Bjorn

Mass Effect Andromeda - Thumb Drive Engaged!

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I've found all the planets (at least all the ones mentioned on the Viability list) but still have quite a lot to do on a couple of them. I'm still enjoying this game. The writing has definitely been inconsistent but, with a couple of loyalty missions under my belt, there have been moments with each character that I found meaningful and interesting. There's certainly more with some than others, but I don't think I'd call any of them boring, more just average.

 

Patches have alleviated some of my crashes, so that's good, but also added some weird problems in the space flight bits, even when i don't skip the graphics. My review pretty much remains the same. I wish it was more stable and more polished, but I'm actually really enjoying myself.

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I encountered a map bug last night trying to go to my second world. I can't get out of the map now nor is anything else loading. Though I can get to the menus. So I quit the game. Haven't restarted. Has anyone else experience this yet? Right now this may be the thing that gets me to quit this game entirely and return to finish The Witcher 3.

 

The story so far hasn't grabbed me and instead leaves me with lots of thoughts... but never in the insightful or interesting manner. It really just leaves me questioning why am I playing this.

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If any of you are still playing MP, you might find some of the recent community testing to be interesting (and embarrassing for Bioware). 

 

MP is pretty badly broken right now.  There's some error that's causing multiple variables to be set based on the host's single player difficulty rather than the MP chosen difficulty.  So far, this includes:

 

Combo Damage (higher SP difficulty, more damaging combos) - Combo damage is so low as to be almost a joke anyways, even when the damage is maxed

Enemy armor damage reduction (lower SP difficulty, less damage reduction, down to 0 if set to Narrative)

Player Shieldgate invulnerability window (the period of invulnerability for players when their shield breaks, ranges from 0.5 to 0.1 second)

 

Things suspected by be influenced by SP difficulty, but unconfirmed:
 

Player Healthgate

Enemy Shieldgate (if this isn't affected by SP difficulty, something is badly broken about it because shotguns don't get any damage passthrough and should)

Some weapons appear to be performing differently depending on SP settings. 

 

There's one big thread on the uBSN that's tracking all the tests players are doing, and several threads on the MEcoop subreddit tracking various tests

 

This goes a long way towards explaining why the community has had mixed results testing, and why matches can feel pretty different from one match to another, since it's the host's settings that matter. There is supposed to be a big patch coming this week or maybe next, but it's not clear that Bioware was aware of this issue before submitting the patch to cert, as the community just discovered it this weekend and it wasn't mentioned in any of the fixes or changes discussed by Bioware in a stream on Friday morning. 

 

I've barely been playing MP for most of the last two weeks.  Between this discovery, other bugs, the terrible balance the game has in terms of powers and weapons, elements of the core design, locking skill points behind character cards (very frustrating for Ultra Rare characters), it just hasn't been as much fun as it should have been.  It was rushed out and it is getting a fraction of the support that ME3MP got.  Pushing 7 weeks from release, ME3MP had already had hundreds of individual balance changes (released weekly) and its first expansion.  MEAMP has had one set of a couple of dozen balance changes and no expansion in sight, with a second set of balance changes and patch to be released soon™.

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I'm hoping that they're fixing core game issues before moving onto the meatier stuff. A shame that it has to go this way (or even that that's my positive spin on it, as that's not very positive, haha), but that's what I'm holding out for.

 

Still grinding Uncommon and Rare classes me, I don't have the kind of kits to reliably do Gold except on a couple of classes I'm really played out on at the moment (the Asari Adept, for example). Been having a bit of fun with a Viper X / Charger X Human Soldier, to be honest. Never enjoyed Soldiers beforehand but homing Concussive Shot makes a world of difference. The Munitions trait (however it's named) in the offensive passive tree is fantastic too; vastly increases the ammo I can carry for my Viper. I need to get my Widow up a level so I can use that without any Power Recharge issues (currently at -1% with a Widow VI).

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9 hours ago, Gorbles said:

I'm hoping that they're fixing core game issues before moving onto the meatier stuff. A shame that it has to go this way (or even that that's my positive spin on it, as that's not very positive, haha), but that's what I'm holding out for.

 

Still grinding Uncommon and Rare classes me, I don't have the kind of kits to reliably do Gold except on a couple of classes I'm really played out on at the moment (the Asari Adept, for example). Been having a bit of fun with a Viper X / Charger X Human Soldier, to be honest. Never enjoyed Soldiers beforehand but homing Concussive Shot makes a world of difference. The Munitions trait (however it's named) in the offensive passive tree is fantastic too; vastly increases the ammo I can carry for my Viper. I need to get my Widow up a level so I can use that without any Power Recharge issues (currently at -1% with a Widow VI).

