[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[pateuvasiliu]

I wonder whence do the attribute points come...

Oh boy oh boy, oh boyoboyoboyoboy.

If grinding attributes in your old RPGs is anything like grinding skill levels in Skyrim ( where people literally jam a coin in their controller, go into sneak mode near a guard and go AFK for 30 minutes so their Sneak is 100 when they come back ) then they really did a good thing by putting in distributing points when leveling up.

[Elim Garak]

If grinding attributes in your old RPGs is anything like grinding skill levels in Skyrim ( where people literally jam a coin in their controller, go into sneak mode near a guard and go AFK for 30 minutes so their Sneak is 100 when they come back ) then they really did a good thing by putting in distributing points when leveling up.

Ah, so if few players cheat on their nth walkthrough, that means that attribute points are superior? Like you cannot cheat attribute points? Let us discuss all the xp grinding tricks and exploits. Hell, let us use memory hacks while we are at it.

Is that your argument in favor of attribute points?

Understand this. None of the approaches is superior to another. They are just different. Attribute points one is just less immersive.

[pateuvasiliu]

Ah, so if few players cheat on their nth walkthrough, that means that attribute points are superior? Like you cannot cheat attribute points? Let us discuss all the xp grinding tricks and exploits. Hell, let us use memory hacks while we are at it.

Is that your argument in favor of attribute points?

Understand this. None of the approaches is superior to another. They are just different. Attribute points one is just less immersive.

Levelling up takes more time the more you do it. It's not like you can continuously do it, even if you hunt for XP.

[Elim Garak]

Levelling up takes more time the more you do it. It's not like you can continuously do it, even if you hunt for XP.

it takes 1 second to bring ME console up and give yourself enough xp to get level 60
Same reason for doing this as in your Skyrim example

[Matt0193]

it takes 1 second to bring ME console up and give yourself enough xp to get level 60
Same reason for doing this as in your Skyrim example

Especially when it drastically reduced CDs from like 50/60s down to 25/30s or so. I played ME1 properly the first time, got to 50, sold everything I came across (Because I didn't bother with Omni-gel, just solved everything myself) and eventually had a full set of Spectre weapons for my team. Second playthrough, I just gave myself max XP through the console because I wasn't playing a Soldier and I wanted to actually use abilities, something you can't do without maxing trees out.

While the Skill point system in ME1 was more true to traditional RPG concepts, it was by far the worst in terms of gameplay simply due to how limiting it was. Unless you played the game 12 (Think that's the cap, havn't played ME1 for a while) times with the same character, slowly building up your Paragon/Renegade scores 1 rank per playthrough, letting you keep some 10 or so skills for other talents, you had to invest into either Charm or Intimidate in order to have certain options (Like 11 Paragon on Feros, when you can go to Feros immediately, good work Bioware).

Not to mention Biotic abilities were poor in ME1, you only used Warp and Barrier while Liara (If you had her as part of your squad) added Singularity to that mix. Push, Stasis and Lift were all fairly useless as gunfire typically killed anything left standing after the previous abilities. Tech abilities were generally more useful, Sabotage was always helpful as most enemies didn't have a second weapon, Overload was great because nearly every enemy had shields, AI Hacking was brilliant because 9/10 of the enemies you fought were Geth. Dampening was pretty... meh, sort of like Push and Lift. Neural Shock was a filler against Organics, taking AI Hacking's spot. ME2 cut out all the pointless crap and made abilities stronger than guns. Sure it took away from the RPG concepts but it made it smoother. It also got rid of the aids inventory system.

[May90]

Not to mention Biotic abilities were poor in ME1, you only used Warp and Barrier while Liara (If you had her as part of your squad) added Singularity to that mix. Push, Stasis and Lift were all fairly useless as gunfire typically killed anything left standing after the previous abilities. Tech abilities were generally more useful, Sabotage was always helpful as most enemies didn't have a second weapon, Overload was great because nearly every enemy had shields, AI Hacking was brilliant because 9/10 of the enemies you fought were Geth. Dampening was pretty... meh, sort of like Push and Lift. Neural Shock was a filler against Organics, taking AI Hacking's spot. ME2 cut out all the pointless crap and made abilities stronger than guns. Sure it took away from the RPG concepts but it made it smoother. It also got rid of the aids inventory system.

Weird, I had exactly the opposite experience. Tech abilities in ME1 were effectively useless, except for AI Hacking, which would make a quick work of Geth. Biotics, on the other hand, were insanely good. Fully upgraded Warp made a short work even of Krogans with active Immunity, since 4x damage bonus is insane. Singularity, Throw and Lift were also incredible: if you had Wrex and Liara in your team at the same time, you could disable 4-5 enemies at the time, sending them floating and shooting them while they cannot shoot back.

That is all on Insanity. I don't know about lower difficulties, it might be different there.

One thing I strongly disliked about ME2 was introduction of Armor, Barriers and Shields blocking some abilities. Most Biotic abilities became completely useless, since you need to strip an enemy defenses off first, and only when you get him down to bare health, you can do something with him - but by that time he is already so weak, it is easier to just shoot him down. In ME3, at least, they introduced Biotic detonations, which made Biotics strong again.
Also, I hated limited ammo. Still hate it. But it isn't as noticeable in ME3, since there is a lot of clips lying around everywhere. I hope in Andromeda they return the overheating mechanics.

