[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[May90]

The problem is if you as the designer are being lazy and making one of the really most important choices in an RPG, one that effects practically everything else you do in that RPG a non factor and feel unimportant then I can't have any confidence that they haven't done that with anything else equally important.

I'm personally just going to wait for reviews on this one.

Well, again, I don't see any problem with it. Nowadays most gamers aren't like, say, 15 years ago, they don't want to spend a few days playing a character, only to eventually realize how crippled their sub-optimal build made them and have to restart. I have no issue with it whatsoever, since I personally rarely have to resort to rerolling in any games, as I think all my choices through very well and rarely make character-ruining mistakes. Plus, Mass Effect 3 had the same thing: you could reroll all skills on any character, including Shepard, for 5000 credits at any time when on the Normandy, if I remember correctly.

By the way, when I started playing Neverwinter Nights (official campaign) in 2013 first time ever and didn't quite understand some nuances of the system, my first character turned out crippled, and I had to remove it after 30 hours of playing and start a new one. The only way to reroll your choices in that game was via console, but that seemed like cheating to me. I would have preferred to have an in-game rerolling system.

[nekobaka]

I like being able to reset a character talent tree back at the ship and I could see reason to change a characters class if they end up not liking it without having to start from scratch. On the other hand class changing mid mission seems odd and unnecessary unless the game ends up having reasons(forced) to change class mid mission which would mean players would end up playing specs they dont like in order to clear a mission. It would be nice to have a set of abilities to swap around mid mission instead of being stuck with overload for example for an entire mission when the enemy changes from mech heavy to bio heavy. It does not look like there will be multiple specs for each class like WoW does as well.

[Poppincaps]

The problem is if you as the designer are being lazy and making one of the really most important choices in an RPG, one that effects practically everything else you do in that RPG a non factor and feel unimportant then I can't have any confidence that they haven't done that with anything else equally important.

I'm personally just going to wait for reviews on this one.

I just want to chime in and say that being able to change your abilities on the fly is not the developer being lazy. In fact coding that would take more effort than you just selecting an ability and sticking with it for the rest of the game.

With that being said, I don't like it either.

[nekobaka]

I just want to chime in and say that being able to change your abilities on the fly is not the developer being lazy. In fact coding that would take more effort than you just selecting an ability and sticking with it for the rest of the game.

With that being said, I don't like it either.

I would say it is lazy if class changing mid mission becomes necessary due to devs not balancing specs and the encounters which effectively forces players to swap around mid mission. Devs could market it as an important aspect of the game to change classes mid mission to adapt to different situations as a pathfinder.

[Lahis]

WoW will probably be the last mainstream successful MMO. And after the colossal shitshow that was SWTOR I wouldn't trust Bioware to do one in any IP. I don't think even Bioware would trust themselves.

SWToR has turned into a decent single player RPG though.

[May90]

SWToR has turned into a decent single player RPG though.

I don't know, the pace there seems to be very tedious even by MMO standards, let alone single player RPGs. "Have a short conversation justifying the further quests, now kill 20 troopers, hack 10 terminals, activate 5 devices, do this bonus quest: kill 20 Imperial soldiers, now kill 20 more Imperial soldiers, now kill 5 Imperial robots, now kill Imperial quartermaster, now drop his head into a dropbox, now kill another boss, now go back to have another short conversation justifying the further quests"... I don't know any single-player RPG that would load the player with such amount of repetitive pointless grindy goals, only to insert short 3-minute long conversation in between dozens minutes of yawnfest!

That said, I enjoyed the stories themselves, the landscapes, the amount of lore explanation in the game... It's just that the rest of the game doesn't seem to support them, but, rather, make them secondary.

[NoiseTank13]

FFXIV would like a word with you.

Probably a close second I suppose.

Nowhere near it would have been had they came out with A Realm Reborn instead of... whatever wad of discharge the first incarnation was.

[prwraith]

I disagree with mostly everything everyone has said about ME2 > ME3. That isn't true. ME3 is everything ME2 is but better. The ending choices was the best part. I feel like the bandwagon started with a couple of articles posted and people just stopped remembering everything else about ME3 but the ending. Exploring planets was better, dialogue and story had more immersion, the cast and relationships was beautiful, DLC in this is the best DLC ever.

Now Bioware, GD it, give me a proper CE please.

How is the ending choice the best part. Did you even play the game.

I read the hate about the ending assumed people were being over critical and played through it anyway. But my god never has a bigger wtf is this shit moment been in a game before. It's (in my opinion) literally the worst ending of a video game short of the game crashing I've ever seen.

[Deleted]

Bought all 3 ME games over a year ago but haven't got through them yet, because WoW and real life.

Actually still on the first one but getting closer on finishing now after playing a lot recent days. Chasing Saren through the archives atm and find myself really looking forward to getting some free time to finish the game and start 2.

[Lahis]

I don't know, the pace there seems to be very tedious even by MMO standards, let alone single player RPGs. "Have a short conversation justifying the further quests, now kill 20 troopers, hack 10 terminals, activate 5 devices, do this bonus quest: kill 20 Imperial soldiers, now kill 20 more Imperial soldiers, now kill 5 Imperial robots, now kill Imperial quartermaster, now drop his head into a dropbox, now kill another boss, now go back to have another short conversation justifying the further quests"... I don't know any single-player RPG that would load the player with such amount of repetitive pointless grindy goals, only to insert short 3-minute long conversation in between dozens minutes of yawnfest!

That said, I enjoyed the stories themselves, the landscapes, the amount of lore explanation in the game... It's just that the rest of the game doesn't seem to support them, but, rather, make them secondary.

