[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[Tenjen]

I'm definately having fun. I can see what people are saying about animations but it feels like they're blowing it out of proportion. I havent encountered many of the more major issues they're talking about.

All i know is that i'm having the fun, enjoying the story, exploration and combat. thats good enough for me.

[Ilikegreenfire]

I'm definately having fun. I can see what people are saying about animations but it feels like they're blowing it out of proportion. I havent encountered many of the more major issues they're talking about.

All i know is that i'm having the fun, enjoying the story, exploration and combat. thats good enough for me.

I legitimately raged when i got to the story block point, i had already done every side ques i could, 3 more days..........

[Deleted]

Images are no good boys, the mods have to save bandwidth by any means.

[Mirishka]

I'd be happy on the DA:O front. I'm contrarian with that game, hated it with a passion pretty much across the board (literally, I'm struggling to think of anything I even liked about it) but actually enjoyed DA:2 quite a bit despite it getting a pretty cold reception from fans/critics.

It just sucks because despite knowing that the promise of "fixing" the animations before launch because "we do that last!" was total bullshit (because no, while polish does go into the game you don't release major marketing trailers with significantly unfinished and terrible looking assets. period.), I was still really hoping they'd surprise us all and pull it off. It's going to be something that bothers me my entire playthrough and will likely mar what may otherwise be an excellent game.

I'm in the 'liked DA2' camp as well. I acknowledge it had flaws (copy/paste dungeons, for example) but I loved the story and characters.

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oh btw, the lightning strikes in the first mission do hurt you if they occur near or on you. Who'dathunkit.

I can confirm this. They do indeed hurt.

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I'm definately having fun. I can see what people are saying about animations but it feels like they're blowing it out of proportion. I havent encountered many of the more major issues they're talking about.

All i know is that i'm having the fun, enjoying the story, exploration and combat. thats good enough for me.

I'm having fun too (combat is incredible, as I said) but people aren't blowing the character shortcomings out of the water. The characters, story/NPCs/etc are why a whole lot of people play Bioware's games in the first place, so for those aspects to feel downgraded from games they released 5-9 years ago is a huge deal.

[Ilikegreenfire]

I'm in the 'liked DA2' camp as well. I acknowledge it had flaws (copy/paste dungeons, for example) but I loved the story and characters.

This, really the only main issue i had was the coppypasta caves, the story line, characters, and Sarcastic Hawke, more than make up for it. Imo Da 1>Da 2> Da 3. Granted i havent played any of the Dlc's in da3, tbh I couldn't even get past that one area you get Sara in before i lost interest. I disliked the removal of the tactile cam and also how they handled hetro male romances, Both were traditional pro Chantry humans, meanwhile female hetero elves got 4, each a vastly different flavor. Eventually ill need to get the dlc and do a fem elf Solas romance run, as that seems to have the most plot tie in.

[Kaelwryn]

Another opinion on ME:A. Currently reading thru it myself, but from the subreddit someone basically said his advice is: take all first impressions with a grain of salt (including his), and basically wait for full review to get a better sense of the game.

Finished reading it and completely agree with his points. Mind you, I've not looked at any videos/streams of the first 10hrs (except for gifs that have been posted here/subreddit) but obviously there's a lot of justified complaints (animations etc) but I think the preview is probably too little to really decide whether the game is going to be good or not as there are plenty of games (mass effect 1 included) that start off slow/meh and get better as you get further along.

[Darkeon]

Slow start might be the issue, at least with me. Doesn't help that I have the control of a cockroach and gotta explore every inch of everything before reaching the Main Objective markers. That always takes a toll on these sort of games.

Barely an hour into the game and my interest rates already significantly declined. I'll pick it up at some point and resume.

[May90]

Slow start might be the issue, at least with me. Doesn't help that I have the control of a cockroach and gotta explore every inch of everything before reaching the Main Objective markers. That always takes a toll on these sort of games.

Barely an hour into the game and my interest rates already significantly declined. I'll pick it up at some point and resume.

<- has 170 hours played with the only Skyrim char. Last time I did anything related to the story was at around 50 hours mark. Open world design is every completionist's nightmare.

