[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[Witchblade77]

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.

that was by choice, not a design restriction.

[endersblade]

Surprise surprise, I see this thread has been updated, and we STILL aren't talking about the actual topic.

[zealo]

Surprise surprise, I see this thread has been updated, and we STILL aren't talking about the actual topic.

The thread will go back on track by itself as soon as there's something to actually talk about related to Andromeda. Bioware is being incredibly silent about their game for a release that's supposed to happen in ~2 months,

[May90]

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.

Well, as a completionist, any quest mark and any active quest is something I absolutely have to do, otherwise I don't feel like I've played through the whole game. In KotoR games it wasn't a problem, and I don't remember any particularly annoying optional quests there in this regard - while in SWTOR, it is 90% of all quests or so. Even many main story and planetary quests contain parts where you just need to "activate 5 copy-pasted beacons" or something... Very lazy design, IMO. Maybe suitable for MMOs, but as a single-player game (which is how I attempted to play it), it was a very big let-down and the only Bioware game in existence that didn't match my humblest expectations.

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.

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.

I see. I didn't catch that at the time, or just forgot by now. It still looks reasonable to me, I don't see anything wrong with this character.

And yes, this is, I think, one of the main arguments in support of it here. Trying to appeal to only the majority of players, ignoring everyone else, isn't a very smart decision business-wise. If you want everyone to have romance options to their likings, you absolutely have to introduce both heterosexual and homosexual characters. But while heterosexual characters is a given, it is homosexual characters that cause the largest uproar. I've never heard of anyone complaining about "token straight female characters", for example. So, there is quite a bit of double standard in these complaints.

---

Besides, those are fictional worlds. I don't see what's so unbelievable about the distant future having a much larger representation of sexual minorities, or a fantasy world being more welcoming to them.

The thread will go back on track by itself as soon as there's something to actually talk about related to Andromeda. Bioware is being incredibly silent about their game for a release that's supposed to happen in ~2 months,

I think they just learned that releasing too much in advance is only going to cause a lot of whining. Remember Witcher 3 and the "downgrade" thing? Or that dragon fight from DAI gameplay, in which people picked on the slightest flaws? Or even the Sur'kesh gameplay from Mass Effect 3, where people even managed to complain about how Mordin looked? There is too much toxicity on the Internet, it is better to keep the details to a minimum and just release the game and let people judge it for what it is, without any negative pre-conceptions.

[Aeula]

So apparently in a tweet they admitted the horrible face animations from the trailer was a bug. Thank fuck for that.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...s-graphics-bug

[May90]

So apparently in a tweet they admitted the horrible face animations from the trailer was a bug. Thank fuck for that.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...s-graphics-bug

Crazy how much reaction a couple of seconds of a game footage video can stir, leading to the devs having to comment on that. One more reason why it is a good idea to not put too much premature footage these days.

[Edge-]

So apparently in a tweet they admitted the horrible face animations from the trailer was a bug. Thank fuck for that.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...s-graphics-bug

Given how awkward/awful most of the rest of the non-combat (and even some of the combat) animations I've seen so far, it must be a huge bug, and the whole game must be her face.

If we're to believe him.

[SDMF]

So apparently in a tweet they admitted the horrible face animations from the trailer was a bug. Thank fuck for that.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...s-graphics-bug

I don't buy it. They either didn't spot it, see it as an issue or simply ran out of time because there's just no fucking way they'd release an important trailer at an event with an obvious bug in it.
I burst out laughing when I saw it live, not only because of her ridiculous smile but also because of how awkward that whole scene was 'drop it, no you drop it!'. I wouldn't even expect something that cheesy out of a Bud Spencer flick.

I thought I'd never say this but I'll definitely wait on "reviews" for this one. Bioware will not fool me again.

[Aeula]

I don't buy it. They either didn't spot it, see it as an issue or simply ran out of time because there's just no fucking way they'd release an important trailer at an event with an obvious bug in it.
I burst out laughing when I saw it live, not only because of her ridiculous smile but also because of how awkward that whole scene was 'drop it, no you drop it!'. I wouldn't even expect something that cheesy out of a Bud Spencer flick.

