[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[Ilikegreenfire]

Really, it made a lot of sense. If you understood what certain characters liked, and wanted to make them happy, it was easy to figure out which choices they'd approve of. If you're trying to romance Cassandra in DA3 but constantly shit on the Chantry and what they believe in, that romance probably ain't gonna work out for you, because you're not the kind of person she could fall for. Which should be pretty clear from early on.

It makes the system more organic; play the way you like, and the teammates who most appreciate that behaviour are going to be the ones who approve and stick with you.

I still have yet to complete a play through of DAI. Ill will get all the dlcs and do it eventually, but i found at least the early stuff boring. Disliked both strait male Li's, Cassandra was attractive and a nice fried and everything but she was too heavy on the Chantry thing for me to find attractive Josie just felt too cutesy and not passionate at all. I also couldn't stand the plastic hair i got even on max settings. Meanwhile strait Fem elf inquisitors get like 4. Ill probably do a fem elf mage and romance you know who because it ties in most with the story.

But i absolutely loved Da2 s friendship and rivalry system. It let you have opposing views but for the most part keep your team together. I loved the interactions as well. I almost always played a pro mage free spirited Hawke. Fenris disagreed with me a lot but i was still able to keep him around. I typically did the friendship Isabella romance were she stays every just as bit a free spirit but i still had the option to do a rival romance to try and make her a bit more reliable. Merrill was also a fun one, even on my mages i was adamantly against her researching darker magics. Made for a rather tragic romance.

[zealo]

Characters disapproving of choices you can make is not necessarily a bad thing, they shouldn't be a bunch of yes-men who doesn't have their own reasons for being there or sticking with you.

With how liberal DA:I was with the ability to get people to like you, especially their story missions, you needed to actively work on antagonizing them to get to the critical point of them leaving your group tbh.

[May90]

To be fair, it wasn't that hard in any of the DA games to get everyone to like you. I always play "chaotic good" characters in RPGs, and in all of those games it didn't prevent me from getting along with everyone. The trick is, those who frequently dislike your choices you can leave at home and work on their alignment through gifts, personal dialogues and companion quests; or, in case of Morrigan who, for the most part, agreed with me, but sometimes didn't, I would often dismiss her before a conversation that causes her disapproval, then take her back into the party again.

Still, the system was good, it actually made you think what to say in some cases, rather than always blindly click on the option that seems right to you personally.

[Derah]

Or why killing Kai Leng before he lashes at Shepard, when Shepard can clearly hear him approaching, is Renegade.

Actually you kill Kai Leng even if you don't take the interrupt. The only difference between taking it or not, is that if you take it, you break his sword and then gut him like a fish. Without taking the renegade interrupt, you simply dodge his stab, then gut him like a fish.

My best guess as for why breaking his sword is considered renegade, is because the "chivalrous" thing to do would be to let him attempt his pointless attack before finishing him off, whereas the renegade action is to deny him even his little attempt and just squash his ego before killing him.

Frankly, after all the little shit put us through, I felt no remorse stabbing the renegade interrupt in every single one of my playthroughs.

My biggest gripe with the paragon/renegade system is that on the whole, I didn't like 100% of the choices in either system. There were several paragon choices that were just stupid, stiff, boring, and made you seem like you had a stick up your ass. And there were just as many choices that were renegade, but made you look like a racist, an asshole, and a xenophobe.

The best approach was then to take the best of both worlds, the badass renegade actions (Breaking Kai Leng's sword, Punching that asshole quarian admiral who nearly blew me up, shutting up that incredibly annoying krogan, shove a gun in Conrad's face to scare him off throwing his life away, shooting that corrupt turian politician and headbutting that asshole krogan who was berating my baby grunt) while at the same time, taking the awesome paragon options (Disabling the gun of that newbie merc so he didn't die, hugging tali when she sees her father dead, preventing Garrus from becoming a revenge-obsessed freak, and pistol-whipping David's brother for putting him through hell)

However, playing as a "Paragade" means your Charm/Intimidate scores suck ASS, and thus you end up with either needing to cheat your way into maxing them out to get proper quest resolutions, or having to settle with shitty outcomes to certain quests.

ME3 did it much better, because regardless of your paragon/renegade score, your fame meter is what determined if the charm/intimidate would be successful.

Hopefully the new system in place in MEA will do something like that.

[Valstorm Warsong]

I'll stick to star citizen, I'm not a fan of all the gross gay fan service bioware puts in all their games.

[Deleted]

And there were just as many choices that were renegade, but made you look like a racist, an asshole, and a xenophobe.

In other words, having the intended good time.