[Ninjavitis]

From my 7 or so hours in the EA access trial, the CC and animations are pretty bad. Not gamebreaking, but definitely not what they should be. Animations and facial expressions for Out-of-combat interactions feel clumsy and stiff, almost robotic sometimes. Like I'm watching early attempts to make androids from 15-20 years ago. That being said, the rest of the game (which is the important stuff) feels pretty solid. Combat feels great, and that is just from a soldier PoV. I'm sure it's even better for classes that rely more on biotic abilities. I really enjoyed the exploration I was able to take part in. Research and Development seems pretty cool. I like how skills are set up. I think the story is pretty decent, and the (I'll use the term Nemesis for lack of a better word) seems interesting. They don't come right out and say what their intentions are or where they come from. The animations are definitely joke/meme-worthy, but I feel that everything else more than makes up for it.

[Ilikegreenfire]

Am i the only one who doesn't think the animations are that bad? they weren't buggy at all for me, granted im running a top tier pc idk if its a lower end issue.

[Kaelwryn]

Am i the only one who doesn't think the animations are that bad? they went buggy at all for me, granted im running a top tier pc idk if its a lower end issue.

From what little I've seen, I don't think they're are the worst possible but they aren't the best either. Will they bother me? Likely not. I do think people criticizing them are fair and valid. Bioware's had several years now to work on them, they could be much better.

[May90]

Am i the only one who doesn't think the animations are that bad? they weren't buggy at all for me, granted im running a top tier pc idk if its a lower end issue.

I've never had any issues with animations in any game I've ever played. I don't expect Hollywood-level smooth animations from a video game, I expect animations that let me understand what is going on, and that so far has always been the case.

[Lahis]

I'm runing to a weird performance bug on Eos. Certain events, like audio logs and cutscenes, have chance to trigger what I would call a physics slowdown. Game slows down to a crawl, BUT the FPS stays at 60 (or above, but Vsync is on). Audio lines and certain visual effects, like shield recharge, play at normal speed, but movement and actions slow down to unplayable crawl. My CDs also get bugged, and I can't use abilities at all when the game is like this. So far the only fix I have found is to reload save.

I have CPU and GPU monitors on my second monitor, and neither of them hit 100% when that slowdown happens.

[Ilikegreenfire]

I'm runing on a weird performance bug on Eos. Certain events, like audio logs and cutscenes, have chance to trigger what I would call a physics slowdown. Game slows down to a crawl, BUT the FPS stays at 60 (or above, but Vsync is on). Audio lines and certain effects, like shield recharge, play at normal speed, but movement and actions slow down to unplayable crawl. My CDs also get bugged, and I can't use abilities at all when the game is like this. So far the only fix I have found is to reload save.

I have CPU and GPU monitors on my second monitor, and neither of them hit 100% when that slowdown happens.

I came across something similar but only when fighting the Ket, at one of the Remnant buildings, i though it was an enemy smoke granade, or toxic canister thing,i think i even hear coughing, idk if thats the same thing i don't think so.

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Anyone fight the fiend on Eos yet, if that wasn't enough he comes with lie 4 Kett heavy's and 12 kett grunts, i got a few grunts initally and started spraying the fend with my flamethrower but then the fucker jumped up to my level, i diden't think he could do that lmao, i had to haul ass away and run into the buildings 3 of the ket heavy's followed me in chain overload + flamethrower + lance for biotic explosion saved my ass. I also seem to have no luck on wep drops yet, i got a Kett sniper i was so excited to test it out i got myself killed and lost it, haven't have a gun drop after that

[Mirishka]

Am i the only one who doesn't think the animations are that bad? they weren't buggy at all for me, granted im running a top tier pc idk if its a lower end issue.

PC power has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of animations in Andromeda.

And generally speaking no, they aren't 'that bad' (and are actually quite good in combat) but therein lies the issue: people expect better than 'not that bad' from Bioware because Bioware has produced some of the best games/characters/franchises of all time.

'Not that bad' is NOT what brought them to the dance.