 

If you're playing with Random groups, the thing right now is that there isn't much reason to not being playing Golds, since you never really know what the full match difficulty settings are because of the host SP bug.  You can be getting Gold level armor on a Silver.  Enemy HP values, spawn rates and damage values seem to be appropriate to MP difficulty, but that's about it. 

 

As far as Gold worthy kits/weapons go:  The Vanquisher is king of all weapons.  The Lanat is a very good, though higher skilled, sniper.  Thokin is really solid.  Equalizer, Hurricane and Talon are all good pistols.  For kits, the HVanguard and KroGuard are melee gods. And melee is the only attack in the game that comes close to rivaling the Vanquisher in terms of DPS and effectiveness (that's how broken the Vanquisher is).  Any of the kits with the Barrier passive (Hguards, Hadepts, AA, and a couple of others) are all Gold worthy once Barrier is maxed with the Saving Barrier perk. 

 

Testing has also found that the store is not in fact all that random, they actually added in a pity or poor luck check.  For Expert packs, you will never go more than 10 packs without a UR dropping.  There's something similar for Rare drops from Advanced packs, though I don't know the exact number on it.  The actual droprate for URs seems to be in the 4 percent range for any one pack, because the pity check guarantees an average of like 1 per 9 packs over the long haul.  The general consensus on the best way to spend your credits right now is on Expert packs.  Uncommons will drop in them, and you get the best bang for the buck in terms of accumulating boosters and UR chance.  The Premium packs might have a very slight edge on URs, but at the sacrifice of getting far, far far fewer consumables. 

 

Also, another thing they've now tied to the SP settings is the speed that Sharpshooters aim and fire.  Up to 5 seconds on Narrative and down to 1 second on Insanity. 

 

I've barely played MP for the last week and a half, maybe 10-12 matches total.  I will probably jump back in to check out the changes in the patch, but given what a clusterfuck of bugs and design choices this game has been, I just don't have a lot of faith on the team to be able to deliver an experience that is anywhere near what ME3MP delivered.  There's very little evidence that serious testing was done before release (the scale of some bugs is so mind boggling that it's hard to believe that professional testers wouldn't have found them).  The balance is non-existent.  Some Common and Uncommon weapons outperform UR weapons by better than 2-1 in achievable DPS.  And for nearly two months what the community heard was "We had a design philosophy that we followed and while it's different than what players expected, we think it succeeded."  Only once the community started putting hard facts and numbers behind how ridiculously bonked this game is did that message change.  Hence my lack of faith. 

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Understandable. I'm still having fun because I enjoy swapping through characters as I burn interest in the previous ones, but that will reach an end (at some point, bearing in mind I'm only like 20% through the SP, haha). I still don't have a single Vanquisher, which is annoying considering how much of everything else I have. Not sure I have a Lanat, but if I do, I need to rank it some more for Power Recharge.

 

Good point about the difficult modifiers making Gold a pointless chase, might just stick to getting my characters Silver-worthy and having fun with that. My KroGuard and Asari Adept are basically Silver-carriers, understandably. KroGuard could do with a respec, though.

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Also, is it just me, or do shotguns seem wildly inefficient? I'd put the at the bottom of the four types (Snipers at the top, Pistols second). Though again, host difficulty issues could be impacting this. A Disciple V shouldn't be taking four shots to kill basic mooks on Silver, no?

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Welp, not that I like double-posting, but:

 

http://blog.bioware.com/2017/05/09/mass-effect-andromeda-patch-1-06-notes/

 

http://blog.bioware.com/2017/05/09/patch-1-06-combat-balance-updates/

 

And they explicitly noted that shotguns felt like they were underperforming. Score one for my intuition, or just a lucky guess?! Combo damage buffed across the board, and Kett difficulty reduced (general tl;dr for you folks).

 

EDIT

Really solid changes all-round, I think. Also, of particular interest @Bjorn

 

Quote

Fixed issue that caused singleplayer difficulty to impact multiplayer

Edited by Gorbles
updated with the actual MP notes, blargh

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Yeah, I saw those earlier and was about to post them! 

 

 

It's a massive set of changes.  There are a handful of 200+ percent buffs to things, quite a few 100+ percent changes and then the rest are in the 20-50 percent range.  It shows just how poorly a bunch of things were performing. 

 

Smart Choke for shotguns has also reportedly been fixed, and their aim overall improved, which should help them a lot.  Your intuition was dead on about them being the poorest of all weapon choices in almost all situations.  The original poor aim plus the inability to improve aim due to bugged mods just pushed them further into the garbage bin. 

