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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Gaming Mass Effect Series

Discussion in 'Community' started by Valyn, Sep 7, 2012.

  1. The Vanguard

    The Vanguard Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 12, 2016
    I'm really curious to see how that entity plays out..I hope to not regret it!
     
  2. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Well, with Zelda finished, well mostly, it's probably time to start on this.
     
  3. Mecha Jedi

    Mecha Jedi Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 9, 2017
    The Vanguard likes this.
  4. PimpBacca

    PimpBacca Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 4, 2015
  5. The Vanguard

    The Vanguard Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 12, 2016
    I don't know how to feel if SW ended up killing my beloved Mass Effect. I feel so numb thinking about it..
     
  6. Kynirin

    Kynirin Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2015
    It's sort of interesting to think about this news in light of that relatively recent vent-out from a former employee who talked about this "bro culture" at BioWare Edmonton (which certainly exists if you look at how they communicate, they're all great buddies across the projects), and how the Montreal team was basically the ginger bastard of the family and not really counted as one of them. I'm not sure about the Montreal part and how much of that applies, but they certainly hadn't done anything significant of their own until Andromeda. It's sad to think this was the only thing they were allowed to do before they got repurposed back into lesser, more auxiliary tasks.

    I guess it comes down to the numbers, and I think it was Eurogamer who called Andromeda possibly BioWare's worst RPG so far. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, particularly when you were hoping to rebound gloriously from the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle with a completely new game and the semi-fresh start that comes with it. Similar thoughts were echoed in other reviews. Andromeda didn't strike me as so bad that you should have to go into some kind of an emergency mode and get rid of the developers. It might not be an all-time great, it might just be BioWare's worst, but given their resume of games, that's not necessarily a terrible thing. The list is pretty impressive after all.

    I was really hoping to get a sequel for Andromeda pretty quickly, two years down the line or something, since they have much of the assets in place and surely an idea on what the greater story beyond Heleus Cluster might be. Ryder struck me as a great character, and the Heleus Cluster situation was interesting. There were even obvious sequel hooks in place. So, naturally this follows.

    *hugs SAM node and sobs uncontrollably*
     
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  7. The Vanguard

    The Vanguard Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 12, 2016
    I could be overreacting though. I mean, they could just want to make sure Battlefront II is ready for it's release date this year.

    Then once it's done, switch back to developing Mass Effect again..
     
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  8. Kynirin

    Kynirin Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2015
    At their most extreme, I'm sure they are just waiting for the main team at Edmonton to be available again. IIRC, they are working on that brand new IP project at the moment. After that, I suppose it'll depend on how that works out, but taking some time off now and then might do good. What little is known of the new Assassin's Creed game sounds very promising for a change, although of course they were pushing a new game out every year before they took this time-out, so it's a bit different there.

    It's not really a bad idea to reinforce Battlefront 2 team as well to make sure it comes out on time and works out otherwise. Similar situation with Mass Effect in that there's a lot of baggage from previous game going into that one as well. :)
     
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  9. Nobody145

    Nobody145 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2007
    Can't tell whether this is bad news or we're just overreacting. I was hoping for news of story DLC (like what ME2 and ME3 got), but this doesn't sound good. Well, Bioware isn't what it once was (not to mention EA overlords) and Andromeda hasn't been a... big success. Its not a horrible game, though with plenty of flaws, but its unfortunately carrying a lot of baggage (the Mass Effect name and probably still lingering memories of ME3).

    I'm still waiting for the price to drop a bit more before I buy it (and Persona 5 is still taking up my limited free time), but this kind of news doesn't sound encouraging.
     
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  10. The Vanguard

    The Vanguard Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 12, 2016
    Yeah it looks like DLC isn't coming down the pike anytime soon.

    Kynirin has a point though. It's probably a good thing for them to take a step back and do something else. Whatever the reasons. All I know is when they force a deadline, bad things happen.
    [​IMG]
     
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  11. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    Just as an FYI, the Patch 1.06 that came out on May 10 makes a lot of changes to weapons. Many were buffed (two guns got damage increases of about 120%), one got slightly nerfed by 11%, and the "mystery" Avenger variant we saw in some of the trailers and cutscenes was added as the X5 Ghost, which seems to be a very excellent weapon - moderate damage, high rate of fire, high accuracy, large clip size, fast reload, low weight.



