Mass Effect: Andromeda Pre-Release Thread

[Excidium II]

Good thing I played on normal.

 

[sullynathan]

I think you pretty much precisely captured why there's lurv for ME1. Its combat is unquestionably poor,

I question that. I question the fuck out of that.

Stats actually affect how effective you are in combat. Combat areas are large enough to make it actually useful to be a sniper. And I'm sure other things I don't recall since it's probably been 6 years since I last played it. Meanwhile 2-3 are corridor shooter shit.

I completly agree. Mass Effect 2 is only an improvement for people who played as a soldier in the first game. All other classes suck,even the vanguard because of the so called protection system, that made most biotic and tech useless when enemies have shields an barriers, which even animals like varren had. Biotic Charge got old pretty fast and was bugged, because it sometimes
was impossible to charge an enemy, even when right in front of me. And the engineer got his tech mines replaced with retarded ice and fire magic.

This is retarded

 

[Freddie]

I think you pretty much precisely captured why there's lurv for ME1. Its combat is unquestionably poor,

I question that. I question the fuck out of that.

Stats actually affect how effective you are in combat. Combat areas are large enough to make it actually useful to be a sniper. And I'm sure other things I don't recall since it's probably been 6 years since I last played it. Meanwhile 2-3 are corridor shooter shit.

I completly agree. Mass Effect 2 is only an improvement for people who played as a soldier in the first game. All other classes suck,even the vanguard because of the so called protection system, that made most biotic and tech useless when enemies have shields an barriers, which even animals like varren had. Biotic Charge got old pretty fast and was bugged, because it sometimes
was impossible to charge an enemy, even when right in front of me. And the engineer got his tech mines replaced with retarded ice and fire magic.

I don't know if ME2 was that good even when played as soldier. In ME1 you could use your squadmates power to swipe out Geth battalion (biotics) if they were properly build and I have memory that even that Quarian was pretty effective with sniper rifle, again if properly build. I recall it worked also other way around, played engineer or infiltrator and Ash and Wrex were pretty effective and just wouldn't fucking die in the last mission. That said, fighter class NPC's worked best on their own in ME2 if my memory serves me right.

In ME2 there were still lots of possibilities, in theory... But like you explained, it turned to boring popamole fest, because enemies had abilities that nullified those powers and you couldn't even use environment for tactical advantage any more because it was all corridor shit.

 

[J1M]

I think you pretty much precisely captured why there's lurv for ME1. Its combat is unquestionably poor,

I question that. I question the fuck out of that.

Stats actually affect how effective you are in combat. Combat areas are large enough to make it actually useful to be a sniper. And I'm sure other things I don't recall since it's probably been 6 years since I last played it. Meanwhile 2-3 are corridor shooter shit.

Perhaps I should have said 'Its attempt to mimic shooter combat is poor.' The actual shooter mechanics, irrespective of stat-focus, are poor; movement is poor, aiming is poor, shooting is poor. They were trying to marry traditional rpg concepts with active shooter gameplay, and MOST (maybe you're an outlier?) people agreed that the weak part of their implementation was the shooter gameplay.

Try playing it again as an Infiltrator who specializes in pistols, skills that do aoe damage, and shield recharge equipment. (ie. don't put any points in sniper rifle)

This approach allows you to play a run and gun style that can take out groups of enemies with skills and then hit pistol berserk to mop up what's left. It's a play style not possible in the later games where "Infiltrator = Sniper from cover".

 

[donkeymong]

I think you pretty much precisely captured why there's lurv for ME1. Its combat is unquestionably poor,

I question that. I question the fuck out of that.

Stats actually affect how effective you are in combat. Combat areas are large enough to make it actually useful to be a sniper. And I'm sure other things I don't recall since it's probably been 6 years since I last played it. Meanwhile 2-3 are corridor shooter shit.

I completly agree. Mass Effect 2 is only an improvement for people who played as a soldier in the first ga
I don't know if ME2 was that good even when played as soldier. In ME1 you could use your squadmates power to swipe out Geth battalion (biotics) if they were properly build and I have memory that even that Quarian was pretty effective with sniper rifle, again if properly build. I recall it worked also other way around, played engineer or infiltrator and Ash and Wrex were pretty effective and just wouldn't fucking die in the last mission. That said, fighter class NPC's worked best on their own in ME2 if my memory serves me right.

