Mass Effect BioWare Montreal's Mass Effect: Andromeda - where element zero meets trisomy 21

[mrlurker666]

I'll be giving this a playthrough on my DRM free copy, just to see how far Nu-Bioware has fallen. 50GB seems much too large a size for this kind of game wasn't the original ME only 4GB?

 

[Drax]

FitGirl already announced one of her 55gb-->20kb repacks so I'd wait for that before downloading the current release.
Also, what was it? A week? That some nice protection.

 

[Average Manatee]

FitGirl already announced one of her 55gb-->20kb repacks so I'd wait for that before downloading the current release.

Wow, pirates are really taking their job of improving the game seriously.

 

[Drax]

Joking aside, FG is pretty amazing, they recently released a Mad Max repack with these stats:

Original Size: 32 GB
Repack Size: 3.77/3.94 GB

I don't know what kind of compression magic they use but IS REAL, MEN, IS REAL!

 

[Haba]

They must be using Pied Piper

 

[Drax]

From her site, "Repack uses pZlib library by Razor12911".

 

[Average Manatee]

Isn't it usually just removing the 90 or so sub-human dubs?

Also was 32GB the original install size (i.e. uncompressed) or the on-disk size (i.e. compressed, presumably)?

 

[Drax]

The original installer size I think, lemme check...

"Based on Mad.Max-CPY ISO release: cpy-mm.iso (34,580,121,600 bytes)"

 

[Hellion]

https://www.masseffect.com/news/the-journey-ahead?sf53509859=1

Hi everyone,

It’s been two weeks since the launch of Mass Effect™: Andromeda and we’re thankful to the millions of you who have already joined us on this journey. And though the game is now in your hands, it’s really just the beginning.

Since launch, our team has been poring over your comments and feedback, looking to discover what you like about the game, as well as areas we can evolve or improve.

This Thursday, we’ll release a new patch that addresses technical fixes (crashes, improved performance), but also adds a number of improvements we’ve heard you ask for, such as:

• Allowing you to skip ahead when travelling between planets in the galaxy map
• Increasing the inventory limits
• Improving the appearance of eyes for humans and asari characters
• Decreasing the cost of remnant decryption keys and making them more accessible at merchants
• Improving localized voice over lip sync
• Fixing Ryder’s movements when running in a zig zag pattern
• Improving matchmaking and latency in multiplayer

There are many more adjustments being made, all of which you can find in our patch notes.

Over the next two months we’ll be rolling out additional patches which will go even deeper and look to improve several areas of the game:

• More options and variety in the character creator
• Improvements to hair and general appearance for characters
• Ongoing improvements to cinematic scenes and animations
• Improvements to male romance options for Scott Ryder
• Adjustments to conversations with Hainly Abrams

These upcoming patches will also address performance and stability issues. And we’re looking at adding more cosmetic items to single player for free.

For multiplayer, over the same timeframe, we’re going to continue to build on the APEX missions that have been running since launch. We’ll be adding new maps, characters, and weapons. On Thursday, we kick off the first of three new chapters centered around The Remnant Investigation.

This is just a taste of what’s in store as we continue to support Mass Effect: Andromeda. And as always, you all play an important role in that. We want to hear from you about your experiences, both what you love about the game and what you’d like to see changed. We’re listening, and we’re committed to partnering with you as we continue to explore the Andromeda galaxy together.

Here’s to a great journey,

Aaryn

Making space travel cutscenes skippable was the least they could do, finally.

 

[Des]

Over the next two months we’ll be rolling out additional patches which will go even deeper and look to improve several areas of the game:

• More options and variety in the character creator
• Improvements to hair and general appearance for characters
• Ongoing improvements to cinematic scenes and animations
• Improvements to male romance options for Scott Ryder
• Adjustments to conversations with Hainly Abrams

Nice to see they are taking care of their main target demographic.

 

[J1M]

General advice for those trying to enjoy this game. Since online 'guides' are full of bad information and people playing the game on 'normal':

1) Use the bio-converter when crafting your guns. Unlimited ammo and no reload time for minimal trade-off. Will speed up the gameplay considerably.
2) Mods on melee weapons apply all the time, so craft something with several kinetic coils (+weapon damage) on it.
3) All three trees have useful passive skills. Once you've settled on the powers you will use, look to purchase these. For example, barrier is great even if you don't use biotics.
4) The profile system is largely a lie. If powers didn't require a cooldown after swap this might see use. It's too slow in combat.
5) The fusion mod of adrenaline is worth grabbing early. It resets your powers when you kill an enemy.
6) Deconstructing items will give you the augs back.