 

The Crusader's aim still isn't pinpoint.  FFS.  But it has been improved, and with the massive damage buff, it's likely at least pretty good now. 

 

Early reports on the BSN are that combos are godly against basic units now, even on Gold (at least with the power kits that have good buffs/debuffs for powers and combos, like the KroEngi). 

 

Also of note, is that the patch notes are incomplete.  People on the BSN are working on figuring out what didn't get documented, but at least a number of powers got cooldown reductions (stuff like going from 10 seconds to 8 seconds) that are in the list. 

 

Also, I got a free extra Deluxe Edition pack for some reason (maybe an apology/thank you?), and I got the the Krogan Gladiator!  Whooooooo! I was only missing 2 characters, and she was one of them.  As she's the only kit right now with the Krogan Hammer as a melee weapon, I was sorely missing having her. 

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Yeah, that's in one of the pages of notes, I think? Incredible box of goodies. I got three consumables, three Silvers, two Golds (Krogran Mercerny, up to IV now, and Angaran Insurgent, up to III now) and my first UR class, the Salarian Operator.

 

I'm about to roll with KroMerc with a Ruzad VII on Silver, see how I do. Nine Power Cells thanks to the buff to Flak Cannon :D

 

EDIT

Currently sitting dead on Wave 5 because the patch reset my keybinds (heads up) and I forgot to reset them. Evade not being Ctrl is really messing me up, haha. Ruzad is hitting like an absolute beast though, basically two-shotting basic mooks on Silver. That's more like it.

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40 minutes ago, Gorbles said:

Yeah, that's in one of the pages of notes, I think? Incredible box of goodies. I got three consumables, three Silvers, two Golds (Krogran Mercerny, up to IV now, and Angaran Insurgent, up to III now) and my first UR class, the Salarian Operator.

 

I'm about to roll with KroMerc with a Ruzad VII on Silver, see how I do. Nine Power Cells thanks to the buff to Flak Cannon :D

 

EDIT

Currently sitting dead on Wave 5 because the patch reset my keybinds (heads up) and I forgot to reset them. Evade not being Ctrl is really messing me up, haha. Ruzad is hitting like an absolute beast though, basically two-shotting basic mooks on Silver. That's more like it.

 

 

Haha, perfect to be all excited about changes, then sit out a wave :P

 

The Operator is the ONLY class that I don't have now.  All my rare/uncommon classes are maxed, but only a few guns are.  Seems that the packs favor dropping character cards over weapon cards, which I'm fine with.

 

Oh, and there's a new Turian and a new AR available as well with this patch.

 

Are we friends on Origin?

 

I plan on being on tonight, first match out will probably be KroEngi with Crusader. 

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Ooh, that Turian is new? The Turian Agent, with a lovely eyepiece. I predictably don't have him yet!

 

Don't know what the new AR is, but I can't browse that from the ingame selection tab (I don't think?!).

 

I'm GorbMort on Origin. I'm trying to find a link for it but EA have done weird, weird things to profile display. I don't have a background set if that helps. Won't be online for much longer tonight but I see myself playing a lot more now the weapons really feel good.

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18 minutes ago, Gorbles said:

Ooh, that Turian is new? The Turian Agent, with a lovely eyepiece. I predictably don't have him yet!

 

Don't know what the new AR is, but I can't browse that from the ingame selection tab (I don't think?!).

 

I'm GorbMort on Origin. I'm trying to find a link for it but EA have done weird, weird things to profile display. I don't have a background set if that helps. Won't be online for much longer tonight but I see myself playing a lot more now the weapons really feel good.

 

I'll add you once I'm on!

 

The AR added was the X5 Ghost, which has a funny and odd history.  It's new and clearly graphically differently looking AR from previous rifles that featured repeatedly in pre-release advertising, and even shows up in game in some cutscenes.  Initial assumption was that it might be the "iconic" weapon of Andromeda.  And then, on release, it was no where to be seen.  BW mumbled something about how it was just a model they'd made, but now it's shown up as a usable weapon in both SP and MP. 

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I finished the SP over the weekend. It got a bit long in the tooth before I was done, but I'm still happy overall with my experience and I hope they get around to making another at some point. I ended up liking Jaal, Peebee, Liam, and Drak quite a bit, but never really got into Cora or Vetra. The loyalty quests were all pretty fun. Placing the first (required) outpost was pretty cool as were the additional story beats centered around it, but the rest of the outposts all felt perfunctory. Because none of them were required, they couldn't have any real meaning in the overall plot. A lot of minor issues with tone that could easily be polished up for a sequel.