I thought I'd never say this but I'll definitely wait on "reviews" for this one. Bioware will not fool me again.

I'm with you on that one... I'm one of those freaks that actually liked the (extended) mass effect 3 ending, so the series hasn't disappointed me so far. But that entire trailer was just... ugh... the animations, the lines. We're going to spend a huge portion of the game looking at that.

I'm shocked it's coming out as early as march, looks to me like the game needs a lot more work than can be squeezed into three months.

[Edge-]

Honestly...BioWare has always had tons of cringey/terrible writing and line delivery in their games. Played DA 1/2 and ME 1-3 (haven't played DA:I or Jade Dynasty, and not really counting SWTOR here) and all of them are positively rife with both.

Same goes for terrible animations. It's like they don't hire experienced riggers and use inexperienced animators to do everything by hand, ignoring that mocap technology exists (and works with Frostbite just fine, as BF 1 shows with its truly incredible in-game animations).

But either way, I'm ready for media and consumers to continue to largely ignore both issues once the game it out. Seems to happen every time anyways.

[rhorle]

But either way, I'm ready for media and consumers to continue to largely ignore both issues once the game it out. Seems to happen every time anyways.

Because a lot of people don't need perfection in order for something to be good. There are plenty of games, movies, etc that haven't been the best but were huge hits.

[Witchblade77]

the funny thing is... bioware DID use mocap for Mass effect Andromeda. https://twitter.com/KenThain/status/...rc=twsrc%5Etfw not to mention there was a short snipped of them mocaping a fight movement with a stuntman in one of the earlier "announcing ME andromeda" videos which I can't.. seem to find, for some reason, but I remember seeing it.

however, mocap doesn't just look good on its own. you still need to clean it up, smooth it out, make adjustments, etc and I'm guessing - that's the sate where the issue starts. so.. quite possible that they had not so great animators working for them, in part because animations were never really bioware's focus. they did however get one of Naughty Dog's animators so... here's to hoping we are just seeing unfinished footage. http://segmentnext.com/2016/03/01/na...ed-4-dev-ends/

P.S. perfection is impossible. I'm very ok with imperfections as long as I enjoy overall package

[Edge-]

Because a lot of people don't need perfection in order for something to be good. There are plenty of games, movies, etc that haven't been the best but were huge hits.

But the game gets praised for its writing, despite it largely being pretty mediocre.

And having animations on the quality of Focus Home Interactive titles, which get dinged for bad animations while the ME franchise has largely avoided criticism on that front (ME3 animations were god awful, holy crap).

Nobody is really asking for perfection. But compare what they're showing in terms of animation quality to what is on display on other games using Frostbite and it becomes painfully apparent that they're not using mocap and are still using whatever terrible riggers/animators they've been using for years. Seriously, recently playing Battlefield 1 and looking at the animations there and then looking at the ME:A trailers, it seems like they're using completely different tech between the two games.

[Gorsameth]

But the game gets praised for its writing, despite it largely being pretty mediocre.

And having animations on the quality of Focus Home Interactive titles, which get dinged for bad animations while the ME franchise has largely avoided criticism on that front (ME3 animations were god awful, holy crap).

Nobody is really asking for perfection. But compare what they're showing in terms of animation quality to what is on display on other games using Frostbite and it becomes painfully apparent that they're not using mocap and are still using whatever terrible riggers/animators they've been using for years. Seriously, recently playing Battlefield 1 and looking at the animations there and then looking at the ME:A trailers, it seems like they're using completely different tech between the two games.

ME gets praised for great writing (minus the ending) because many (most) other games are even worse.

I'm kinda reminded of the Enderal (skyrim total conversion) ending, the story actually has a lot of similarities with ME3 but my god the ending was done a lot better. And that was an amateur project.