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I came across something similar but only when fighting the Ket, at one of the Remnant buildings, i though it was an enemy smoke granade, or toxic canister thing,i think i even hear coughing, idk if thats the same thing i don't think so.

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Anyone fight the fiend on Eos yet, if that wasn't enough he comes with lie 4 Kett heavy's and 12 kett grunts, i got a few grunts initally and started spraying the fend with my flamethrower but then the fucker jumped up to my level, i diden't think he could do that lmao, i had to haul ass away and run into the buildings 3 of the ket heavy's followed me in chain overload + flamethrower + lance for biotic explosion saved my ass. I also seem to have no luck on wep drops yet, i got a Kett sniper i was so excited to test it out i got myself killed and lost it, haven't have a gun drop after that

I fought one of the heavy fiends, was the toughest fight in the Trial if you ask me. A normal Kett dropped their 'assault rifle' equivalent for me, but I never had a chance to use it. I got to the end of the trial on Eos, so I started a new game.

[Ilikegreenfire]

PC power has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of animations in Andromeda.

And generally speaking no, they aren't 'that bad' (and are actually quite good in combat) but therein lies the issue: people expect better than 'not that bad' from Bioware because Bioware has produced some of the best games/characters/franchises of all time.

'Not that bad' is NOT what brought them to the dance.

I mean bioware has always been about the story, their animations have never been a main selling point, as far back as the Kotr days, Me 1-3 have some pretty scary ass things going on not even including bugs. Its also harder to animate faces when they can be coustomized and arn't pre rendered, i'm looking at you CDPR

[Mirishka]

Another opinion on ME:A. Currently reading thru it myself, but from the subreddit someone basically said his advice is: take all first impressions with a grain of salt (including his), and basically wait for full review to get a better sense of the game.

Finished reading it and completely agree with his points. Mind you, I've not looked at any videos/streams of the first 10hrs (except for gifs that have been posted here/subreddit) but obviously there's a lot of justified complaints (animations etc) but I think the preview is probably too little to really decide whether the game is going to be good or not as there are plenty of games (mass effect 1 included) that start off slow/meh and get better as you get further along.

The problem with the 'grain of salt' thing is this: most of the complaints, the vast majority of them, are with technical issues. Dead-eye stares, meme-worthy animations, lip-sync issues, etc. And not only does this Access Trial consist of review code, its also 'day 1 patch' code.

These things aren't 'first few hours of the game' issues, they are engine/developer-level issues. Sara Ryder isn't going to magically develop better facial animations at the 10 hour mark. Cora isn't going to stop walking like a robot.

One of their top guys said they're discussing how much to address in future patches but I seriously doubt that they're going to be able to fix this stuff, and certainly not in time to stop the damage from being done. People are going to google this game and see the memes and 'LOL THESE ANIMATIONS' videos as much as the actual game.

And the sad part is, Andromeda seems like a good game based on the 9 hours or so I've spent with it - certainly better as a whole, so far, than these animation/character issues. But there's no 'grain of salt' to be had here. It is clear they don't have the strength of talent, relative to their engine/tech, working on character art and animation that they've had in the past. Compare ME2's Miranda, or Jacob/Zaeed to any human in Andromeda and you'll see that.

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I mean bioware has always been about the story, their animations have never been a main selling point, as far back as the Kotr days, Me 1-3 have some pretty scary ass things going on not even including bugs. Its also harder to animate faces when they can be coustomized and arn't pre rendered, i'm looking at you CDPR

The problem with this argument is that Bioware openly boasted that all their characters, even the presets, are based on headscans of real life people.

[Lorianus]

PC power has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of animations in Andromeda.

And generally speaking no, they aren't 'that bad' (and are actually quite good in combat) but therein lies the issue: people expect better than 'not that bad' from Bioware because Bioware has produced some of the best games/characters/franchises of all time.

'Not that bad' is NOT what brought them to the dance.

To be fair state of the art facial animations in bioware games was only true in 2007 when Mass Effect 1 was released because it was revolutionary and praised at the time for its emotional expressions but ever since then bioware has used the same 2007 animation catalogue for all their games, look at Inquisition there are still some idle/conversation animations in that and that game came out 6 years after ME 1 in 2014.