To play this as a cover shooter, there are a bunch of different mediocre options. Especially out exploring the world, a sniper build is probably the most effective. It's also pretty easy to figure out. Take the cloak skill, swap to infiltrator profile so you can see enemies behind cover, and put a receiver on your sniper rifle to shoot through walls. Pick your other skills depending on play style, but some to consider would be energy drain, turbocharge, incinerate, or a robot summon.


If you want to play this without using cover, consider my 'charged' build.

-Explorer or Soldier profile (based on your opinion of Biotic Blink vs. Marksman's Focus)

-Turbocharge skill with duration, damage, and firing rate upgrades. This basically doubles your gun's damage output.
-Energy Drain skill with effectiveness and extended drain upgrades. This is your opener. It instantly primes an enemy for a combo and acts as a self-heal. (After passives this should set your shields to full.)
-Biotic Charge skill with radius, weapon boost, and bastion upgrades. This will detonate energy drain, set your shields to full, and boost your weapon damage. The skill is about mobility, not damage.

-Piranha Shotgun with bio-converter. This will give you a shotgun that never runs out of ammo or needs a reload.

-Heleus helmet, Maverick chest, Kett arms, Kett legs. The focus is on stacking weapon damage. Armor augs are generally lackluster, but consider shield oscillator (shields on kill, may be redundant) or electrical conduits (stun melee attacker). Put kinetic coils where you can for damage resistance, and shield boosters elsewhere. These will extend your effective health by making your constantly recharging shield absorb more damage.

-Fusion mod of adrenaline armor mod. This is very important, because it will recharge your abilities every time you kill something. It can be found while exploring Havarl after activating the vault. Hug the south wall and move east away from your ship to find the starting point for this 'exploration' reward.

-Drack and Cora are good companions because they will join you melee, soaking some damage. Compared to yourself, they aren't going to be contributing many kills. Build them for longevity and useful effects such as cryo ammo.

-Some important passive skills in no particular order: shotguns (clip size, damage), combat fitness (regeneration, heavy lifting, hold the line), barrier (unyielding, alacrity, saving), offensive biotics (detonation, warrior), auxiliary systems (mass reduction, shield feedback)
-Passives that increase clip size will reduce the health drain from your bioconverter
-Weight reductions might be useful at a lower level, or if you have a backup sniper rifle, but lose value over time
-My understanding is that damage resistance works for health and shields. Also that 100 damage resist implies 50% less damage taken, and that 200 damage resist would imply 75% less damage taken.

The basic gameplay is to pick an enemy, energy drain them, charge them to detonate, and then obliterate them with your turbocharged automatic shotgun. The kill will reset your cooldowns, allowing you to repeat. If you get into trouble, dash out, then back in. Actual 'running around' in combat will be minimal thanks to charge. Push for a kill instead of falling back to cover. That will reset energy drain and give you 25% shields instantly if you are using the shield oscillator armor aug.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

https://www.masseffect.com/news/the-journey-ahead?sf53509859=1

Hi everyone,

It’s been two weeks since the launch of Mass Effect™: Andromeda and we’re thankful to the millions of you who have already joined us on this journey. And though the game is now in your hands, it’s really just the beginning.

Since launch, our team has been poring over your comments and feedback, looking to discover what you like about the game, as well as areas we can evolve or improve.

This Thursday, we’ll release a new patch that addresses technical fixes (crashes, improved performance), but also adds a number of improvements we’ve heard you ask for, such as:

• Allowing you to skip ahead when travelling between planets in the galaxy map
• Increasing the inventory limits
• Improving the appearance of eyes for humans and asari characters
• Decreasing the cost of remnant decryption keys and making them more accessible at merchants
• Improving localized voice over lip sync
• Fixing Ryder’s movements when running in a zig zag pattern
• Improving matchmaking and latency in multiplayer

There are many more adjustments being made, all of which you can find in our patch notes.

Over the next two months we’ll be rolling out additional patches which will go even deeper and look to improve several areas of the game:

• More options and variety in the character creator
• Improvements to hair and general appearance for characters
• Ongoing improvements to cinematic scenes and animations
• Improvements to male romance options for Scott Ryder
• Adjustments to conversations with Hainly Abrams

These upcoming patches will also address performance and stability issues. And we’re looking at adding more cosmetic items to single player for free.

For multiplayer, over the same timeframe, we’re going to continue to build on the APEX missions that have been running since launch. We’ll be adding new maps, characters, and weapons. On Thursday, we kick off the first of three new chapters centered around The Remnant Investigation.

This is just a taste of what’s in store as we continue to support Mass Effect: Andromeda. And as always, you all play an important role in that. We want to hear from you about your experiences, both what you love about the game and what you’d like to see changed. We’re listening, and we’re committed to partnering with you as we continue to explore the Andromeda galaxy together.

