[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[May90]

Bioware poked fun at this themselves.

In the Citadel DLC, when you go to the Silversun Strip casino, there's an arcade with different games you can play. One of them is Towers of Hanoi. When shepard approaches that particular arcade, if you press the use key, Shepard will say: "Towers of Hanoi....... I don't think so......" and walks away.

Hilarious. That entire DLC is made of win. As angry as I was with Bioware for the shitty ME3 ending, after that DLC (And extended cut), all was forgiven.

I remember that moment. I didn't get the reference at the time. Neat!

And we definitely need Nexus DLC as a fan service concluding Andromeda, with old good fan jokes.

[Sevyvia]

Wow, that's not super forced/awkward dialogue. Strange, because IIRC the way they handled the trans character in DA:I was totally fine. Chatted with them when I first met Iron Bull and it felt like an actual discussion actual human beings would have. It's like their writing is regressing to Tumblr levels : /

The DA:I stuff was pretty shit, but given Bioware's tryharding regarding shoving this shit in, not surprising that the quality would sink lower still.

[karumayu]

@Diaspar Thank you for the suggestion on the graphical setting. My laptop is in severe need of additional ram, but I also want to play the game as soon as possible without any major performance hits.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Are there some upgrades later that make the jumps from lvl 1 to 3 radiation less jarring? One wrong step and you are suddenly out of life support, shield and down by x amount of life. They could have really used a more gradual approach here..

[Omians]

after a couple of hours GMG started selling copies again and i was able to get it with the 20% off. was hitting refresh waiting for the " out of stock" to turn into a pre-purchase

[MonsieuRoberts]

So now I'm fighting a loading screen boss. Any time the game tries to load a manual save made by me, it loads forever. It can only load properly on auto-saves. What the fuck.

I die in combat on Eos, I have to load a save that happened 2 minutes earlier. If I load the manual, I have to forcequit Andromeda and reboot. Uuuugh

[Ilikegreenfire]

Man i just finished the Eos main story line, it feels like an entirely different planet now, i got chills.

[FobManX]

I just did the prologue and arrived on Nexus(and did some quests). Overall I like it. It doesn't quite GRAB you the same way Mass Effect 1 did, but its not the trainwreck people seem to say it is. I will agree that the character creation sucks, my main character looks almost asian and the facial animations are a little...not right. The combat is fun though and I really like the leveling, much more customization. I chose the Leader background but picked up a couple Biotic abilities.

I won't comment on the story yet because I haven't done enough, I think its gonna be one of those slow devleoping ones where you don't REALLY know whats going on until later(unlike ME1 where you were basically told from the getgo that you're going after Saren and the whole Reapers are the big threat). Obviously those of you who've played more will know more, no spoilerino pleaserino.

Question, how the hell do you mod your weapons? I got a bunch but can't seem to find it on the menus anywhere. Or is there like a workbench you're supposed to find? Maybe I'm just not far enough into the game yet?

[MonsieuRoberts]

My load times upon death have transformed from about 10 seconds to 2 minutes. Unsure why. Just exploring on Eos, saving as soon as I see something new. Installed on an SSD and everything...

[Mirishka]

Good news (IMO) - while I won't go into any real spoilers, the story is definitely getting better. And there haven't been any 'holy god that's bad' moments since Addison's 'my face is tired/whom' nonsense. The animation of course is still inconsistent af, but nothing like the stuff we saw in those first couple hours. And oppositely, some of the cinematics in the Eos vault were actually pretty impressive.

Dare I say, this is starting to feel like a proper Mass Effect game after all.

[May90]

My load times upon death have transformed from about 10 seconds to 2 minutes. Unsure why. Just exploring on Eos, saving as soon as I see something new. Installed on an SSD and everything...

I looked at my saves, and they seem to be gradually increasing in size with time. It is possible that they are using a "cumulative" save system, in which, rather than the whole set of variables, they only save the variables you've affected so far; so the longer you play, do quests, talk to people, etc., the larger the save becomes.

10 seconds to 2 minutes sounds like a very drastic increase though... How many hours /played do you have?

[MonsieuRoberts]

I looked at my saves, and they seem to be gradually increasing in size with time. It is possible that they are using a "cumulative" save system, in which, rather than the whole set of variables, they only save the variables you've affected so far; so the longer you play, do quests, talk to people, etc., the larger the save becomes.

