[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[Mirishka]

False. They do quarterly reports where they say how well their products did. Someone else mentioned this below.



So Andromeda wasn't as good as ME2. So fucking what?

Return of the Jedi had a lower critical reception than Empire Strikes Back. It also had a lower box office performance. Does this mean Return of the Jedi is a shitty movie? fuck no, it just means Empire Strikes Back was the magnum opus of the original SW trilogy, and its hard to top that up. Just because it had a lower box office performance doesn't mean in any way whatsoever that the movie flopped, or it was a failure, or it was garbage. It was a good movie, that couldn't quite match its predecessor. Same deal with Andromeda. Despite having a weaker launch than ME2, its still the number 1 game sold in the UK at the moment (The only metric available)



And we will know eventually if the same holds true for Andromeda.



Physical copies are barely valid as a metric these days, because in a day and age where physical copies are just empty boxes with a code on it, FAR more people purchase digitally to pre-load the game. Its the way of the future man.



Bad syntax is bad.

"Critics" shit on it implies EVERYONE is doing it. That's not the case. Opinions on Andromeda have been divided, with some critics bashing the game (several of them unfairly so) and just as many praising it, and giving it lavish praise (While also pointing out the glaring flaws in the game).

Very well said.

[Lahis]

I feel like Ryder has done everything but given an official N7 designation as a Pathfinder. Going up against ancient aliens, fighting advanced civilizations, terraforming entire planets in inhospitable conditions, etc.

Ryder has the power say who and when, if ever, people come out of cyro.

What else does Ryder need to do?

Do the actual N1-7 training program which is grueling process in itself. "N7" is not a honorary title, it is a rank awarded to the toughest soldiers in the Alliance.

Sure, with her accomplishes, Ryder would propably manage in the training, but unless she passes it, she will not be a N7.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Ok then wouldn't Ghost Recon physical sales be equally bad?

I simply pointed out physical sales there because those are the only ones tracked by consumer data firms.

You are generally right but in this case the whole thing is a bit skewed because of the atrocious shipping of an empty box. A lot of people might have bought the game on Origin instead. You had to download it anyway. They also had the 10 hour early thing and all that.

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As in after you first meet her and go through her entire dialogue menu? Yes, she has more dialogue.

I have all 5 planets on 100% and have heard nothing about her personal quest. I was just curious if she had anything like a loyalty mission or some story bits that are associated with her because I haven't seen anything of her yet. I haven't progressed with the main quest a lot though, maybe it just comes later.

[WarpedAcorn]

It's what goes in the Equipment slot in your loadout page. Go to the Store > Item Tab. They cost Mission Funds that you get for running the Strike Missions.

The best part is you only have to buy it once and you can use it on as many MP characters as you want.

Sweet! I will be doing that for my Asari Adept. She is a fragile creature after all....a fragile creature with a massive damage field.

[Lahis]

So Andromeda wasn't as good as ME2. So fucking what?

Return of the Jedi had a lower critical reception than Empire Strikes Back. It also had a lower box office performance. Does this mean Return of the Jedi is a shitty movie? fuck no, it just means Empire Strikes Back was the magnum opus of the original SW trilogy, and its hard to top that up. Just because it had a lower box office performance doesn't mean in any way whatsoever that the movie flopped, or it was a failure, or it was garbage. It was a good movie, that couldn't quite match its predecessor. Same deal with Andromeda. Despite having a weaker launch than ME2, its still the number 1 game sold in the UK at the moment (The only metric available)

This is EA we are talking about. Metacritic score under 80 for a AAA is considered garbage in current review climate, and they were planning on selling literal millions of copies durign the first week. So far we haevn't heard anythign from EA, so it mgith have severely underperformed for their expectations.

[PACOX]

I have all 5 planets on 100% and have heard nothing about her personal quest. I was just curious if she had anything like a loyalty mission or some story bits that are associated with her because I haven't seen anything of her yet. I haven't progressed with the main quest a lot though, maybe it just comes later.

She has a quest associated Liam's movie night. Don't know if there's anything else.

[Archon14]

Anyone here who finished the story and is playing multiplayer now? I experience so many bugs and sometimes crashes, I'll probably have to stop playing it.
It's kind of impossible to enjoy the game when almost every single time one of the listed below (or more than one) happen:

1. Hacking keeps stopping for no reason, and it takes 2-3 times longer.
2. If I die during assassination or the phase where you have to capture 3 objectives, there is no dying window (I'm dead right away), I can't be revived or use the revive kit.
3. Fiend will grab me and kill me even though I'm nowhere near him.
4. Melee button stops working or I completely miss the target and pass right through him.
5. I fall down even though I climbed.
6. Game crashes during extraction, and I get no reward.

