Bjorn

Mass Effect Andromeda - Thumb Drive Engaged!

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Somewhere in the bonanza of bonus packs that I got I unlocked the Human Kineticist ultra-rare class. It's a biotic with pull, throw, and lance, with an ascension ability that charges as you get kills. Activate ascension and you get zero cooldown on abilities at the cost of constant shield drain. I'm curious to see how well I can get it to work with a team of more front-line characters.

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9 hours ago, Vulpes Absurda said:

I like scanning planets in Mass Effect. I'm sorry that I have failed you all so.

 

Haha, I always figured there were people who liked it.  There's some repetitive stuff in games I like, the planets just never did it for me.

 

On the general quality of faces and facial animations, they aren't great, but they don't really bother me except for one thing.  And that's the eyes.  The eyes move around a lot, and quite often end up not looking at the person speaking, and it's the weirdest most distracting thing. 

 

Between having a couple of Vanguards above 10 now and the Hurricane, I can consistently do Silvers, which is really speeding up getting all the common/uncommon stuff unlocked and upgraded.  Since Character cards now unlock additional skill points, I've decided to leave all my level 1 Commons untouched until I can get more of the character cards and start off with 15+ points in them. 

 

The Human Novaguard seems really godly, like crazy so.  With three different ways to recharge shields, she can just tank the hell out of almost anything on Bronze/Silver.

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I wish I had a better reason for liking it than "I like seeing the percentage at the top of the screen go up" but I don't.

 

Also I really need to play more multi so if anyone ever sees me on feel free to send me an invite. So long as I can back out of the mission I'm in I'm prolly happy to join.

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No that's kind of what I was saying in my impressions post. Both Andromeda and Inquisition have included a lot of "filler" content that doesn't especially interest me, but that doesn't bother me because I'm not required to engage with it. Some people might therefore say, why not argue for this stuff to be excised entirely? The answer is I know people like you, Vulpes, who do enjoy it. I don't think you should apologise for liking the parts I'm not into, and I don't think BioWare is wrong to serve that portion of its audience.

 

Regarding multiplayer; yeah, me too. I definitely need to actually send out my strike teams more (if I had a device I could easily use that Apex HQ thing Bjorn mentioned on I would) and I need to go on more Apex missions myself. Some of the rare character classes genuinely look quite cool! I got a salarian infiltrator that has a really neat style but I'm just terrible at any kind of stealth class in this type of game.

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I didn't play Dragon Age Inquisition until after all the PSA warnings to get out of the hinterlands!!! came out, and then I ended up, through playing, doing what I eyeballed as about 75% of the hinterlands before moving on to another zone.

 

Guess what, it was totally fine and I enjoyed it almost entirely! That stuff's for some people and not for others. I played 100 hours of the Witcher and I haven't even gotten into the DLC yet. I've played every Warcraft expansion except one. There's a satisfaction in just challenging yourself to hit the rotation properly, to be as mana efficient as possible, to see how long you can go between healing, etc. It's not hard (it was sometimes pretty damn hard 10 years ago), it's a personal challenge that buoys less directed content.

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On 3/21/2017 at 10:43 PM, Gwardinen said:

I'm really torn on that flying animation because I think it looks neat (apart from the aforementioned having to zoom back out on a planet thing which is amusingly dumb) and goes to the whole flying around exploring the frontier theme, but I'm also dead set against unskippable videos in games - the landing and takeoff videos on planets bother me the same way. Anything, no matter how good, becomes annoying when you're forced to see it over and over again. Also, yeah, it's just one of the reasons I don't bother going to planets that don't have quests on. I'm definitely triaging content in Andromeda like I did in Inquisition; there's a lot of filler there (though not quite as much as DAI, because god damn) and it's best if you identify early how much of it you want to engage with. For example, I'm not doing the scan 50 planets quest. I don't think there's any chance of it paying off narratively or mechanically enough to justify the amount of time and boredom it would require to complete.

 

Regarding Vanguards in MP: how the fuck do you survive in close range? I haven't really tried a Vanguard yet but as any other character if I end up right up in the grill of enemies I am doing my damnedest to GTFO because you are actually pretty squishy at low levels. I did happen to find a Turian Soldier character in a crate, though, which ameliorates that problem somewhat with Fortify. Weirdly the one I crave is the Krogan Engineer.

 

To really hammer home what Bjorn has been saying, the Vanguard gives you so much survivability. I've been warming up in ME3 MP of late (you still instantly find matches, P2P latency issues aside), and I was quite happy how I transferred my Vanguard cheese skills to ME:A MP.

