[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[rhorle]

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.

Except you keep using extremes. The animations are not dog shit by any stretch of the animations. There is a far difference between dog shit and perfect. You seem to be holding them to a higher standard just because and have a fixation on focus home interactive for whatever reason.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comm...lin_goes_wild/ BF1 isn't perfect in the graphics part. Even its animations are not the best thing since sliced bread. You clearly have a bias. I'm not sure what your motive for that bias is or what exactly the game and Bioware did in order for you to have such a bias against them.

Mass Effect 3 characters were hardly "Beep boop I am a robot". Now if you were talking about run animations or Shepards dancing then certainly you'd have a point.

[Edge-]

Except you keep using extremes. The animations are not dog shit by any stretch of the animations. There is a far difference between dog shit and perfect. You seem to be holding them to a higher standard just because and have a fixation on focus home interactive for whatever reason.

I'm holding them to the same standard I hold every AAA publisher/developer to. Not higher, not lower.

As for Focus Home Interactive, well, they publish a lot of very ambitious schlock. Games that have great foundations and developers that clearly have lofty goals, but have neither the talent nor the budget to achieve them. So you're left with AA titles that could be much better than what they actually are. And having played a few of them recently, the animations are a persistent problem in many of the games they publish.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comm...lin_goes_wild/ BF1 isn't perfect in the graphics part. Even its animations are not the best thing since sliced bread. You clearly have a bias. I'm not sure what your motive for that bias is or what exactly the game and Bioware did in order for you to have such a bias against them.

An in-game glitch? Oh noes!

Compared to BioWare literally releasing a marketing video with a "bug" in it that should have been caught upon the first review of the recorded footage before they even had a rough cut of the trailer in place.

Are we going to compare more completely unrelated things?

Mass Effect 3 characters were hardly "Beep boop I am a robot". Now if you were talking about run animations or Shepards dancing then certainly you'd have a point.

Run animations were absolutely one of the biggest gripes for me, especially considering how you're literally going to be spending the majority of your time in the game running everywhere. Beyond that, they still have problems with models "juttering", even while motionless, like we see in the cutscene with the hilarious facial animation. Just look at the chick sitting down and you'll see her model constantly juttering a little bit in the chair, even when she's not making any real movements.

[May90]

Just look at the chick sitting down and you'll see her model constantly juttering a little bit in the chair, even when she's not making any real movements.

If I look very-very-very attentively, I can see some minor jittering, but one needs to literally stare at pixels to actually notice that. I fail to see why anyone would do that on purpose, other than to stir the pot. When I play games, I generally pay more attention to the characters' actions and words, rather than whether their fingers are slightly trembling because of imperfect animations or not.

[Edge-]

If I look very-very-very attentively, I can see some minor jittering, but one needs to literally stare at pixels to actually notice that. I fail to see why anyone would do that on purpose, other than to stir the pot. When I play games, I generally pay more attention to the characters' actions and words, rather than whether their fingers are slightly trembling because of imperfect animations or not.

You mean need to, not all do (and that's not a bad thing). Again, I spotted it in either my first or second viewing of the trailer, and it's pretty apparent to me in general. And once you've noticed it (at least for me), there's no forgetting about it.

Why would people watch for the quality of animation work? Because it's been a persistent problem for BioWare all last generation. Because they expect better quality out of AAA games coming out of established studios that shouldn't be making those kinds of mistakes anymore (I'd be surprised to find anything like that in Uncharted or Halo, for example).

Different folks pay attention to different stuff, and that's alright. If you're fine with the animations, again, that's fucking rad. I'm a bit jelly of that, actually. But for me, bad animations are usually very noticeable in games and they do a huge amount to ruin what may otherwise be a solid, enjoyable experience.

I dreaded running around in ME3, especially on the Normandy, primarily because the running animation was such dogshit. How a AAA game launches with such a terrible running animation cycle (which should be one of the first animations that gets nailed down) is truly beyond me.

[Jastall]

I'm hoping that they design the open world better. I actually liked Inquisition quite a lot, but it had too many filler sidequests and collectibles. That stuff's fine in MMOs, but in single-player it's just boring.

Other than that, Andromeda seems to keep ME3's core gameplay and adds jetpacks, which has my complete approval as everything is improved by jetpacks. A flexible skill system is nice to me, albeit it seems like we will be limited on the number of skills we can have active. Hopefully it's more than 3.