In ME2 there were still lots of possibilities, in theory... But like you explained, it turned to boring popamole fest, because enemies had abilities that nullified those powers and you couldn't even use environment for tactical advantage any more because it was all corridor shit.

Kaidan and Liara could even solo robot Saren with their biotics, he was floating in the air helpless the whole time. Regarding combat Npcs, even they did only 40 percent of the weapon damage, no matter what class the main character had, what was completly idiotic,
regarding that Mass Effect 2 was supposed to be a party rpg.
But they for sure were better then Jack, who was only good in cutscenes,or Tali with
her 60 second cooldown for her combat drone in a global cooldown system. The global cooldown was another change for the worse by th way.

 

[Freddie]

Kaidan and Liara could even solo robot Saren with their biotics, he was floating in the air helpless the whole time. Regarding combat Npcs, even they did only 40 percent of the weapon damage, no matter what class the main character had, what was completly idiotic,
regarding that Mass Effect 2 was supposed to be a party rpg.
But they for sure were better then Jack, who was only good in cutscenes,or Tali with
her 60 second cooldown for her combat drone in a global cooldown system. The global cooldown was another change for the worse by th way.

I recall one time I took Liara with me to robot Saren fight and and noticing how fight suddenly became easy. After that took her everytime.

I recall NPC squad mates in ME2 being pretty good on flying platform part of the Collector ship mission. I still wonder if that's because it's from AI's point of view static and very small area (practically just shoot / use power / take cover / reload, no path finding involved). I think there were one or two missions or maps where I noticed NPC's doing something worth while, but then I had learned to use all sort of combos to weaken enemies. I recall Jack doing decent damage with pistol (don't remember which one) and something similar. Even with gimped damage, full upgraded weapons with ammo powers was worth something... but squad mates rate of fire appeared sometimes drop to just few shots in a minute, or something ridiculous, which I don't recall happening in Collector ship segment I wrote above.

There is something else that always bothered me in ME2 combat. I felt there were nice ideas, but when I think of map where party goes to get Krogan, map where Collectors are abducting colonists and then the suicide mission, swap the textures and how different they really are? Colonist mission have different pace because there is loot to gather in their living modules, but thinking of them just combat maps, maybe there's another reason why combat started to feel so tedious. Then sequence length was something I often felt that once popamole started heating up and as player I was finding the right tempo, segment was over. That said, I still wonder if there was something with certain maps and how companion AI worked in those environments.

Maybe BW recognised there were issues somewhere and tried to bring variety with the Praetorians, or flying craps... which then were huge bullet sponges and just slowed the pace.

 

[donkeymong]

Kaidan and Liara could even solo robot Saren with their biotics, he was floating in the air helpless the whole time. Regarding combat Npcs, even they did only 40 percent of the weapon damage, no matter what class the main character had, what was completly idiotic,
regarding that Mass Effect 2 was supposed to be a party rpg.
But they for sure were better then Jack, who was only good in cutscenes,or Tali with
her 60 second cooldown for her combat drone in a global cooldown system. The global cooldown was another change for the worse by th way.

I recall one time I took Liara with me to robot Saren fight and and noticing how fight suddenly became easy. After that took her everytime.

I recall NPC squad mates in ME2 being pretty good on flying platform part of the Collector ship mission. I still wonder if that's because it's from AI's point of view static and very small area (practically just shoot / use power / take cover / reload, no path finding involved). I think there were one or two missions or maps where I noticed NPC's doing something worth while, but then I had learned to use all sort of combos to weaken enemies. I recall Jack doing decent damage with pistol (don't remember which one) and something similar. Even with gimped damage, full upgraded weapons with ammo powers was worth something... but squad mates rate of fire appeared sometimes drop to just few shots in a minute, or something ridiculous, which I don't recall happening in Collector ship segment I wrote above.