My honest advice atm is avoid multiplayer like the plague.

[Jastall]

Well these are the things we know (we will never know if it is a true "flop" because EA is never going to reveal digital sales data ever):
- It had a weaker launch than both ME2 and ME3... Not a good sign when a sequel has a weaker launch than both previous entries in the series.
- Especially considering their last game, Inquisition, was their best launch in Bioware history (according to EA).
- It barely outsold (in physical copies) Ghost Recon Wildlands, a game that has been out several weeks, during its launch week.
- Critics shit on it, which is especially true in today's "every score less than 80 is a garbage game" video game review climate.

It's hard to judge based on physical copies, when so many people buy digitally. The comparisons to the previous games especially is suspect (ME2 in particular), given that digital copies were much less prevalent even five years ago.

The only ones who have the real numbers, and the only one for whom these numbers matter, is EA. We'll get our answers from how they judge the sales of the game. I strongly doubt Andromeda will exceed expectations, but I also doubt it'll be a flop.

[Sunseeker]

Ironically, the most ''alien'' species Bioware has ever created is probably the Qunari in Dragon Age, who really do have a society and system of beliefs that are incompatible with most human cultures. The most alien Mass Effect ever went is with the Rachni (basically nicer Zerg) and the Geth in ME2, before ME3 made them into boring ass Pinocchio bots that want to be human.

I do think the Angara should have been more alien in their beliefs. They really look and sound like they belong in the Milky Way, not another galaxy. The Remnant kinda fill the niche of more bizarre species, but for most of the game they're little more than killbots.

Yeah, I agree the Qunari are probably the most "alien" species BioWare has ever made. But it helps that we're not told they're alien, much like how we're told the Reapers, Geth, or AI in general are alien, but we're actually shown that they're alien though their behaviors and actions. Which is as always, good writing, show don't tell.

[rhorle]

https://twitter.com/masseffect/statu...217282/photo/1

An exalted Krogan Behemoth as a bad guy in MP. I am not looking forward to that lol

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It's hard to judge based on physical copies, when so many people buy digitally. The comparisons to the previous games especially is suspect (ME2 in particular), given that digital copies were much less prevalent even five years ago.

And there were also physical collectors/deluxe editions. This time around they didn't even offer a steel book case with physical copies so there was no real incentive to go physical (console still has a little one but I find discs for console to be cumbersome now.)

[Jastall]

https://twitter.com/masseffect/statu...217282/photo/1

An exalted Krogan Behemoth as a bad guy in MP. I am not looking forward to that lol

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And there were also physical collectors/deluxe editions. This time around they didn't even offer a steel book case with physical copies so there was no real incentive to go physical (console still has a little one but I find discs for console to be cumbersome now.)

On top of all that, the PC physical box (in NA at least) is literally just a code for the game. It's not even a plain disc, so unless you really want to have an empty plastic case sitting on your shelf, you're better off ordering online, which comes with decent discounts you won't find in a brick and mortar store.

I'm not putting my fingers in my ears and pretending Andromeda is shattering sales records, because it clearly won't with the bad publicity it has got. But it's way too early to say if the game is a commercial success or failure, as the only entity that can definite it as such has a name that starts with E and ends with A.

Also had my romance scene with Cora... and what the hell, it was actually pretty well animated, faces included. Leave it to Bioware to start the game with a freak like Addison to leave terrible first impressions, and save their good animation work for the banging. I also saw that you can decide to refuse sex and rather just spend time with her stargazing, it's nice to see sex doesn't have to be the endgoal of a romance for those who prefer that. And on that subject, if anyone thought Miranda had a fine ass, well you ain't seen nothing yet. Because, dayum, commando indeed.

[kaid]

On top of all that, the PC physical box (in NA at least) is literally just a code for the game. It's not even a plain disc, so unless you really want to have an empty plastic case sitting on your shelf, you're better off ordering online, which comes with decent discounts you won't find in a brick and mortar store.

I'm not putting my fingers in my ears and pretending Andromeda is shattering sales records, because it clearly won't with the bad publicity it has got. But it's way too early to say if the game is a commercial success or failure, as the only entity that can definite it as such has a name that starts with E and ends with A.

Also had my romance scene with Cora... and what the hell, it was actually pretty well animated, faces included. Leave it to Bioware to start the game with a freak like Addison to leave terrible first impressions, and save their good animation work for the banging. I also saw that you can decide to refuse sex and rather just spend time with her stargazing, it's nice to see sex doesn't have to be the endgoal of a romance for those who prefer that. And on that subject, if anyone thought Miranda had a fine ass, well you ain't seen nothing yet. Because, dayum, commando indeed.