Now, please Bioware, just don't fuck up the story. Don't pull a ME3 ending on me. That shit was awful in every possible way.

[May90]

You mean need to, not all do (and that's not a bad thing). Again, I spotted it in either my first or second viewing of the trailer, and it's pretty apparent to me in general. And once you've noticed it (at least for me), there's no forgetting about it.

Why would people watch for the quality of animation work? Because it's been a persistent problem for BioWare all last generation. Because they expect better quality out of AAA games coming out of established studios that shouldn't be making those kinds of mistakes anymore (I'd be surprised to find anything like that in Uncharted or Halo, for example).

Different folks pay attention to different stuff, and that's alright. If you're fine with the animations, again, that's fucking rad. I'm a bit jelly of that, actually. But for me, bad animations are usually very noticeable in games and they do a huge amount to ruin what may otherwise be a solid, enjoyable experience.

I dreaded running around in ME3, especially on the Normandy, primarily because the running animation was such dogshit. How a AAA game launches with such a terrible running animation cycle (which should be one of the first animations that gets nailed down) is truly beyond me.

I mean, I grew up on games with animations like this:



Modern RPGs have animations way surpassing anything I would ever want from a video game. I can understand people disliking animations that are just wrong, like, I don't know, in Fallout: New Vegas weapon on your back not being strapped to you visually and just hanging in the air... But some minor jittering, or running animation cycle which seems strange to you, is really not something I see as worth paying any attention to.

I haven't played any of the games you've mentioned here, but, for example, I didn't see Witcher 3 or Doom animations as any superior to ME3 ones - well, aside from the graphical fidelity being much higher, of course.

[May90]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAAjqzUfepo

You mean this kind of stuff? Oh my fucking God edge, how dare you to criticize this top notch animation quality! It’s completely fine, stop being biased! Why are you so biased?! JUST SAY IS FINE! YOUR TALKING ABOUT A GAME I LIKE! Why can’t you just be not-totally-biased just as me and admit that the animation is perfectly fine as they are?!

Someone needs to take a deep breath and put glasses on.

[Jastall]

I mean, I grew up on games with animations like this:

Modern RPGs have animations way surpassing anything I would ever want from a video game. I can understand people disliking animations that are just wrong, like, I don't know, in Fallout: New Vegas weapon on your back not being strapped to you visually and just hanging in the air... But some minor jittering, or running animation cycle which seems strange to you, is really not something I see as worth paying any attention to.

I haven't played any of the games you've mentioned here, but, for example, I didn't see Witcher 3 or Doom animations as any superior to ME3 ones - well, aside from the graphical fidelity being much higher, of course.

Facial animations are the only ones I pay special attention to, and in fairness Bioware lags a bit behind on that front. And it's a pretty important component of making a cutscene-driven single-player RPG. The ones in that trailer they released weren't top-notch either.

It's not game-breakingly awful; ME3 had bad animations in places, but DA:I didn't really. I'll see the final product before passing judgement.

[May90]

Facial animations are the only ones I pay special attention to, and in fairness Bioware lags a bit behind on that front. And it's a pretty important component of making a cutscene-driven single-player RPG. The ones in that trailer they released weren't top-notch either.

It's not game-breakingly awful; ME3 had bad animations in places, but DA:I didn't really. I'll see the final product before passing judgement.

I only have a bit of an issue with how smiles looked: some smiles were good, but many were quite awkward. For example, in ME2 I remember well the scene where Shepard drinks wine (was it wine?) with Chakwas; when Shepard says "I'll get the glasses", the doctor has the creepiest smile ever.

Ah, found it. Here: https://youtu.be/n1VlySgErZ8?t=25

I found it more funny than annoying though, really. And to be fair, rarely anyone gets smiles right in 3D.

[Edge-]

I only have a bit of an issue with how smiles looked: some smiles were good, but many were quite awkward. For example, in ME2 I remember well the scene where Shepard drinks wine (was it wine?) with Chakwas; when Shepard says "I'll get the glasses", the doctor has the creepiest smile ever.

Ah, found it. Here: https://youtu.be/n1VlySgErZ8?t=25

I found it more funny than annoying though, really. And to be fair, rarely anyone gets smiles right in 3D.