There is something else that always bothered me in ME2 combat. I felt there were nice ideas, but when I think of map where party goes to get Krogan, map where Collectors are abducting colonists and then the suicide mission, swap the textures and how different they really are? Colonist mission have different pace because there is loot to gather in their living modules, but thinking of them just combat maps, maybe there's another reason why combat started to feel so tedious. Then sequence length was something I often felt that once popamole started heating up and as player I was finding the right tempo, segment was over. That said, I still wonder if there was something with certain maps and how companion AI worked in those environments.

Maybe BW recognised there were issues somewhere and tried to bring variety with the Praetorians, or flying craps... which then were huge bullet sponges and just slowed the pace.

Speaking of variety, the enemies in the first game used nearly every power Shepard and his team had aside from Singularity. Enemy engineers used Damping, Overload , Sabotage and Neuralshock. Biotics used Throw, Warp
Stasis (Rachni Broad Warriors). The so called Biotics of Mass Effect were jokes in comparison. Warp spamers, nothing else.

 

[Freddie]

Kaidan and Liara could even solo robot Saren with their biotics, he was floating in the air helpless the whole time. Regarding combat Npcs, even they did only 40 percent of the weapon damage, no matter what class the main character had, what was completly idiotic,
regarding that Mass Effect 2 was supposed to be a party rpg.
But they for sure were better then Jack, who was only good in cutscenes,or Tali with
her 60 second cooldown for her combat drone in a global cooldown system. The global cooldown was another change for the worse by th way.

I recall one time I took Liara with me to robot Saren fight and and noticing how fight suddenly became easy. After that took her everytime.

I recall NPC squad mates in ME2 being pretty good on flying platform part of the Collector ship mission. I still wonder if that's because it's from AI's point of view static and very small area (practically just shoot / use power / take cover / reload, no path finding involved). I think there were one or two missions or maps where I noticed NPC's doing something worth while, but then I had learned to use all sort of combos to weaken enemies. I recall Jack doing decent damage with pistol (don't remember which one) and something similar. Even with gimped damage, full upgraded weapons with ammo powers was worth something... but squad mates rate of fire appeared sometimes drop to just few shots in a minute, or something ridiculous, which I don't recall happening in Collector ship segment I wrote above.

There is something else that always bothered me in ME2 combat. I felt there were nice ideas, but when I think of map where party goes to get Krogan, map where Collectors are abducting colonists and then the suicide mission, swap the textures and how different they really are? Colonist mission have different pace because there is loot to gather in their living modules, but thinking of them just combat maps, maybe there's another reason why combat started to feel so tedious. Then sequence length was something I often felt that once popamole started heating up and as player I was finding the right tempo, segment was over. That said, I still wonder if there was something with certain maps and how companion AI worked in those environments.

Maybe BW recognised there were issues somewhere and tried to bring variety with the Praetorians, or flying craps... which then were huge bullet sponges and just slowed the pace.

Speaking of variety, the enemies in the first game used nearly every power Shepard and his team had aside from Singularity. Enemy engineers used Damping, Overload , Sabotage and Neuralshock. Biotics used Throw, Warp
Stasis (Rachni Broad Warriors). The so called Biotics of Mass Effect were jokes in comparison. Warp spamers, nothing else.

True, engineers in ME2 used to cast drone, like almost always, which was as useful as player drone... except AI was easily fooled with it.

You mentioned ME2 cut scene bad assery in your previous post which brought one funny thing that happened while on mission where some mercenaries were need to be eliminated in one of those exploration like planets, or uncharted worlds.

So I think I had engineer or soldier as character, Liara and perhaps Ash in squad. So, I eradicated enemy turrets with Mako cannon, got out of it. Got most of the enemies from the distance, get on site where somewhere appears more mercs. So I don't really do much but concentrate my own killing and battle is over very fast, except radar appeared red. I try to do something and got message that there are still enemies there. So hidden somewhere, or stuck? I look around, don't find anyone, radar is still red.

So it must be a bug I wonder, then I start to hear something... like someone yelling or screaming. Again I run around, nothing to be seen, but screaming appears to come closer. I was about ready to quit when screaming gets loud and I see something falling, and then thud, screaming stops. It was one of the mercenaries, who fell from the sky. Then I realised, Liara's Lift...