Here’s to a great journey,

Aaryn

Making space travel cutscenes skippable was the least they could do, finally.

interesting how cutting content is an improvement.

 

[Vorark]

I like how CPY released it on the same day Bioware had important "news".

 

[oldmanpaco]

Over the next two months we’ll be rolling out additional patches which will go even deeper and look to improve several areas of the game:

• More options and variety in the character creator
• Improvements to hair and general appearance for characters
• Ongoing improvements to cinematic scenes and animations
• Improvements to male romance options for Scott Ryder
• Adjustments to conversations with Hainly Abrams

Nice to see they are taking care of their main target demographic.

ITs funny but there are 2 gay male romance options and two hetro female romance options but guess which drama queens are bitching about it.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Improvements to male romance options for Scott Ryder

 

[Falksi]

interesting how cutting content is an improvement.

Too often the case these days sadly. I really enjoyed various aspects of Kingdoms of Analur Reckoning, but Christ what a shit overall game because of the amount of filler & crap you had to wade through.

 

[Tom Selleck]

• Improvements to male romance options for Scott Ryder
• Adjustments to conversations with Hainly Abrams

:incloosive:

faggots and trannies, surely the most pressing issues facing this otherwise flawless masterpiece

 

[cvv]

I would still say that Bioware is worse. Bethesda at lest, with much reluctance, admit that they fucked up royally. Bioware on the other hand has never admitted that they fucked up with Mass Effect 3.

As someone already said, you can't beat Bethesda molesting Fallout. At least Bioware ruined their own shit.

Also I didn't use to hate Bioware, not up until DAI. They were always the most tolerable of all the AAA studios out there, at least while Zeschuk and Muzyka piloted the outfit. When I look back I actually enjoyed, more or less, all their games before DAI. As for ME3 I think it was actually EA who ruined the ending if rumours are to be believed. Apparently the original plot was leaked so EA requested a completely new ending to be grafted on the game, with predictable results. Due to this most of the writers and creative leads fucked off. All that was left was ruins of the Edmonton studio and an interns packed B-team in Montreal formed 2 years before EA dumped the biggest blockbuster of the 2010s on their shoulders.

People rage against Bioware but afaic it's the EA who's the real child molester here.

 

[Ezeekiel]

"Adjustments to conversations with Hainly Abrams" LOL

Best part of that ridiculous char is that they managed to annoy everyone from gg types to their "trans" fans. Wonder if a lightbulb is going on in some of their execs' heads yet...

As for the romance crap, that isn't salvagable at all. They've totally outdone themselves there in the worst way possible.

Allowing us to skip travel sequences on the galaxy map, well thanks. How about cutting all that crap completely?
Scanning etc in ME was always widely criticized as being total time-wasting, boring shit. By almost everyone apart from some weird apologists who were probably trolling or something (leave me my fantasies, the power of optimism will save this world dammit).
Yet game after game they just couldn't help themselves and kept this sort of crap in. 'Course the games would be call of duty -length without that stuff.

Skipping repetetive and largely pointless animations/cutscenes is a point brought up for so many games all over the web constantly, has been for over a decade. Yet devs still fuck this up all the time.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Interesting how it's "adjustments", not changes. Maybe you'll have to prod more before she blurts out her life story to Ryder.

• Fixing Ryder’s movements when running in a zig zag pattern

Reportedly it looks like this now.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Interesting how it's "adjustments", not changes. Maybe you'll have to prod more before he blurts out his life story to Ryder.

Fixed that for ya. Fuck your agenda.

 

[Ezeekiel]

I would still say that Bioware is worse. Bethesda at lest, with much reluctance, admit that they fucked up royally. Bioware on the other hand has never admitted that they fucked up with Mass Effect 3.

As someone already said, you can't beat Bethesda molesting Fallout. At least Bioware ruined their own shit.

Also I didn't use to hate Bioware, not up until DAI. They were always the most tolerable of all the AAA studios out there, at least while Zeschuk and Muzyka piloted the outfit. When I look back I actually enjoyed, more or less, all their games before DAI. As for ME3 I think it was actually EA who ruined the ending if rumours are to be believed. Apparently the original plot was leaked so EA requested a completely new ending to be grafted on the game, with predictable results. Due to this most of the writers and creative leads fucked off. All that was left was ruins of the Edmonton studio and an intern-packed B-team in Montreal formed 2 years before EA dumped the biggest blockbuster of the 2010s on their shoulders.

People rage against Bioware but afaic it's the EA who's the real child molester here.

Dunno, NWN proper was pretty damn bad already. DA pretty big disappointment for me personally and it's just gone downhill from there. They should try having something in addition to their now characteristic companion interaction going on in their games, but now with their tired ersatz-ME cast in andromeda they don't even really have that anymore.