 

It's all about placement. I booted up ME:A last night and dropped straight into MP after doing the brief tutorial and unlocking all the darned Chests I'd accrued for various things (ME3 loyalty, etc). Got some neat stuff in there (including an Alien Shotgun that I'll likely never use because PISTOLS ALL THE WAY), but stuck with Human Vanguard (Level 1) and the basic machine-pistol-gun-thing. Gave myself a Hornet for some extra damage potential (keeping power recharge at precisely 100%) and equiped melee mods on both because why not.

 

The biggest change makes me not want to switch from Vanguard, ever again, is the change to power cooldowns (affects all classes I think, and the homing Concussive Shot on Soldiers is a nice touch too for that class). Namely that power slots don't share cooldowns. No more struggling with latency or sweaty mouse keys to juggle the combo timing with Singularity, or the Sentinel's freezeray, or similar combination attacks. You can Charge and immediately Nova. Or you can lead with a Shockwave and them immediately Charge. And so on, and so forth. Combine this with the ability to launch attacks from anywhere (i.e. in the middle of a jetpack-assisted jump) and you have a very manouvreable invulnerability-frame Biotic Charge user.

 

So much fun. Did one Bronze Extraction, died on the last wave but was revived in time to get a completion. That was at Level 1.

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1 hour ago, Gorbles said:

 You can Charge and immediately Nova. Or you can lead with a Shockwave and them immediately Charge.

 

To be pedantic, you could always Charge > Nova, because in 3 Nova is a shield draining power, not a cooldown power.  The shield drain is now an evolution on Nova.  But the overall point absolutely stands, power classes can execute combo explosions much faster and more reliably now.  It also means there are reasons to spec into all 3 powers now.  In 3, a lot of builds would skip one power because the global cooldown meant you were probably only using two powers anyways.  And with the Novaguard specifically, Nova also has an evolution that can prime for explosions now, which very few, if any, Vanguards could self prime without ammo in 3.  Now you can Nova, Shockwave for an explosion and then Charge away to the next group.

 

Also Gorbles, make sure to take a look at the Fitness tree of the kits, there are some really different evolutions compared to 3.  Two of the Novaguards shield recharging evolutions are in Fitness.  The 6th evolution that autorefills shields at low health was a lifesaver when I took it to Silver. 

 

Blowing through all my credits before I quit last night I got the Asari Huntress, the kit with the group cloak ability, which I'm super intrigued by.  So far the single biggest break point in any match I regularly see is the Devices objective round.  Without a good team watching someone's back, that objective can just fall apart fast.  The group cloak seems like it would make it much easier.

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Chalk that up to me relying on the Krogan Vanguard (and the Drell for a bit, actually) in ME3 after a certain point :D

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Follow up on Strike Teams, I now have what I'm calling my N7 Team, who are badass and have 4 positive traits, no negatives.  And then I have my suicide squad, who are some inept fuckers.  They have 3 positive traits and 3 negative traits.  I'm just going to keep throwing my suicide squad at golds and see what kind of a disaster they can be. 

 

FWIW, it doesn't seem like buying equipment for Strike Teams is a good payoff.  From what people can tell right now, equipment can't be moved between teams.  It's a one-off purchase that's stuck on that team, and if you want to buy something else for the same team, the first equipment you bought is lost.  Given the cost of the good gear, it's literally in the 100s of matches in order for it to pay for itself, let alone turn a profit.  The missions where it makes a difference might help you keep a negative trait or two off a team, but even figuring that in, it's just a very long payoff.  I'd suspect just disbanding teams in and recruiting a new one as they build up too many negatives is the more cost effective approach. 

 

 

Edited to add: OH!  I also got a Krogan Hammer from one of the SP reward packs for doing strike missions. :wub:  I haven't even left the Nexus yet, and I already have the one weapon I was most excited about!  So don't forget to open those packs.  The credit rewards seem pretty terrible.  But everything else seemed like it was useful, particularly if you don't want to have to scan a bunch. 

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I recently got a krogan hammer in singleplayer and it's a lot of fun. I just finished doing a couple matches with Vulpes and Gorbles and enjoyed it! Finally tried out the Vanguard and it is indeed a mad dash around the map, beating the crap out of people.

 

Also I find it interesting how quickly you've decided that your soldiers are expendable, Bjorn. Or do you consider the Strike Teams PMCs and therefore not your responsibility to look after?

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I'm not actually sorry I like scanning I was just going for overdramatic humor. :)

 

 

Also what's generally considered the better SMG the hurricane or the hornet? I want to say it was the hurricane in ME3.