Don't blame addison her face was tired that day. Overall I have really been enjoying it and while there are a few weird animation things now and then overall I have been pretty happy with the quality even with default fem ryder.

[Skorpionss]

I'm sure I did, I also hate doing little misc side quests for no real reason. All my characters died in ME2, including shep, because I didn't do enough of that research shit, lol. It felt like tacked on just because. w/e, an endings is an ending.

Honestly, I used like 3 guns the whole time, and kept whatever pre-order armor I had on. Just maxed some powers, used the same 2 allies, and went at it. The number of planets became pretty overwhelming, and after I did 2-3, the option to do what looked like the final stretch of the game opened up, and I went for it. Not saying the game is bad at all either :P It's just what ME fans could want, mostly.

Sounds to me like you just like wasting money on RPG games, when u wanna be playing Call of Duty... but alas it's your money...

[frogger237]

Anyone here who finished the story and is playing multiplayer now? I experience so many bugs and sometimes crashes, I'll probably have to stop playing it.
It's kind of impossible to enjoy the game when almost every single time one of the listed below (or more than one) happen:

1. Hacking keeps stopping for no reason, and it takes 2-3 times longer.
2. If I die during assassination or the phase where you have to capture 3 objectives, there is no dying window (I'm dead right away), I can't be revived or use the revive kit.
3. Fiend will grab me and kill me even though I'm nowhere near him.
4. Melee button stops working or I completely miss the target and pass right through him.
5. I fall down even though I climbed.
6. Game crashes during extraction, and I get no reward.

My honest advice atm is avoid multiplayer like the plague.

1. Yeah that hacking bug is a bitch, I have yet to see any group finish that wave with three stars.
4.Yeah I have missed a shitload/pass right through with the melee havent had the button stop working tho.
6. Lately this has been pretty good for me, in the last 20 or so matches only the last one crashed to the xbox hub.

[Skorpionss]

So, about 45h in, 41% of the game completed. Main gripes so far:
- Occasional visual glitches, where the screen goes completely black or gains some horrid green/blue/red "filter" or just starts flickering really badly
- Some glitchy quests (nothing that can't be fixed with a load, haven't lost any progress so far)
- It's been crashing today, which is odd because I didn't have this problem until today
- The optimization is horrible, especially during cinematics, I get severe FPS drops... I get it I have a measly 1080 and not a 1080ti but I should still get at least god damn 30fps on 4k...
- The loot is terrible, like really there is no point in enemies dropping weapons or armor at all, since anything you craft, even a tier 1 item with augments/mods is better than top tier armor/weapons dropped by enemies...
- The nomad feels underwhelming, would've been much better if it had some guns on it, even if they were auto-targetted. Would've made the Architect fights much more unique imo
- I feel there should be more explorable planets outside of the Habitats... I know they had plans for this, to make every non-story planet procedurally generated and explorable, too bad it didn't pan out
- Wish we could control the tempest in outer space, the damn loading times take long enough anyway, if you could control it at least you'd do something...
- Don't really like the companions or more like the romance choices... other than Peebee which so far has been quite great, and I like the interactions between her and jaal. May be because I haven't really had the others with me on missons outside... Vetra is nice but not really romanceable since I don't really see how it'd work, she's too alien imo... great as a companion though, Cora I just don't like, she seems there just to please the SJW womyn power type of people...
- Not enough alien species, and I don't mean sapient ones, like the angarra, there are like 5 species, 3 of which are bugs (yeah hyperbole but u get what I mean)... it's supposed to be an entire planet damn it... give me more species...
- Enemies just not reacting when you shoot them from too far, making sniper play really boring...

Stuff that I liked:
- Peebee and Jaal, been running with them since I got them.
- The exploration is really nice, too bad the loot kinda ruins it somewhat, since no matter where you go you don't really get an upgrade after a while, just more of the same mods/augments
- The locations are gorgeous, Eos is probably the first desert area in a game that didn't make me want to uninstall the game... Havarl and Aya are gorgeous
- The story so far has me very interested, I hope I won't be let down by them not providing answers...
- The combat is better than ever before, playing a melee vanguard is the best shit ever. You are literally unkillable, replenishing shields faster than the enemies can dmg you using charge/melee, you also get an armor augment later that gives you 25% shields on kill which is OP as fuck since I can 1 hit melee all the grunts
and 2hit the enemies with shields. I also have flamethrower to burn through armor + the Remnant VI which is pretty nice
- The fact that you aren't locked into a class, I rerespecced so much I barely have any credits left and I didn't buy anything but nomad skins...
- The crafting is amazing (if you cheat for resources so you can experiment), it really allows you to customize your playstyle, you want grenade shooting SMGs? got it, want homing shotguns? got that too. It does take a bit of an experimantation, since some of them seem underwhelming (hopefuly a bug)... sniper rifle + homing projectiles for example is basically useless, it takes the projectile half a decade to reach the targed, and by the time it does, the target already moved outside of it's homing area... regardless it's still fun to experiment and see with what crazy combo you can come up
- I really like the Remnant and wanna know who made them

