Bjorn

Mass Effect Andromeda - Thumb Drive Engaged!

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Was about to link that article, just got done reading it. A sequel might be shelved, but I really hope they have some kind of a post-release cycle beyond this basic stuff?

 

I dunno. It's a real shame.

 

Also, honestly, telling of the potential impact of things like the silly GIFs and general _user_ reaction to such games. It's a completely different climate from 2012 or so, both in terms of critical journalism (for good and for bad) and user-based reviews (mainly for the bad there, in my opinion).

 

EDIT (@Bjorn)

 

Not gonna lie, all of those MP changes look good. Reduced reliance on Juggernaught buffs other (Gold) kits by comparison, and hefty bonuses to melee across the board. QOL buffs for the S-ranked weapons (as much as I agree they're a lazy inclusion, at least they now feel more of a progression) and some good tweaks for underperforming power (and to combo detonations, too). The MP for ME3 still works, so if it's something they keep alive for Andromeda, I can see myself putting in many, many hours into the game on that front (as I did ME3).

 

Good to see parity with the crates available in ME3, too, Reserve and Arsenal packs in particular.

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Man, reading that article hurts. As someone who actually liked the general exploration heavy theme of Andromeda, I was really looking forward to a more polished sequel. 

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Yeah, it's a bummer in a lot of different ways.  Like, I desperately want a sci-fi/space game that does exploration really well.  And I think there are a lot of good ideas in Andromeda, just not enough time at the end to execute them or flesh them out.

 

The combat mechanics in Andromeda are really good!  And almost none of the encounters in SP really do a good job of showing that in an interesting way. 

 

@Gorbles

 

Yeah, I kinda wish I was just getting into MP now.  I think it is in an increasingly good place, even if it isn't ever going to get the number of additions that 3 did.  Unfortunately I just have a sour enough taste in my mouth from the opening month that I don't have a lot of desire to go back to it.

 

Unless the Quarian Ark actually shows up and they add Drell.  That will at least get me back in for a bit, and is the main reason that I'm still paying attention to ME news.

 

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That article is a doozy! On one hand I'm glad we didn't get the game they were thinking about? Procedurally generated planets is just not what I want in a ME game, if the P.G. is a central mechanic. Okay, maybe if there was some kind of galactic readiness like the 3rd one, and you needed to gather some kind of resources from PG planets as a secondary mechanic to the main plotting? That might work.

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Just a double-posting heads-up for this. I got my first Kineticist card and a Gold weapon mod!

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Just when I think I'm done, they pull me back in.   (provided that hate surfing and ballistic blades also both make a come back I'll at least give it a shot).

 

 

 

Although a few days ago Kotaku claimed that any SP DLC had been scrapped, which led a lot of people to think that MP wouldn't be seeing new races since those were likely to be contingent on the Quarian ark DLC being finished. 

 

Edited to add:

If they manage to fuckup hatesurfing or don't have it at all imma be so fucking mad.

 

 

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I'm taking "three people familiar with Bioware's plans told me" with a huge grain of salt. It may well be we don't see the kind of work that got put into ME3, but an ME2 Lair of the Shadow Broker (or heck, Loyalty-scoped mission sets, similar in premise with MP runs but with SP impact) are entirely possible to round out the game.

 

Of course, I am the eternal optimist.

 

(also heck yeah Batarians and blades. Bladed Batarians. Let's get on this)

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Dunno how I missed this:

 

http://blog.bioware.com/2017/07/04/mass-effect-andromeda-patch-1-09-notes/

http://blog.bioware.com/2017/07/04/mass-effect-andromeda-combat-balance-updates/

 

The Batarian is Rare, not Ultra! Woop woop.

 

Lot of new gear and such in the Store; I need to sit down and evaluate the utlity of the ones I've already got, figure out what's power creep and / or what's redundant. Of note, there are some time-limited things in the Store right now, including an Apex Elite pack for a whopping 600,000 MP Credits (guarantees an Ultra-Rare, but expires in two days), but more interesting the Item Store lets you get a:

 

Random Character (Ultra Rare) - 960 Mission Funds.

Random Character (Uncommon) - 70 Mission Funds.

Random Weapon Mod (Rare) - 120 Mission Funds.

 

These all expire in 5 days (@Bjorn), so you might want to grab them while you can! They are also repeatable; I just bought an UR and there's still room for more. Gonna grab another, coupla weapon mods and then save my funds for other Items (I don't need Uncommon Characters).

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Nice to see that they're doing more with Mission Funds. 

 

Watched a video the Batarian tonight.  He's at least got a heavy melee, but looks like no lockon, so no hatesurfing or head popping :(  But at least it can detonate combos. 

 

Apparently there are also new variants of all (or at least most?) weapons that become available once you've maxed a weapon.  (Edited to add, this is totes wrong, they all go up to X) They're just one card (they match the stats of an X weapon) and have unique features, like explosive ammo or auto healing on fire.  Nice idea, but feels like they just wanted to extend the grind more by making each weapon have a variant, rather than adding in something like a weapon augment or something. 

 

Taking a look at the BSN, it looks like the dataminers have found multiple new characters in the files.  A couple of those have wet dream levels of power combos (the Batarian with Annihilation is nutso because of melee combo detonation). 

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Oh, wow, I had misread something and also kinda missed some stuff with this patch.  Fuck this game, will probably uninstall the next time I need to start Origin for anything.