[Ilikegreenfire]

I'll stick to star citizen, I'm not a fan of all the gross gay fan service bioware puts in all their games.

Cant tell if sarcasm because you obviously enjoy an anime were one of its main characters is flamboyantly gay.

I mean that's your prerogative, but you wont have to deal with gay content if you don't want to, all you have to do is not hit on dudes. The romance system has been an integral part of Bioware games for 20 years. Its kind of immersion breaking to have a big group of people working together for long periods not develop romantic attraction. its just as immersion breaking to pretend bi and gay people don't exist. I mean the Asari don't even have males.

[May90]

Actually you kill Kai Leng even if you don't take the interrupt. The only difference between taking it or not, is that if you take it, you break his sword and then gut him like a fish. Without taking the renegade interrupt, you simply dodge his stab, then gut him like a fish.

My best guess as for why breaking his sword is considered renegade, is because the "chivalrous" thing to do would be to let him attempt his pointless attack before finishing him off, whereas the renegade action is to deny him even his little attempt and just squash his ego before killing him.

Frankly, after all the little shit put us through, I felt no remorse stabbing the renegade interrupt in every single one of my playthroughs.

My biggest gripe with the paragon/renegade system is that on the whole, I didn't like 100% of the choices in either system. There were several paragon choices that were just stupid, stiff, boring, and made you seem like you had a stick up your ass. And there were just as many choices that were renegade, but made you look like a racist, an asshole, and a xenophobe.

The best approach was then to take the best of both worlds, the badass renegade actions (Breaking Kai Leng's sword, Punching that asshole quarian admiral who nearly blew me up, shutting up that incredibly annoying krogan, shove a gun in Conrad's face to scare him off throwing his life away, shooting that corrupt turian politician and headbutting that asshole krogan who was berating my baby grunt) while at the same time, taking the awesome paragon options (Disabling the gun of that newbie merc so he didn't die, hugging tali when she sees her father dead, preventing Garrus from becoming a revenge-obsessed freak, and pistol-whipping David's brother for putting him through hell)

However, playing as a "Paragade" means your Charm/Intimidate scores suck ASS, and thus you end up with either needing to cheat your way into maxing them out to get proper quest resolutions, or having to settle with shitty outcomes to certain quests.

ME3 did it much better, because regardless of your paragon/renegade score, your fame meter is what determined if the charm/intimidate would be successful.

Hopefully the new system in place in MEA will do something like that.

Given that the galaxy was at stake, I don't think it was a proper time to play chivalry, when it is clear that either way only, at best, one of the two was going to come out of the Illusive Man's room alive.

Regarding the renegade actions, RPGs have always had this problem of not allowing a roleplay of a reasonable evil character. Like in KotoR or Mass Effect, most of the time the evil character ends up being a troll/prankster who just fools around mindlessly, robbing/killing people for fun and such. I think Witcher did the "evil" side the best, since almost all choices there are shades of grey, and even the actions evil at the first glance (for example, killing a person because they can't pay for the Witcher's job) can be justified in a way (Witcher's code dictates that the Witcher can apply any amount of force to get paid, if needed).

And, like you mentioned, the polar system pretty much forces you to stick with one kind of choices throughout the whole game, if you want to get the best available dialogue options. It was especially extreme in KotoR, where, even if you are maxed on either the Light or the Dark side, just one minor action going against your current alignment can set your meter down by 30% or so. ME3 addressed it, but still I think Dragon Age system was better, because you could play it using your own moral compass as a guide, rather than the one the developers have made for you.

[Ilikegreenfire]

Paragon always seemed to me to be the "Do what ever the right thing is in a specific situation regardless of additional circumstances.". While renegade felt like the "For the greater good path." Like Captain America and Iornman in civil war.

I always go mostly Paragon. Ya i thought some choices could come back to bite me in the ass particularly saving the Rachnei twice but i took them. The ones that did though like sparing the Asari doctor who turned out to be indoctrinated and killed highlevel government officials.... twice, i never did again. Particularly the one with the Asari merc trainee that you can spare and find out in the same room she killed someone, I reloaded immediately and put a bullet in her skull.

I took some of the renegade interrupts that felt more like sizing moments of opportunity. Like the Mordin loyalty mission when the crazy blood thirsty krogan is talking about how they will swarm the Galaxy and kill everything. Ya i blew him up. Also breaking dumb ass ninjas sword in half.

My first run in Andromida will probably be a self insert. Ill Nice and diplomatic, willing to give second chances, so probably mostly the heart option, with the casual thrown in when dealing with Sqaddies/crew members.

[Nerraw]

Without the thousands of loadings please.