 

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2 hours ago, Vulpes Absurda said:

I'm not actually sorry I like scanning I was just going for overdramatic humor. :)

 

 

Also what's generally considered the better SMG the hurricane or the hornet? I want to say it was the hurricane in ME3.

 

 

The Hurricane, but it's much harder to level, so a maxxed Hornet might outdo a low level Hurricane.

 

3 hours ago, Gwardinen said:

I recently got a krogan hammer in singleplayer and it's a lot of fun. I just finished doing a couple matches with Vulpes and Gorbles and enjoyed it! Finally tried out the Vanguard and it is indeed a mad dash around the map, beating the crap out of people.

 

Also I find it interesting how quickly you've decided that your soldiers are expendable, Bjorn. Or do you consider the Strike Teams PMCs and therefore not your responsibility to look after?

 

It's not my fault their a bunch of rejects! (it is my fault, I sent them on all their missions). 

 

At this point I'm deeply amused at the little narrative that I'm telling myself about my suicide squad.  They picked up a 4th negative, they are now Cowards with a Hero Complex who get hysterical at the sight of two of the three enemy factions.  Theyre a bad video game sidekick! I just sent them back out on a Gold with a 10 percent chance.  At this point I'm rooting for the fuckups to keep accumulating negatives.

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Just wanted to chime in and mention that I'm enjoying the single player a lot. I think the pacing of the main mission on Eos was perfect for a Mass Effect game. I allowed myself to get a bit lost from time to time, but the waypoints were always available and I enjoyed finding my own ways to them. I'm not attached to any characters yet, but that is fine for now. I'm happy to be back in this world.

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I just went through the "First Murderer in Andromeda" side mission, and

 

apparently no-one on the writing staff (and by extension, no-one in the entire Andromeda Initiative) is aware that many societies consider attempted murder to be a serious crime that is distinct from actual murder. You find out that while the perpetrator wasn't actually responsible for the killing shot, he definitely tried to kill the victim. Your options are to treat him as completely innocent of any crime or convict him specifically for the murder.

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42 minutes ago, Korax said:

I just went through the "First Murderer in Andromeda" side mission, and

  Hide contents

apparently no-one on the writing staff (and by extension, no-one in the entire Andromeda Initiative) is aware that many societies consider attempted murder to be a serious crime that is distinct from actual murder. You find out that while the perpetrator wasn't actually responsible for the killing shot, he definitely tried to kill the victim. Your options are to treat him as completely innocent of any crime or convict him specifically for the murder.

 

Spoiler

I took it as them only having a few options by virtue of not yet having the resources for a traditional justice system leaving them with the options of exile which may as well mean death, or a relatively light punishment of community service. It didn't feel to me like no one thought it was a serious crime it felt like they couldn't justify under their current legal code exiling a man for an attempted murder which had it worked would have saved several lives.

 

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I ended up getting this game after a friend mentioned how much she was enjoying it. My thoughts so far:

  • The animations turned out to generally not be a huge deal for me. There's definitely a lot of awkwardness and glitches, but not enough that I'm actually annoyed by it most of the time.
  • The writing and characterization has turned out to be a huge deal for me, because it generally ranged from dull to REALLY BAD. I only really feel any emotions about two of the six companions, and few of the combinations of them produce any interesting dialogue. I remember a lot of people saying that the characters felt more fleshed out this time around, but I'm definitely not seeing it so far.
  • The gameplay is genuinely enjoyable though. First Mass Effect game I've played that has actually challenging bosses (on Hardcore at least. Don't want to think about Insanity right now,) and the dodge and jumppack add a lot. Despise the critical mission autosave-only thing, but it's whatever. The Nomad's pretty fun to drive.
  • Really though, these characters. Ugh. 

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2 hours ago, Vulpes Absurda said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I took it as them only having a few options by virtue of not yet having the resources for a traditional justice system leaving them with the options of exile which may as well mean death, or a relatively light punishment of community service. It didn't feel to me like no one thought it was a serious crime it felt like they couldn't justify under their current legal code exiling a man for an attempted murder which had it worked would have saved several lives.

 

I might buy that if anyone had tried to address it at any point during the mission, but you basically just end up with Tann saying "Wow, this whole thing's much more complex than it first appeared to be. Too bad our decision is somehow set in stone and nothing can change it aside from the word of a Pathfinder!" and then the dialog tree only gives you "Exile? Y/N" as available responses. At no point do you get to somebody who talks about how the Nexus just doesn't have the resources for a proper criminal justice setup, just exile-happy jerks whose only reasoning is "but he

meant to."