     
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  12. Miras-Etrin

    Miras-Etrin Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jan 23, 2013
    So, Andromeda killed Mass Effect, at least for now. It looks like revenge of the Masters of the Island has been successful. MUWAHAHAHAAA...

    Seriously, now I´m more interested in the accompanying novels than in the game itself. Quite ironically, two of them might be now considered swan song of the franchise.
     
  13. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    So, started this.

    Despite having low expectations, it managed to still be severely irritating:
    • Only 2D indication of where enemies are? Great.
    • Cover system seems flaky.
    • When you find 'Dad', what you get is a macho fool forever haring off and leaving the team behind - wasn't at all sympathetic when he got himself killed.
    • Don't recall the angle of shot being as irritating as it is here.
    • Map is not all that.
    It's strange, this has been described as 'Inquisition in Space', but if it was that there's all manner of tried-and-tested stuff they could transfer and haven't. The story-telling is good enough, the expanded conversations options are good and now I'm at the Nexus, Krogans and Turians have turned up. (Salarians too, but you can't have everything.)

    Right now it's looking like it'll be fun save for the combat, so I'm likely to dial the difficulty right back.
     
  14. Mustafar_66

    Mustafar_66 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    May 20, 2005
    That's interesting. The combat is, for many people, the game's saving grace. I agree the cover system is flaky. I see what they were trying to do but I don't think it was as refined as it needed to be.

    I don't get what you mean about the 2D enemy indicator though. If an enemy is above you there's a white arrow above the red dot and one underneath if they're below you.

    And yeah, Alec's a berk, though the memories you unlock do help to soften him somewhat.

    Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
     
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  15. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Well, that's useful to know, but I still find it difficult with just a 2D display over 3D terrain, a direction indicator of left/right doesn't help much - really liked that map/HUD they did in ME1 which they subsequently got rid of. DA:I had a similar mini-map display which helped you work where enemies were in more detail.

    I suspect it'll get better, as the characters and abilities develop - I just know on this opening I was relying more on my team-mates seeking out and killing the soldiers because they actually knew where they were.
     
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  16. The Vanguard

    The Vanguard Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 12, 2016
    The cover system hurts a lot. I killed my first architect (hardcore) but it took me forever. A lot of it had to do with the cover.
     
  17. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Ok, so Andromeda just went and pulled a Houdini-style escape after near immolating itself.

    The combination? It started with a really, woefully bad sidequest - Station Sabotage. Then it recovered by giving me the Tempest - getting a starship is always cool, but it then went and did:
    • A crappy irradiated desert
    • A useless map
    • Pain-in-the-arse combat
    • Irritating glyph scanning
    • Even more irritating entry puzzles
    • Stupidly dumb platforming sections where you hit a console and it's not clear it has 2 bridge effects because one is shown just out of view
    It stunk to high heaven. At this point, it had doused itself in petrol and broken out the matches, all that remained was to light one...

    So what happened?

    Despite a crappy chase sequence, I managed to do that frigging vault and once I was out?

    I got to do the murder quest I was on. True, the Nomad handles better than the Mako, but it ain't that great and it should have been. Nonetheless, got back on board the Tempest and I'm getting squad conversations, sidequests, resource grabbing, other sidequests that actually sound like fun. And I finish the murder quest.

    And At this point, I'm feeling far happier. I can't help but expect that anything vault-related will be an utter irritation from start to finish, but outside of that? Might be a good game here after all.
     
  18. Mustafar_66

    Mustafar_66 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    May 20, 2005
    Finished it last night. Thoroughly enjoyed it once they released a patch that fixed most of the performance issues on PC. Possibly a controversial opinion but this might be my favourite crew, after the ME3 one. I do hope they persevere with the Andromeda setting going forward as they've set up a nice little universe with plenty of potential, they just need to learn from the mistakes.
     