I honestly didn't notice last night. It was all smooth as hell.

[FobManX]

Have system requirements been revealed yet?

[zealo]

Have system requirements been revealed yet?

Not yet, but it's a frostbite3 game. If you can run things like the latest battlefield or Battlefront you should probably be fine.

[Derah]

Have system requirements been revealed yet?

Since it uses the same engine as Dragon Age Inquisition, then if you can run that game, chances are you can run Andromeda too.

[Ilikegreenfire]

Considering the human race needs to be repopulated in Andromida, I hope the human Li's are up to snuff. It not like all the ones from 1-3 were bad its just that none of them other than Jack really felt on the level of Garris and Tali.

Maybe its because I'm not into poetry but the Ashley mance want anything special. Her being so pissy with you for half the trilogy didn't help either.

Kaidan is in the same boat as Ash except nothing every really stood out abot hem except for his standard biotic training backstory.

Jacob forgets about Shep and knocks up a lady in the 6 months between 2 and 3

Miranda was nice with the whole melting the ice queen thing

Jack's was awesome, helping her go from psychotic killer to protective mama bear who adopts biotic varren was cool.

Kelly wasn't even a full romance was she?

Then we had IGN insert reporter chick

Samantha "I like chess and shower in my underwear" Traynor.

The Steve one doesn't seem so bad but no one seems to be swooning over it either.

[Ilikegreenfire]

So difficulty are in, we have got narrative, casual, Normal, Hardcore and Insanity. Insanity is playable right off the bat. Makes me wounder how easy narrative is.

[Nazrark]

So difficulty are in, we have got narrative, casual, Normal, Hardcore and Insanity. Insanity is playable right off the bat. Makes me wounder how easy narrative is.

If Narrative is like other game's version. No non-essential encounters and just story mode.

Might start off on Hardcore.
Edit: Things seem much more satisfying on harder difficulty.

[Derah]

tbh, none of the characters presented so far seem interesting to me >.<

Appearances can be deceiving. I said the exact same thing about the previewed characters from ME2. And ME1.

Wrex ended up being awesome. As was Garrus, as was Tali, as was Mordin, as was Thane, as was Liara, and while not all the squadmates were well received (Jacob is awful) there was hardly anything from the previews that seemed enticing about them as a whole.

I will admit I'm in the same camp as you. We've seen very little of our new squad. What little has been shown doesn't seem too interesting (other than the fact that the new Krogan has a bear made of spikes. Badass motherfucker right there.) But then again, as mentioned before, we've barely seen anything at all about them.

- - - Updated - - -

If Narrative is like other game's version. No non-essential encounters and just story mode.

Might start off on Hardcore.
Edit: Things seem much more satisfying on harder difficulty.

Actually, in ME3, Narrative mode did have non-essential encounters. But combat was so hilariously easy, the only way to get killed is if you try on purpose to get killed.

Nearly all enemies died in one hit, you need several minutes of concentrated fire to die, cooldowns for all your abilities seem to be halved, and ammo is so abundant you can just spray&pray with complete abandon, knowing there's no way in hell you'll ever run out of ammo.

Its a mode intended for those who just want to see the story, and wish to curbstomp combat altogether.

I don't mind, so long as the other modes offer a proper challenge. DA2 was insultingly easy even on its hardest mode.

[Ilikegreenfire]

I remember reading somewhere i think it was a tweet that npcs get buffs and become smarter as you increase the difficulty. So ill probably play on insanity for the most immersive play though. I want sniper nests and jet pack flankers galore.

[May90]

Definitely going to play on the highest difficulty, as always. I hope MEA difficulty curve will be somewhat similar to DAI one on Nightmare: you start out very weak and squishy, dying to random low-level groups regularly - but over the course of the game, you slowly gain strength and end up a killing machine. Amazing feeling of progression.

[Ilikegreenfire]

Definitely going to play on the highest difficulty, as always. I hope MEA difficulty curve will be somewhat similar to DAI one on Nightmare: you start out very weak and squishy, dying to random low-level groups regularly - but over the course of the game, you slowly gain strength and end up a killing machine. Amazing feeling of progression.

Ya i agree I always go in on insanity. In addition the the nice power curve it still keeps enemies who should be dangerous dangerous helps with realism. Like in a 3 brute or a banshee should feel dangerous. Eventually you will mow down Cannibals and Husks but keeping the scarier shit relevant really helps keep you in world. I want to be afraid of a snipers nest. I want a big ass mech to feel scary.

This reminds me of Marauder Shields from Me3. I don't know if he is influenced by difficulty but damn rng was not with me that day took me 3 tries to put him down