[May90]

But the game gets praised for its writing, despite it largely being pretty mediocre.

That's only your personal opinion, you realize? Some people liked the writing, some did not. You can't blame media for not agreeing with you on everything.

As for the animations, I don't see anything wrong with them. And you are probably the first person I've heard complain about ME3 animations. How were they awful?

---

A lot of people seem to not differentiate between "I dislike something" and "Something is bad".

[FobManX]

As long as the gameplay is fun, smooth and engaging and the story grips me, I can live with little mechanical inconsistencies.

[NoiseTank13]

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.

Yeah it would surprise me, because I don't think that's true. Maybe for every account ever made on FFXIV, certainly not currently subscribing.

And it defined mainstream MMO's by being an accessible "everquest clone" whatever the fuck that means. For whatever horrors people have been remembering Vanilla as, it was multitudes worse or "hardcore" in Everquest.

[rhorle]

Nobody is really asking for perfection. But compare what they're showing in terms of animation quality to what is on display on other games using Frostbite and it becomes painfully apparent that they're not using mocap and are still using whatever terrible riggers/animators they've been using for years. Seriously, recently playing Battlefield 1 and looking at the animations there and then looking at the ME:A trailers, it seems like they're using completely different tech between the two games.

I think the tweet from Aaryn flynn covers it well "https://twitter.com/AarynFlynn/status/816357876080013313?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw "Heh it's become something of a lightning rod unfortunately"

The animations as a whole are not that bad. The game will also have HDR support so there will still be plenty of eye candy. The franchise as a whole also hasn't been praised as being the pinnacle of writing. Does it have good writing? Sure does. It might be your opinion that it is mediocre but they created a pretty good story and universe. Mass Effect 2 did have faults but it was a widely accepted great game. When it comes down to you versus a whole lot of the internet I think it is safe to say there is some bias or underlying issue that is causing you to lean more towards dislike for the franchise.

[Edge-]

I think the tweet from Aaryn flynn covers it well "https://twitter.com/AarynFlynn/status/816357876080013313?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw "Heh it's become something of a lightning rod unfortunately"

The animations as a whole are not that bad. The game will also have HDR support so there will still be plenty of eye candy. The franchise as a whole also hasn't been praised as being the pinnacle of writing. Does it have good writing? Sure does. It might be your opinion that it is mediocre but they created a pretty good story and universe. Mass Effect 2 did have faults but it was a widely accepted great game. When it comes down to you versus a whole lot of the internet I think it is safe to say there is some bias or underlying issue that is causing you to lean more towards dislike for the franchise.

Eye candy isn't the problem. The graphical fidelity and a lot of the effects look pretty phenominal. Again, it's built in Frostbite, the engine has proven to be incredibly capable over the years, even if they're capping the framerate at 30 for consoles which is a bit disappointing since we know it can hit 60fps while looking bloody brilliant.

Again, it's the animations, something that plenty of others have pointed out as looking pretty bad in the trailers for a while now.

ME2 was good overall, I agree. But again, having recently played ME3 (first and only time), I found myself facepalming pretty often between some of the story decisions and a lot of the dialogue itself. It's probably just me, but for me BioWare's writing has never felt particularly strong in the games I've played in recent years (missed DA:I, though).

If a whole lot of folks like the writing, that's fine and dandy. That's great that they're enjoying it. If a whole lot of folks don't mind the dogshit animations, that's fine and dandy too. That's great that it doesn't bother them and I'm a bit jealous. But again, looking at the quality of animations in games like Uncharted 4, Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2, Gears of War, and a number of other recent AAA games, it continues to feel like BioWare is more on-par with ambitious but "in-over-their-head" Focus Home Interactive titles than other games with budgets that are likely similar. That blows my mind, and it's a problem that existed in ME:3 in a huge way. Characters largely felt like robots, and not EDI robots, but like, "beep boop I am a robot" robots.

[Nazrark]

I think I will play the male Ryder first. Just to self insert myself into the story. I will start doing alternate stories afterwards.