OH MY GOD WHY DID YOU LINK IT, MY EYES!

Seriously, it causes me physical pain to know that people were paid real money to do that kind of quality work at a major AAA studio. I expect, and demand more from games promising to be/selling themselves as big budget affairs with top quality work.

Stuff like that would literally drive me batty while playing, it's why I had to break the game into a ton of short play sessions. Each time it popped up it would make me unreasonably angry.

[zealo]

That kind of run animation is so poor it's not even funny. It's like someone just threw a basic blocked run cycle in there and went "good enough" at the result. :/

[May90]

I'd say you folks are overreacting.

To think of it, I've never seen a Western game in which the following things were done right (in my eyes):
1) Smiles.
2) Asian faces.
It is a curse or something.

[DesoPL]

Anyone saw MP gameplay? For all things i saw only SP but no MP.

[nekobaka]

Anyone saw MP gameplay? For all things i saw only SP but no MP.

No MP gameplay that I know of yet. There was this article on MP though.

http://wwg.com/2017/01/03/new-multip...s-effect-andro


At minimal we are looking at ME3 multiplayer with a solo friendly mode with rewards that can have an influence on single player.

[Poppincaps]

I'd say you folks are overreacting.

To think of it, I've never seen a Western game in which the following things were done right (in my eyes):
1) Smiles.
2) Asian faces.
It is a curse or something.

Lip Sync and just general facial animations are ridiculously difficult to do and you also have to pretty much do them for each character individually because they have different facial structures so they'll look off otherwise. I actually don't think I've seen a single RPG where the facial animations are believable outside of main characters.

That's why MoCap is so great. Although anyone expecting Uncharted 4 facial animations in an RPG where you're interacting with hundreds of characters is just being ridiculous.

[Nerraw]

PC Gamer: Mass Effect: Andromeda 'allows you to go between singleplayer and multiplayer within the game'

[Deleted]

Lip Sync and just general facial animations are ridiculously difficult to do and you also have to pretty much do them for each character individually because they have different facial structures so they'll look off otherwise. I actually don't think I've seen a single RPG where the facial animations are believable outside of main characters.

That's why MoCap is so great. Although anyone expecting Uncharted 4 facial animations in an RPG where you're interacting with hundreds of characters is just being ridiculous.

I don't think this holds any truth. If it works for Uncharted/ MGS:TPP etc. why not for RPGs. You make it sound as if it's any different to talk to a NPC in an RPG compared to the NPCs in the other games, all of them are generic characters and if they are featured in cutscenes, they should get some work.
3xA games

[Elim Garak]

I don't think this holds any truth. If it works for Uncharted/ MGS:TPP etc. why not for RPGs. You make it sound as if it's any different to talk to a NPC in an RPG compared to the NPCs in the other games, all of them are generic characters and if they are featured in cutscenes, they should get some work.
3xA games

Probably because different techniques being used. In games like Uncharted there are no branching dialog, the script is straight, so they can animate lips in the cut-scene animation - that is not use the lip sync technology at all. In RPGs, especially in Bioware ones - dialog is very branchy and reactive to what player chooses. Thus there are literally too many cut-scenes for the same dialog to animate lips in animation - too expensive - so they use lip sync technology - which generally sucks, and it's not Bioware's fault it sucks.

Hence why simple (RPG wise) games have brilliant "lip sync", and Bioware's RPGS have shitty lip sync.

[Lahis]

Probably because different techniques being used. In games like Uncharted there are no branching dialog, the script is straight, so they can animate lips in the cut-scene animation - that is not use the lip sync technology at all. In RPGs, especially in Bioware ones - dialog is very branchy and reactive to what player chooses. Thus there are literally too many cut-scenes for the same dialog to animate lips in animation - too expensive - so they use lip sync technology - which generally sucks, and it's not Bioware's fault it sucks.

Hence why simple (RPG wise) games have brilliant "lip sync", and Bioware's RPGS have shitty lip sync.

Also RPGs often allow to customize your character. Can't do handcrafted facial animations when you don't know what size the character's face is.

[Cosmic Janitor]

PC Gamer: Mass Effect: Andromeda 'allows you to go between singleplayer and multiplayer within the game'

Oh my, I smell more forced online integration that no one needs..