Now I don't know for sure if that was a bug, Lift via bouncing from something on terrain or what, but where the hell she took that guy, near orbit?
What fucking way to die. And I thought in universe, in some cantina in the Citadel stories like this are passed and so legends are born. And it was all in-game. I Sure as hell don't recall such bad assery happening in ME2 but in cut scenes.

I still can't understand it. BW had this all, it was even hinted that Biotics were what the Reapers were afraid of, but BW threw that all out of window...

 

[Gepeu]

I recall one time I took Liara with me to robot Saren fight and and noticing how fight suddenly became easy. After that took her everytime.

Did you play it more than once, then?

 

[oldmanpaco]

So I just saw there is a /r/masseffect (of course there would be) and this is the top post:

Biodrones are truly a gift that keeps on giving.

 

[The Great Deceiver]

Bioware (tm) - The Premiere provider of AAA Shovelware.

 

[jaydee2k]

Need more fagpics of some alien asses. Whats up with Biowares PR-department? They have to deliver...

 

[vortex]

Mac Walters Q&A

 

[Andyman Messiah]

Preordered lol.

You disgust me.

I know lol.

So many #NeverMassEffect-ers here. Looking fwd to discuss the game with all of you as we all fervently play it on launch day.

 

[Freddie]

I recall one time I took Liara with me to robot Saren fight and and noticing how fight suddenly became easy. After that took her everytime.

Did you play it more than once, then?

Yeah, ME1 was guilty pleasure of mine, game I kept getting back to trying different classes and builds, and so on. I even started a trilogy run just before ME3 was released. Good God...

So I just saw there is a /r/masseffect (of course there would be) and this is the top post:

Biodrones are truly a gift that keeps on giving.

The thing that BW started catering to this audience... Who are these people. Someone should really have time out with them. 'Look, it's a giant space parrot. Your offspring would be a budgie or duck or whatever. Why do you wanna mate with a bird and give birth to a some sort of fucking space duck? What the hell is wrong with you!'

 

[pippin]

'Look, it's a giant space parrot. Your offspring would be a budgie or duck or whatever. Why do you wanna mate with a bird and give birth to a some sort of fucking space duck? What the hell is wrong with you!'

you don't wanna mate with ?

 

[Freddie]

'Look, it's a giant space parrot. Your offspring would be a budgie or duck or whatever. Why do you wanna mate with a bird and give birth to a some sort of fucking space duck? What the hell is wrong with you!'

you don't wanna mate with ?

I think if there is something to be learned from BW:s series of epic failure with their own IP, I think it's example of how dangerous it is to invest in perceived potential. Like noticed earlier, space opera genre isn't that big on gaming so there was room for this sort of game. It could have been a series even adult could play. But no... they had it all and they threw it away.

 

[warpig]

So I just saw there is a /r/masseffect (of course there would be) and this is the top post:

Biodrones are truly a gift that keeps on giving.

This is so fucking wrong xD I wonder if this was made by a bioware fangirl or a male biodrone who self-inserts as the alien...

 

[Seethe]

To be fair though this looks like a male of the species. Knowing Bioware the female ones tend to be a lot more bangable.

 

[Reinhardt]

To be fair though this looks like a male of the species. Knowing Bioware the female ones tend to be a lot more bangable.

 

[hajro]

Asari are female only tho...

 

[Reinhardt]

 

[vortex]

This PeeBee is some kind of asari outcast. She's a rebel of an asari accustomed behavior, me thinks.
Walters said in interview that they will mostly go for quest based personal story similar in Witcher 3 (and this is also stated for Cyberpunk 2077). There won't be "save the galaxy once again".

 

[MercenarySnake]

She looks more like she's going to be a Jar Jar Binks type of character. I wonder if they're going to have another Jacob character that's so boring and pointless that they might as well just left him out of the game, even his father had more personality then him. So I guess Asari are going to be super ugly like the one in the picture?

 

[Gepeu]

I wonder if there will be non-binary tumblrism shilling in Andromeda. I hope so, it would be brilliant. Gays are so old nowadays, that they're almost labaled as a part of the patriarchial oppresion. BioWare writers must embrace the current year.