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  19. Blue 5

    Blue 5 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Jan 6, 2017
    I'm 34% done right now and side-questing on Kadara. I'm enjoying it a lot and taking my sweet time. I am playing as a vanguard on Hardcore. The Dhan V shotgun is mammoth with Charge maxed with shotgun bonus and Shotguns maxed. Also using Pull a lot. Love PeeBee's Remnant VI, too.

    I love Mass Effect, it is even with Star Wars for my favorite sci-fi.
     
  20. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    There are some really bad herding mechanisms in this game plus a few other things:
    • You have a jetpack so you can get up that slope right? Wrong DA:I's jump is back, where sometimes you do a big gap, other times you hit a wall for a 2 inch jump.
    • Up there, yeah I can go there - Level 3 radiation! Argh, bastards.
    • Remnant vault Sudoku - Get. Tae. ****.
    • Scan for glyphs - bloody irritating
    • Map cues - no you can't just select one, if an objective has 2 parts, they both show.
    • Sometimes you have to scan to progress but there's no cue to do this.
    • Combat remains Total Arse.
    So why play it all? Because the actual core mission, the centre of the game is very good - when you establish that first outpost on Eos there's a real sense of achievement to it. I'm now building relations with a bunch of aliens, which is proving fun.

    It just buries the good stuff in a mountain of crap.
     
  21. Mustafar_66

    Mustafar_66 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    May 20, 2005
    One of the best things about the more recent patches is the Remnant Decryption keys got a boost and now appear in vendors inventories more often, even the one on-board the Tempest. They're not very expensive and totally worth buying.
     
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  22. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Oh thanks, that's useful to know.
     
  23. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
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  24. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    It does explain a lot.
     
  25. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    So, after ending up on this for 8-9 hours today, the good and the bad:

    The bad:
    • ****ing with the save game function - this is beyond bad, I had it go grey due to being in 'combat', I'd killed everything in the Kett fortress on Eos and it still considered me as 'in combat', even when I was all the way back at base! The only solution seems to be legging it to the Tempest and leaving the planet, then the system, to force an auto-save. It's *****.
    • The "compass" and "map": Utterly useless, both of 'em and the "search" function just adds insult to injury.
    • Combat: I can't imagine any ME player who, unlike me, was actually good at this finding this to be an improvement. Positioning, strategy, power combos - they're gone in favour of 'shoot ****'. Combined with the 2D compass, my squad will more quickly find and kill enemies than I will - especially on Havarl. The 'cover system' remains very flaky.
    The good:
    • What saves this game is the story-telling and the options open in terms of what you do and when, with who. The sense of gradually building a new civilisation in a new galaxy, relations with other powers and factions, along with internal politics - makes up for the killer flaws above.
    So, at the 21 hour mark, with today's play-through:
    • Havarl was finished, complete with **** vault purification bull****. On this one, it's 'wait by the door we just closed on you to open while an instant kill death cloud' - so very intuitive, so very dumb.
    • Explored the new, now clear of radiation Eos, which is a lot better.
    • Killed an awful lot of Kett, including their boss Invictor.
    • Done a lot of subquests.
    • Took on an Architect - should have been an epic fight, instead it was an irritating due to the combined flaws of camera angle, compass and general lack of clarity as to what was happening where - not what you want in a big battle.
    • Got Eos to 100% viability
    • Have Military, Science and Commerce pods open now. The AVP feels far too restrictive, especially as the game ads suggested you could direct the rebuilding of the Nexus, feels like a lost opportunity.

    Overall, the game is heavily flawed, there's a good game trying to get out but it's self-destructive tendencies are off the scale.

    In a lot of ways, I wish this really was Dragon Age: Inquisition in space because that had a mini-map, a radar for finding loot that worked and crafting that was a damn sight easier. Taking over a Kett fortress would be cool too. DA:I just had a load of working functionality that could be ported over easily, but it really isn't that game, save perhaps at the most general level.

    For a triple A game it can be said to be a disaster. The solution? To follow No Man's Sky and put out a lot of good DLC for free. Add in new explorable planets, new missions - hell, go for broke and replace the damn compass with a minimap so people can do actual 3D strategy. Not that that'll happen as EA's put it on ice instead.