Dumbest thing they could have done was kill the old series in ME3. Their regular fans loved a lot of the established characters, for better or worse. Just because they wouldn't properly fix their unbelievably retarded ending they now went and gave people the replacement lame-oes no one cares about. Sort of similar to the superhero comic thing going on these days.

 

[Ezeekiel]

Interesting how it's "adjustments", not changes. Maybe you'll have to prod more before she blurts out her life story to Ryder.

Too late. They've outed a transwoman! Unforgiveable, Anita Sarkeesian will make a video about this trans(ahaha)gression, alt-right shitlords known as Bioware!

Trump should oficially congratulate them on fighting the trans-menace, just to troll the entire bunch.

 

[Ezeekiel]

General advice for those trying to enjoy this game. Since online 'guides' are full of bad information and people playing the game on 'normal':

1) Use the bio-converter when crafting your guns. Unlimited ammo and no reload time for minimal trade-off. Will speed up the gameplay considerably.
2) Mods on melee weapons apply all the time, so craft something with several kinetic coils (+weapon damage) on it.
3) All three trees have useful passive skills. Once you've settled on the powers you will use, look to purchase these. For example, barrier is great even if you don't use biotics.
4) The profile system is largely a lie. If powers didn't require a cooldown after swap this might see use. It's too slow in combat.
5) The fusion mod of adrenaline is worth grabbing early. It resets your powers when you kill an enemy.
6) Deconstructing items will give you the augs back.

To play this as a cover shooter, there are a bunch of different mediocre options. Especially out exploring the world, a sniper build is probably the most effective. It's also pretty easy to figure out. Take the cloak skill, swap to infiltrator profile so you can see enemies behind cover, and put a receiver on your sniper rifle to shoot through walls. Pick your other skills depending on play style, but some to consider would be energy drain, turbocharge, incinerate, or a robot summon.


If you want to play this without using cover, consider my 'charged' build.

-Explorer or Soldier profile (based on your opinion of Biotic Blink vs. Marksman's Focus)

-Turbocharge skill with duration, damage, and firing rate upgrades. This basically doubles your gun's damage output.
-Energy Drain skill with effectiveness and extended drain upgrades. This is your opener. It instantly primes an enemy for a combo and acts as a self-heal. (After passives this should set your shields to full).
-Biotic Charge skill with radius, weapon boost, and bastion upgrades. This will detonate energy drain, set your shields to full, and boost your weapon damage. The skill is about mobility, not damage.

-Piranha Shotgun with bio-converter. This will give you a shotgun that never runs out of ammo or needs a reload.

-Heleus helmet, Maverick chest, Kett arms, Kett legs. The focus is on stacking weapon damage. Armor augs are generally lackluster, but consider shield oscillator (shields on kill, may be redundant) or electrical conduits (stun melee attacker). Put kinetic coils where you can for damage resistance, and shield boosters elsewhere. These will extend your effective health by making your constantly recharging shield absorb more damage.

-Fusion mod of adrenaline armor mod. This is very important, because it will recharge your abilities every time you kill something. It can be found while exploring Havarl after activating the vault. Hug the south wall and move east away from your ship to find the starting point for this 'exploration' reward.

-Drack and Cora are good companions because they will join you melee, soaking some damage. Compared to yourself, they aren't going to be contributing many kills. Build them for longevity and useful effects such as cryo ammo.

-Some important passive skills in no particular order: shotguns (clip size, damage), combat fitness (regeneration, heavy lifting, hold the line), barrier (unyielding, alacrity, saving), offensive biotics (detonation, warrior), auxiliary systems (mass reduction, shield feedback)
-Passives that increase clip size will reduce the health drain from your bioconverter
-Weight reductions might be useful at a lower level, or if you have a backup sniper rifle, but lose value over time
-My understanding is that damage resistance works for health and shields. Also that 100 damage resist implies 50% less damage taken, and that 200 damage resist would imply 75% less damage taken.

The basic gameplay is to pick an enemy, energy drain them, charge them to detonate, and then obliterate them with your turbocharged automatic shotgun. The kill will reset your cooldowns, allowing you to repeat. If you get into trouble, dash out, then back in. Actual 'running around' in combat will be minimal thanks to charge. Push for a kill instead of falling back to cover. That will reset energy drain and give you 25% shields instantly if you are using the shield oscillator armor aug.

Why the piranha? Isn't that the one with the big rotating drum (which blocks the sights, nice bioware)? Like 400dmg or something and still fairly slow rof?
Why not the Dhan, too much health to reload?

 

[Tom Selleck]

Mass Effect: Deadnameda