[Lahis]

Also, I hated limited ammo. Still hate it. But it isn't as noticeable in ME3, since there is a lot of clips lying around everywhere. I hope in Andromeda they return the overheating mechanics.

Getting the Overheating M7 Lancer in Citadel DLC felt so good. I hope they'll do more weapons like that in ME:A, or they could make the clips able to be cooled down. They are Thermal Clips afterall.

[Rukh]

I personally like having to conserve ammo and worrying if I need to switch out guns to save some of the assault rifle or sniper rifle for harder situations.

That being said, them switching from energy guns to needing thermal ejector ammo felt pretty forced.

[Lahis]

I personally like having to conserve ammo and worrying if I need to switch out guns to save some of the assault rifle or sniper rifle for harder situations.

That being said, them switching from energy guns to needing thermal ejector ammo felt pretty forced.

Combining Thermal Clips with Cooldown mechanics could give you both. You could choose to switch weapons and let the other one to cool down, or you could reload new clip and keep shooting. Downside is that now your overall ammo capacity will be lower for real "shit hits the fan" -situation and if clips are sparce enough during missions this will be a real choice to make.

[Rukh]

Combining Thermal Clips with Cooldown mechanics could give you both. You could choose to switch weapons and let the other one to cool down, or you could reload new clip and keep shooting. Downside is that now your overall ammo capacity will be lower for real "shit hits the fan" -situation and if clips are sparce enough during missions this will be a real choice to make.

Maybe some sort of emergency override so when your clip count goes to zero instead of just locking you out of shooting it goes in to thermal mode and you can fire short bursts with cooldown times.

[May90]

Getting the Overheating M7 Lancer in Citadel DLC felt so good. I hope they'll do more weapons like that in ME:A, or they could make the clips able to be cooled down. They are Thermal Clips afterall.

I liked Javik's Particle Rifle as well - although it was not that useful by pretty much any class but Soldier. I think limited ammo makes sense for heavy weapons from ME2, but for everything else - I prefer overheating. And even heavy weapons can be made without limited ammo, by, say, making their cooldown very high, like 2 minutes - it would make them usable in most situations, whilst in Mass Effect 2 I didn't use them at all before the final boss fight.

Not to mention that the lore behind that change was a bit silly. Suddenly everyone, in just 2 years, changed from overheating weapons to thermal clips, including the Geth and Collectors...

[pateuvasiliu]

it takes 1 second to bring ME console up and give yourself enough xp to get level 60
Same reason for doing this as in your Skyrim example

And? Console commands are cheats.

Grinding isn't.

[Deleted]

Can't talk reason with cheaters.

[pateuvasiliu]

Two pages ago he was saying attributes break immersion. I pointed out grinding does too, now he says they're both just as bad.

Figure if I keep arguing he'll admit attributes are better after 2 more pages.

[Elim Garak]

And? Console commands are cheats.

Grinding isn't.

Your Skyrim example is not grinding. It's an exploit, i.e. cheating. You also conveniently avoid the reason people did that.

Two pages ago he was saying attributes break immersion. I pointed out grinding does too, now he says they're both just as bad.

Figure if I keep arguing he'll admit attributes are better after 2 more pages.

Why are you lying?

I said distributing attribute points breaks immersion compared to improving your attributes by playing (doesn't break immersion). This is so obvious, I don't even.
You were the one who brought grinding to this discussion, only gods know why. Go see South Parks WoW episode on grinding XP, killing boars.

[Deleted]

Two pages ago he was saying attributes break immersion. I pointed out grinding does too, now he says they're both just as bad.

Figure if I keep arguing he'll admit attributes are better after 2 more pages.

Shooting a gun improves your ability to fuck space itself, just ask NASA.

[May90]

Two pages ago he was saying attributes break immersion. I pointed out grinding does too, now he says they're both just as bad.

Figure if I keep arguing he'll admit attributes are better after 2 more pages.

You are really a master strawman, aren't ya buddy? Pretty much every thread I find you in, you manage to read things people say as if they were saying things in Catalan.

Shooting a gun improves your ability to fuck space itself, just ask NASA.

Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space!

[Ninjavitis]

Combining Thermal Clips with Cooldown mechanics could give you both. You could choose to switch weapons and let the other one to cool down, or you could reload new clip and keep shooting. Downside is that now your overall ammo capacity will be lower for real "shit hits the fan" -situation and if clips are sparce enough during missions this will be a real choice to make.

Maybe some sort of emergency override so when your clip count goes to zero instead of just locking you out of shooting it goes in to thermal mode and you can fire short bursts with cooldown times.

I love both these ideas, and have wondered why something like that was never implemented. Those thermal clips are basically modern day magazines. I used to be in the military, specifically USMC infantry. When your magazine runs out, you don't just eject it and discard it. Depending on the situation you retain your empty magazine in a dump pouch (most of the time it's this) or you hang onto it in your hand until you can get it into said dump pouch. Basically, magazines are not 1 use items. They empty, you hang onto them, and refill them until they break. You're basically swapping out heatsinks anyways, why not make a retention system where they are kept, cooled off and reused?

[Deleted]

Why not make magazines explode when emptied?

[Nerraw]