I also think that comparsions with other games are sometimes not that fair, of course games like Uncharted or The last of us or even The Witcher 2/3 have better animations/emotions because they have set characters that you cant customize save for the hair style on Geralt, so they can go full on Motion Capture for their Animations.
To Motion Capture something like 8 Presets in a Character Generator like in ME or DA would explode the budget i would assume.


I would also speculate that maybe its a fault on EA's side to basically put everything on Dice's Frostbyte that they built for their Battlefield Games, im no Developer or anything but maybe its also difficult to make a Bioware esque Game in the Frostbyte environment.

[Deleted]

ive played a little bit over 8 hours, until i came to a spot where the trial ends. the compulsive gatherer and "leave no rock unturned" in me is screeming . so much to do and so many places to go on just one planet. as far as the story goes, i think they just let us play a part before the universe opens and we can go in any direction, basicaly any other of the main planets, so they didnt want us to see just everything in one trial session. i had one crash, it said something like out of memory for the graphic card, bla bla happens when you have a 512 GB card but i think i have like 4 gig on my GPU so i dont know, possibly a driver error. otherwise FPS between 40 and 60FPS depending on whatever is going on on the screen, i know because i enabled that little counter from nvidia in the edge of the screen, doesnt really become noticable in the game. i noticed high CPU usage almost always around 30-50% on my i7 6700, never seen a game using so much CPU before......windows 10 + game use up around 10GB of ram. nothing special. at some point my router reseted so i lost connection to Origin but nothing happened, no disconnect or whatever, i dont know how the complete game will run without the net....so far nothing to complain about from the technical side. interesting thing was that they set higher radiation for areas where they dont want you to go, so effectively limiting the area for the trial on the first planet, i found places to go inside that radiation zone but i would last for about 10sec and then im dead i guess they will lift this for full game.
the only thing i didnt figure out and dont know if its gonna be possible, i couldnt change the loadout of companions. i have tons of guns in inventory but i dont know what my companions are using ? can i mod their weapons, do they use what i have in inventory or do they use some stock crap, for example what if i leave just one shotgun with mods i inv, will they use it ? second thing is overkill regarding crafting. will take some time to figure out whats best to craft. and last thing im going to be out of sleep for 5 days when this thing comes out

[Mirishka]

To be fair state of the art facial animations in bioware games was only true in 2007 when Mass Effect 1 was released because it was revolutionary and praised at the time for its emotional expressions but ever since then bioware has used the same 2007 animation catalogue for all their games, look at Inquisition there are still some idle/conversation animations in that and that game came out 6 years after ME 1 in 2014.

I also think that comparsions with other games are sometimes not that fair, of course games like Uncharted or The last of us or even The Witcher 2/3 have better animations/emotions because they have set characters that you cant customize save for the hair style on Geralt, so they can go full on Motion Capture for their Animations.
To Motion Capture something like 8 Presets in a Character Generator like in ME or DA would explode the budget i would assume.


I would also speculate that maybe its a fault on EA's side to basically put everything on Dice's Frostbyte that they built for their Battlefield Games, im no Developer or anything but maybe its also difficult to make a Bioware esque Game in the Frostbyte environment.

Except they did use performance capture. In response to criticism of the facial animation seen in trailers, Bioware confirmed this:

"Fabrice Condominas: We are absolutely working on it. As was mentioned in the tweets it's actually something that comes last in the polishing stage. We've been using full facial capture for the first time to record the actor's performance and it's also the first time for BioWare working in Frostbite - I think we're beginning to push that fairly far. We're actively working on it and it's the last thing to be polished before we do a manual pass and really, really tweak all those movements because we first wanted to make sure the dialogue is final and settled."

I agree that character customization can adversely affect that (for example, a character with larger or smaller eyes than the 'template' used for capture) but it doesn't explain issues with characters like Cora or Liam who are pre-designed with a specific appearance.

Personally I think the 'we're using this tech for the first time' suggests that they simply aren't familiar enough with it to get the kind of performance they (or we) were wanting.

Regarding your ME1/2007 comment, I personally think ME2 was the highpoint of their character work.