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4 hours ago, Korax said:

I just went through the "First Murderer in Andromeda" side mission, and

  Hide contents

apparently no-one on the writing staff (and by extension, no-one in the entire Andromeda Initiative) is aware that many societies consider attempted murder to be a serious crime that is distinct from actual murder. You find out that while the perpetrator wasn't actually responsible for the killing shot, he definitely tried to kill the victim. Your options are to treat him as completely innocent of any crime or convict him specifically for the murder.

 

1 hour ago, Korax said:

 

  Hide contents

I might buy that if anyone had tried to address it at any point during the mission, but you basically just end up with Tann saying "Wow, this whole thing's much more complex than it first appeared to be. Too bad our decision is somehow set in stone and nothing can change it aside from the word of a Pathfinder!" and then the dialog tree only gives you "Exile? Y/N" as available responses. At no point do you get to somebody who talks about how the Nexus just doesn't have the resources for a proper criminal justice setup, just exile-happy jerks whose only reasoning is "but he

meant to."

 

 

Haha, yeah, I had exactly the same thought.

 

Spoiler

 

When you find out he tried but failed to kill the victim, and the characters were like "well I guess he's innocent then" I immediately said out loud "no that's called attempted murder". It was a bizarre moment. I agree with Vulpes that the writers probably had some of this "problems with frontier justice" stuff in mind, but also with you that they completely failed to execute on it.

 

The only other wrinkle I'd throw in is that part of the problem in the quest is that he was already convicted - many legal systems have trouble with people being guilty, but of the wrong things. Then there's extra pressure because this was the first crime of its kind and the leadership was already being accused of overreach and general shittiness leading to and surrounding the mutiny. So in a sense it becomes a question of him being guilty of something that probably would have led to exile anyway, so why rock the boat quibbling over which particular exile-worthy crime he committed?

 

 

Again, though, not particularly well communicated in the game itself.

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It looks like I misinterpreted the Human Kineticist's ascension ability. The shield drain isn't constant, it only happens on biotic use, and it recharges normally. That means that as long as you maintain awareness of your shield level, you never have to worry about waiting on cooldowns to set up ability combos.

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I tried participating in the Apex multiplayer thing and the strike-team thing from within the context of the singleplayer campaign. These things aren't really relevant to the singleplayer campaign are they?

If it's just going to give me upgraded weapons then it's not something I want to do, but if there is some sort of narrative accent here, then I'm willing to try and figure it out a little more.

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After playing through the first couple of main story missions, I'm having the same reservations about the game as I had before, but I'm also quite enjoying being in the world again.  I'm not as intrigued by Andromeda as I was by other ME games, but all in all the good parts outweigh the bad for me.

 

Also, I'm not sure if they tutorialize this, but the favorites menu is accessed from the profiles screen.  I didn't realize that until about 10 hours into the game, and actually having figured out how to change profiles makes the combat situations a lot more enjoyable.  I'm also quite enjoying how the consumables are integrated into the overall systems.  For example, if you have the energy drain ability and use a shield capacitor, the ability itself does more damage as a result of your shields being temporarily boosted.  The equipment stuff can sometimes feel overwhelming, but if you take the time to really get into it there is a lot of depth there, particularly once you figure out how to develop guns that can prime ability combos.

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11 hours ago, clyde said:

I tried participating in the Apex multiplayer thing and the strike-team thing from within the context of the singleplayer campaign. These things aren't really relevant to the singleplayer campaign are they?

If it's just going to give me upgraded weapons then it's not something I want to do, but if there is some sort of narrative accent here, then I'm willing to try and figure it out a little more.

 

The rewards are purely mechanical, as far as I've seen. If you don't enjoy the multiplayer gameplay for its own sake don't bother with it. Though it's worth occasionally tapping a couple of buttons to send out your strike teams for effectively free rewards.

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I've been putting a lot of time into Mass Effect this week. While I agree with many of the criticisms in this thread (flying through space, wonky animations, poor research system, black and white answers to the murder quest) none of them are so bad as to ruin my enjoyment of this game. I'm absolutely enamored with it, if only it wouldn't crash so often.

 

While the over-all writting definitely has some holes, I've found the moment to moment writing fairly real feeling. The characters, while not always likable, feel pretty well realized to me. I dunno, maybe I'm not that picky, or maybe I'm taking my time and I'm seeing more of the dialog than other people? The planetary zones feel like DA:I, but with less time-consuming busy work. Plus, I like the feeling of exploration and building it gives me, even if I know it's mostly smoke and mirrors.

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