10 seconds to 2 minutes sounds like a very drastic increase though... How many hours /played do you have?

Just over seven!

Edit: I wonder if it's related to things going on around your character; It seems to take much longer when there are enemies closeb y. I just loaded instantly into an area I had previously cleared out before saving and quitting. Beforehand, there was a group of baddies landing closeby that I was getting ready to engage, that's when the 2 minute loading screens stated happening.

Will keep an eye on things like this.

[May90]

Just over seven!

Edit: I wonder if it's related to things going on around your character; It seems to take much longer when there are enemies closeb y. I just loaded instantly into an area I had previously cleared out before saving and quitting. Beforehand, there was a group of baddies landing closeby that I was getting ready to engage, that's when the 2 minute loading screens stated happening.

Will keep an eye on things like this.

Doesn't sound nearly enough for such increase... Weird. :/ Maybe the load time depends on the planet you are in, with open worlds taking much more than limited priority missions?

[Skorpionss]

Sad to see that after a decade of advancement Bioware still struggles with the simple things, like my eyelashes somehow radiating through my helmet. How is this so difficult to fix?

And the Peebee backwards Carnifex? I just saw it in-game, it's real! Boy oh boy, I can't wait for the first patch to fix these issues. Was QA asleep at the wheel?

Again with the blaming it on the QA... the QA doesn't decide shit when it comes to how the game is released, it's there only to advise basically... the Producers can easily decide against the QA's advice and release the game in a shit state... Andromeda has somewhere around 14,000 known issues in the database that weren't fixed.

[callipygoustp]

How big of a deal is the lack of quick save? The lack of being able to save when I want is a bit of a turn for me.

[Jastall]

Finally got my GMG key. Nothing personal, but I'm never getting anything off that site ever again if it has a staggered release date (why is this still a thing anyway? so stupid). Good thing I had work, I've been chomping at the bits all day because of that delay. Now to wait while it installs. No pre-order bonuses for little old me, either.

[Mirishka]

Finally got my GMG key. Nothing personal, but I'm never getting anything off that site ever again if it has a staggered release date (why is this still a thing anyway? so stupid). Good thing I had work, I've been chomping at the bits all day because of that delay. Now to wait while it installs. No pre-order bonuses for little old me, either.

You can start playing at around 41% install, btw.

- - - Updated - - -

Just over seven!

Edit: I wonder if it's related to things going on around your character; It seems to take much longer when there are enemies closeb y. I just loaded instantly into an area I had previously cleared out before saving and quitting. Beforehand, there was a group of baddies landing closeby that I was getting ready to engage, that's when the 2 minute loading screens stated happening.

Will keep an eye on things like this.

Eos took over 2 minutes to load for me as well following a death. I drove the Nomad into like, 11 Kett and it exploded in seconds.

[Lahis]

Are there some upgrades later that make the jumps from lvl 1 to 3 radiation less jarring? One wrong step and you are suddenly out of life support, shield and down by x amount of life. They could have really used a more gradual approach here..

The lvl 3 radiation is basically used to stop you from going into areas that are supposed to be opened later in the game. Prime example is trying to leave Site 1 before getting the Nomad: right outside the radiation shield is lvl 3 radiation, which mysteriously turns into lvl 1 when you get the Nomad (bit gamey, but I let this one slide since Nomad is pretty important part of the game). I don't know if you get direct upgrades to your life support systems, but the radiation on Eos will dissipate when the planet's viability raises, opening up those areas for you.

[MonsieuRoberts]

Again with the blaming it on the QA... the QA doesn't decide shit when it comes to how the game is released, it's there only to advise basically... the Producers can easily decide against the QA's advice and release the game in a shit state... Andromeda has somewhere around 14,000 known issues in the database that weren't fixed.

I suppose I'm just being naive and thinking no one noticed it instead of thinking that it was noticed, noted and ignored.

Do we have access to that list you mentioned?

Eos took over 2 minutes to load for me as well following a death. I drove the Nomad into like, 11 Kett and it exploded in seconds.

That's exactly what happened to me too. Loading in those Kett seems to really do a number on loadtimes. So weird. It didn't have an issue with this during the prologue.

[Deleted]

Huh. Randomly messing around in the trial version of game while waiting for EU release, and noticing that you can jump with jetpack and melee to melee into the ground :O Thats nifty

And goooood, release for EU already, so impatient