 

I was wrong in the previous post, each of the new variant weapons also goes from I-X.  And every kit now goes up to XX (yes, they actually just doubled the number of ranks for character kits with some bonus stats above Rank X).  Plus apparently there are new mods that you can only get with MF?  Fuck if I know, this update is kind of confusing. 

 

The end result though is adding at least 1800 card drops to the drop table in one fell swoop.  You could play daily for weeks, and not be likely to see something you like get leveled up much.  This is thousands of hours of play to even have a chance at seeing high level UR weapons or characters. 

 

I tolerated the random, F2P monetization of ME3 because the game was so fucking good, and got such incredible support.  But this, this is fucking garbage.  Tripling the weapon drops with reskins of the weapons.  Bloating the fuck out of the pool so god knows when or if you might actually get something new.  This is like the most mercenary fucking F2P bullshit pay wall on a goddamned full price AAA game that is getting a fraction of support that the previous entry got.

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I've been sitting on what to think of the new MP changes for a while, and it looks like this patch has a noticeable change that might change expectations on it:

 

http://blog.bioware.com/2017/07/31/mass-effect-andromeda-patch-1-10/

 

Quote

Veteran ranks of characters will only drop after all characters of that rarity have been unlocked to rank 10.

 

I would imagine this works for weapons as well? Bioware patch notes have a habit of being weirdly specific in a lot of ways but then leaving out some important detail. Certainly, that's how they should be doing it. Extra progression for people at the top, no change for people still grinding the lower ranks.

 

Add to this the current rotation for weapon mods (Bronze to Gold), character cards (Silver to Platinum / UR) and similar items that you can buy with Mission Funds, and I think it's actually quite a good place for MP to be in.

 

I'm just sad that all we're getting are these kinds of fixes.

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Hadn't seen that.  What a way to go out.  Not with a bang, but with a whimper. 

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[thread rez]

 

Just finished this!

 

Like a lot of gamers in these video game-oversaturated days, I'm starting to prefer shorter experiences. If a game drags on past 10 hours I usually start wondering when it's gonna wrap up so I can move on to the next thing. Mass Effect Andromeda is the first epic adventure I've played in a while where I didn't mind it taking it's time at all. In fact I kinda wanted it to go on forever. It's not a perfect game or anything. Compare it to The Witcher 3 and you'll see tons of things the latter game does better, not just facial animation, but also things like how it weaves storylines into each other rather than every quest being a separate thread. But I'm the kinda guy who's much more into laserguns and spaceships than swords and dragons, so in the end I did enjoy Andromeda more than The Witcher 3.

I got to drive a spacetruck, explore alien planets with my buddies, have a ton of shootouts, AND bang a cute blue alien. Guys, I loved this game.

 

Here's some photos from the trip!

 

Mass%20Effect_%20Andromeda_2018072821340

Me totally blowing Liam and Peebee's minds by doing cool sci-fi shit.

 

Mass%20Effect_%20Andromeda_2018072615390

Exploring Elaaden with Drack.

 

Mass%20Effect_%20Andromeda_2018080722145

Good times.

 

Mass%20Effect_%20Andromeda_2018072513302

 

Mass%20Effect_%20Andromeda_2018080821391

 

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Oooof I'm battling with this game. I really want to like it but it's just not happening. I mean, I liked Mass Effect 1 to 3, loved them even. But this thing is just... it feels like such a waste of time playing it. For like 30 hours, I've just trotted from checkpoint to checkpoint to checkpoint for the same stupid errands, and the massive loading times between areas, masked as repetitive cutscenes and doors that take eternity to open, are starting to annoy me greatly. None of the side missions seem to make any emotional impact on me at all. I forget about the story the second the side mission is completed, and sometimes much earlier. I will have forgotten absolutely all of it in a week's time. Story is communicated in cutscenes with conversation partners entirely devoid of facial expression and written text on computer screens set in often blocky sandbox areas that fail to be at all visually distinct. Which may be enough for some low budget 10 to 15 hour experience, but here it just serves to justify ridiculously large and absurdly empty environments back. I'm kind of done with open world. I want overworld maps back.


...and now the character side missions are "on hold". Great. Those almost kept me going. :wacko:

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I also recently ripped off the band-aid and played through this. I can be a pretty easy mark, and I want to like basically anything Mass Effect but I struggled to keep the joy. I found it both novel and weird that in many ways the hivemeind on this was sort of right? 

 

There were a lot of bright parts under the muck. I think the basic setup of liferafting humanity, and the turn it takes when you arrive are pretty novel. I really dug the outlaw planets, and there is a lot of good Krogan stuff, which I think is some of their most compelling material. The crew clicked for me, Drax, Vetra, and Jaal most of all, though the personal missions are usually a highpoint, but these are mostly just ok. 

 

However, I have a marginal completionist mindset and the frequent quest structure of "find X objects" at random spawn points are just PUNISHING, and they're pretty buggy. It's just hostile game design.  

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Indeed, that joy refuses to arrive. I'm through more than half of the game, and have seen some of what made heart and soul of the predecessors for me: The companion loyalty missions. Of course, here they're taking, proportionately, much less time as compared to the total playing time. Those that I played do put a fair bit of effort in, but still feel awkward especially in comparison to Mass Effect 2.

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