 

Man, it crashed a ton on my computer though. Freezes during scene transitions, outright CTDs, and even one Blue Screen. Very frustrating, and none of the patches did much for me. 

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This might seem like a trivial thing to bump the thread for, but it seems like I missed it earlier on (too much MP, not enough SP). Patch 1.07 seems to have added a "claim all items" for Strike Team loot crates (for Pathfinder rewards). This is one of the best UX improvements they've made to date, though I do wish they'd focus a bit more on it in general.

 

No more opening 200 individual crates!

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4 hours ago, Gorbles said:

This might seem like a trivial thing to bump the thread for, but it seems like I missed it earlier on (too much MP, not enough SP). Patch 1.07 seems to have added a "claim all items" for Strike Team loot crates (for Pathfinder rewards). This is one of the best UX improvements they've made to date, though I do wish they'd focus a bit more on it in general.

 

No more opening 200 individual crates!

 

My only disappointment in this feature is that you can't just open each category of crate.  I'd like to be able to open all crates except for items, because if I open all the items then I have to take the time to sell or break down 60+ items to clear my inventory back out. 

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I picked this up on sale and started digging into the single player the other day. Still pretty early on, but so far I'm pleasantly surprised. I like the idea of a slightly more chill Mass Effect story, rather than the "race against time" aspect of 2 and 3 which felt at odds with doing side content. The vibe feels very different from the original trilogy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

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19 hours ago, Bjorn said:

 

My only disappointment in this feature is that you can't just open each category of crate.  I'd like to be able to open all crates except for items, because if I open all the items then I have to take the time to sell or break down 60+ items to clear my inventory back out. 

 

Agreed. At this point I'll take anything I can get with the UX, mind. Lowered expectations and all that (not even unique to this product; even well-supported games can make . . . odd UI and UX choices. White text on light backgrounds in Overwatch - I see you Blizzard).

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I am so incredibly glad that I quit playing MP on this.  I mean, it bums me out that it's not as good and isn't getting the support of ME3MP, but they've crossed over from bad to insulting. 

 

Two and a half months after release, they still haven't released a real expansion (ME3MP was coming up on its second major expansion at this point).  But, they did just add 5 new Rare weapons....literal reskins of the 5 common weapons with slightly more damage, an S tagged at the end of the name and no other changes.  50 more rare card drops to dilute the pool of getting interesting stuff. 

 

In theory I'd be fine with reskinned, better versions of the Common weapons, but introducing them as part of the overall item drop pool is just really crappy.  It's just trying to drag out the time to completing all Rares by another 20+ hours.  And they have an entire system and currency in place that's perfect for this, the Mission Fund store.  But instead of enabling them to do interesting things like selling reskins or giving limited opportunities to directly buy URs or something (which is what it was originally advertised as being for), instead it just got used for dribbling out one new piece of gear a week to give the impression of ongoing additions. 

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As much as I didn't want it to be true, perhaps the game is running on a skeleton staff now (as supposed to the usual cut-down support staff). Would explain the relative silence since they fixed most of the egregious stability and animation-related issues.

 

In slightly-nicer MP news, the new Mission Funds item is a Revive enhancer (120 MF) that makes your Revives AoE. Need to test radius, but this seems like a genuinely-useful item that makes dive-bombing an area where your team has fallen viable (especially as a Biotic or Infiltrator of sorts).

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I recently jumped back into the SP campaign of andromeda after the changes, and while a number of improvements have been the game still feels like it doesn't really have the same spark that the original trilogy had.  The game starts quite strong, but quickly the whole thing starts to feel empty.  My actions feel obligatory, and ultimately inconsequential.  I find myself more often than not bumbling into main quest objectives, and the character interactions feel forced and inorganic.  It seems to me like the conventional wisdom of game design was applied here, almost entirely to the detriment of the end result.  To some extent a lot of the issues people see are the result of a rushed development, but after the recent fixes I don't think more time in the oven would have solved the core problems present.  

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I posted this in chat earlier, but just had time to finish reading it.  Kotaku has a big, anonymously sourced breakdown of Andromeda's development

 

It's interesting, but mostly confirms things already suspected.  Frostbite is a pain in the ass to work with for anyone not DICE.  Big change in direction and scope halfway through.  Problems organizing work that was scattered around the globe.  Understaffed departments, particularly in animation.  Delays snowballed downhill. 

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Oh yeah, the 1.08 MP balance changes were also announce today (previously notes didn't have a lot of the details about MP). 

 

They cut max weapon bloom for automatic weapons in half.  Some of the ARs might actually be fun now that they can hit something smaller than the broad side of a barn.

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