They have retuned the XP curve in major way. You should be fine by just doing the big story quests and leave the asses on the bears (especially if you have to go out of your way to get said asses). Though it does suffer from having a hotkey MMO combat instead of a real combat system.

[Adam Jensen]

From what I understood, his family denounced him because of his views on Tevinter Empire and his overall non-traditional behavior, and him being gay was probably just a small part of that. And even if your version is true, I don't see anything wrong with it: it happens in real world, so why wouldn't it happen in fiction?


Also 0% population in the real world has pointed ears and speaks Elven. Evil devs, forcing me to accept such a negligible racial minority in their games... I'll go make a thread about it in General Off-Topic, seems like a legitimate complaint!

Him being gay was a large part of it I thought. Didn't Daddy Pavus want Dorian to marry, and Dorian refused? Then his father went off to try to use blood magic to "fix" Dorian.

[Witchblade77]

I don't think it was even a relevant reason, to be honest. He just didn't want to marry some random person his parents chose for him, regardless of that person's gender. I wouldn't either.

it was relevant though. mainly becasue his father was convinced that with a little bit of brainwashing via blood magic - he could FIX Dorian into heterosexuality. it was a very obvious parallel to real life conversion therapy. that said... majority of his character development has nothing to do with his sexuality and everything to do with him letting go of his "Tevinter is totally the best, despite occasional issue" superiority complex and graduating to "maybe I could go back, not out of nostalgia, but becasue i can change things, especially slavery and how mages treat everyone else" his character development was about acknowledging his privilege as a tevinter mage, basically.

but... this is still DA talk. honestly - if bioware would try to stick to more "realistic" sexuality proportions - their non straight fans would never get anyone to relate to. and the truth is - the ratios of straight to non straight fans are a lot closer to what we see in games. they make games for their fans, NOT for general population at large. they try to provide as many options as possible to as many people. give as many people voice as they can manage. so why is it so easy to suspend disbelief when it comes to space magic and futuristic weaponry and aliens we can bone, but when those aliens are not straight... that's where some people draw the line? you are already suspending disbelief, just go with it.

[ati87]

WoW will probably be the last mainstream successful MMO. And after the colossal shitshow that was SWTOR I wouldn't trust Bioware to do one in any IP. I don't think even Bioware would trust themselves.

WoW is the only MMO that could be seen as a smashing hit, every other MMO has been more of a niche. By MMO standards having a playerbase between 500K and 1M is average, WoW with his current 6M (?) is a exception that has defied what;s a mainstream MMO.

[Deleted]

Probably a close second I suppose.

Nowhere near it would have been had they came out with A Realm Reborn instead of... whatever wad of discharge the first incarnation was.

WoW stopped reporting numbers at 5.5 mil was it? Would it surprise you if XIV already surpassed that?

WoW is the only MMO that could be seen as a smashing hit, every other MMO has been more of a niche. By MMO standards having a playerbase between 500K and 1M is average, WoW with his current 6M (?) is a exception that has defied what;s a mainstream MMO.

And how did WoW "define mainstream MMOs" when it was a EverQuest clone? It got big from the WarCraft RTS fame, not any supposed MMO quality which we all know peaked in TBC while the subscriber numbers peaked in WotLK.

[Matt0193]

WoW stopped reporting numbers at 5.5 mil was it? Would it surprise you if XIV already surpassed that?

Wasn't that total accounts, not active accounts?

[Lillpapps]

WoW stopped reporting numbers at 5.5 mil was it? Would it surprise you if XIV already surpassed that?

FFXIV has around 300k subscribers... Source: https://ffxivcensus.com

[ati87]

WoW stopped reporting numbers at 5.5 mil was it? Would it surprise you if XIV already surpassed that?



And how did WoW "define mainstream MMOs" when it was a EverQuest clone? It got big from the WarCraft RTS fame, not any supposed MMO quality which we all know peaked in TBC while the subscriber numbers peaked in WotLK.

A google search doesn't show any numbers in regards to FF but those 5M aren't active players unlike the 5.5M (or whatever) active paying players.

WoW put MMO's on the map and it's the sole reason why you almost ever big publisher/developer developed a MMO in recent years, doesn't mater what idea's WoW copied it is the single game that put MMO's on the mainstream map.

Everquest has how many players on avg? Probably between 500K till 1M judging by what I read online, this isn't that different from most other MMO's (including Star Wars).

[Deleted]

FFXIV has around 300k subscribers... Source: https://ffxivcensus.com

Not to discredit that number but i just have a note to add.

The website says "(Any reference to "Active" players, refers to players who have the wind-up aymeric minion from the 3.3 story)" which is a main story quest released in june which wraps up the entire Heavensward story.

Now i have seen way too many characters on my server that have every class at 40-50 something leveled evenly to count. That takes longer than getting one character through the main scenarios.

[Karrotlord]

From what I saw in the CES footage, the Engineering based character didn't have access to the biotic classes. They could only switch between Soldier, Engineer, Infiltrator, and whatever Explorer is.

[Lillpapps]

Not to discredit that number but i just have a note to add.

The website says "(Any reference to "Active" players, refers to players who have the wind-up aymeric minion from the 3.3 story)" which is a main story quest released in june which wraps up the entire Heavensward story.

Now i have seen way too many characters on my server that have every class at 40-50 something leveled evenly to count. That takes longer than getting one character through the main scenarios.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-d...VPNFZCaEk/view Here's another source where active numbers means ANY update to the lodestone profile. So 500k active characters, not even accounts but characters. The game isn't close to WoW's numbers. But this conversation belongs to the FFXIV megathread so won't reply here anymore.