Bioware's thing even in its better-animated games).
That said, I really, really like the exploration theme so far. I'm sure I'll get sick of the galaxy map, but for now all those transitions make Andromeda feel real, vivid, and interesting. I just hope the game can back it up in other departments. The standard unflattering comparison for ME:A is to Inquisition, but I'm more concerned that it ends up feeling like Dragon Age 2 - a game with good ideas that is badly damaged by a botched or rushed production cycle.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Creator us disappointing, but I think people are missing how it's supposed to function when they say stuff like they can't alter the nose or the eyes. You *can,* that's what you're doing when you select a preset; so, rather than start you with a blank canvas that they then present a set of starting points from, which you can then alter as you choose, the presets *are* the canvas.
It's still hugely suboptimal, mind. Confusing and more limited than it ought to be. But not as bad as people are making it out to be.
It's still hugely suboptimal, mind. Confusing and more limited than it ought to be. But not as bad as people are making it out to be.
The problem with this is that you take the eye shape, brow shape, nose shape, and complexion as a package set instead of being able to mix and match them to your desire.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Literally what I said.
Yeah man Frostbite 3 is an unpredictable janky beast, even though it punches above its weight.
Well I know who my female Ryder is going to be romancing!
Come here Vetra!
Tag it, I bet some people don't want to see that.
wesleyshark
Banned
I was hoping that a certain
Scottish lady
Got it. Sorry about that.
It's all good. I just know some posters stick to Community threads for 100% spoiler free experience and they would flip out
Ivory Samoan
Gold Member
Someone please slap me the next time I think to wander over into the other ME threads please? That would be great, thanks XD.
Spent the last hour getting steadily depressed, it really is a scene, man.
Spent the last hour getting steadily depressed, it really is a scene, man.
Poodlestrike
Banned
I really hate that all the stuff I like is stuff GAF hates, lol. Xbox, Bioware, Halo, DC comics/movies. All the threads about the topics I'm interested in (other than politics) are off limits.
I'm not getting depressed yet, though. There's still lots of good impressions, and the bits and pieces about post-trial content are even more positive.
Man Called Aerodynamics
Member
Ikr. Every time you think the level of hysteria can't get any higher.
I played up to the end of the campaign in the trial. It's certainly not perfect but I love the game and it feels so good to be conversing with these aliens again.
Several moments have given me a dumb fanboy grin. This is Mass Effect, for sure.I still have a few more hours on my trial, going to try out the multiplayer now. I never got that into it in ME3, nothing against it but Gears was just more my jam.
Lol are you me? Minus Halo though.
Just saw that thread as well. I understand the game isn't perfect. That it has its flaws but people are really reaching now.
wesleyshark
Banned
It's frustrating.
Blue Ninja
Member
I'm honestly pretty much done with GAF at this point, it's impossible to talk about the stuff I like without getting pushed into the defensive by a raging sea of salt and poison.
I'll post the OT, since I put a lot of work into it, but then I expect I'll be taking a break.
Man Called Aerodynamics
Member
Lol wow just saw that. Best part is the wholly invented "Tier" system for rating the worthiness of game development studios.
ChemicalCutthroat
Member
Whew... glad I found this place. I couldn't take much more of Gaming, the shit over there is so high you can't see over it.
Has anyone had time to mess around in the Multiplayer experience yet? I logged hundreds of hours in ME3, and it is a serious draw for me... hell, I'm still playing ME3's multiplayer in the lead up to Andromeda.
Has anyone had time to mess around in the Multiplayer experience yet? I logged hundreds of hours in ME3, and it is a serious draw for me... hell, I'm still playing ME3's multiplayer in the lead up to Andromeda.
wesleyshark
Banned
I was going to check out the MP but I was having too much fun with the single player that I want to spend all ten hours on it haha. Plus the limited preview population will probably be frustrating as far as finding matches and reliable connections.
Played 3-4h of MP during the trial and it played great for me. Been reading some people had problems with connection drops but it worked like a charm for me
Poodlestrike
Banned
I played a couple of rounds yesterday. Performance was terrible vs. Single player, but I suspect that was cause the host was in Ireland, lol.
Gonna try a few more before the trial is up with hopefully more local randos.
CommandThrower
Member
I was knocked out in bed all day yesterday because of the flu, but I did play the EA Access version of Andromeda for the full 10 hours. I really liked it! The gameplay felt very solid, the jump jets really do add this extra layer to combat and general movement/exploration that I think is fresh for a game like ME.
I didn't play the multiplayer at all, but after looking at some videos of it, I will definitely try and pick it up when I get the game proper.
I didn't play the multiplayer at all, but after looking at some videos of it, I will definitely try and pick it up when I get the game proper.
wesleyshark
Banned
The jump jet is fantastic. Might be my favorite addition to the mass effect combat.
Heckler456
Banned
Need someone to pick up the next community thread in about 200 posts btw (I think) seeing as Shinobi said he wasn't up for it.
The 1080 isn't supersampled I think. Rather, it adds graphical effects.
The 1080 isn't supersampled I think. Rather, it adds graphical effects.
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