TL;DR: The game has some flaws, mostly due to bugs, but I've been having a blast so far, it'd be my favorite of the series probably if the crew was better.

[zealo]

https://twitter.com/bioware/status/847244079159103488

More news coming on 4th of April regarding how they're planning to fix the game.

[Flaks]

Can't stand playing the game 4K 30 fps. Dropped it back down all the way to 1080 so I don't see and hitches. Dad saw me playing and commented "these games are so beautiful but they still can't get the faces right".

[May90]

@May90

From what I've learned by finishing the game. It will change your perspective on Andromeda as a whole. Opens up a wide range of options. Good and bad.

Quite a few people have mentioned this as well. Let's see what the ending brings!

Which is not what I said, stop twisting my words. I said that empirical data supports a current hypothesis and no data thus far has indicated that any other hypotheses is valid enough to use as a premise in either research or theory. I even clearly stated in my post that there are possibilities for non-carbon based lifeforms, but the conditions for a sentient silicon-based lifeform (the most likely candidate after carbon) requires too many ifs and buts to assume that there plenty of these in the universe.
We're looking at 2 things here: the odds for intelligent extra-terrestrial life and the odds that they are not carbon-based life. You're complaining that all life we encounter on earth-type planets are carbon-based, and not whatever-based. Earth-type planets are simply the perfect environment to support carbon-based life and there's simply a much higher chance for the existence of extra-terrestrial carbon-based life due to the properties of carbon (and its interaction with oxygen) and its massive abundance (about 8-times more prevalent than silicon), paired with the fact that oxygen is the 3rd most abundant chemical element, behind helium and hydrogen.

Your entire discourse discounts a dominant hypothesis based off infinitesimally small odds. There's even a possibility that we'll find a hydrogen/methane form of intelligent life that shits rainbows and farts gold, but the odds are so tiny that your complaint that we're not finding entire star systems full of them, with the possibility to interact with them, immersion-breaking is simply ridiculous and petty (an interesting read on immersion in gaming: Cheng, K., & Cairns P.A. (2005). Behaviour, Realism and Immersion in Games. Proceedings of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(pp. 1272-1275)).

Don't ever tell me I don't understand how science works only to make scientifically invalid assumptions based on chance, I've spent more time studying it than you have.

Appeals to authority/experience have zero effect on me, sorry.

We don't have a clear theory explaining how life forms. We know how life formed in Earthly conditions, but we have no explanation on why it happened, or why specifically this kind of life happened. All we have in this regard is literally one ecosystem in one very specific set of conditions in one very specific timeline. Unless we learn a bit more about what triggers life appearance, that is where our understanding of the possibility of extraterrestrial life ends.

Carbon-based life only seems favorable to us because this is the only type of life we know. There are many other abundant elements on Earth, or elements that can be more abundant on other Earth-like planets (Magnesium, for example), that can lead to existence of completely different types of life. There are also endless non-Earth-like types of planets that could feature life forms unknown to us currently, and in the Mass Effect timeline, with our technology, we would be able to land on many such planets.

Even if we assume that carbon-based life is the most likely type of life to exist (for which there is 0 evidence as of now, aside from our ignorance and lack of observations), even slight change in the planetary conditions can lead to completely different long-term evolution products. There have been 5 global extinction events on Earth, as far as we know; take just one of these away, and humans never going to show up. Put Earth 5% closer to the Sun, and we wouldn't be able to survive here, but some better adapted primal creature could, evolving into an intelligent species ultimately. Change the surface gravity by 25%, and you get a completely different evolution chain. Add 0.01% ammonia to the liquid composition, and almost all life as we know it is going to die out and be replaced by something better adapted to the new conditions. Reduce the atmospheric density and the magnetic field by 30%, and radiation alone will make the existence of life as we know it impossible, a completely different ecosystem will appear in the end.

Because, quite frankly, most people won't like it.

I wrote a rather large essay on the subject once but I'll try to sum it up. There is a limit to the range of how far "outside the box" you can make something before people will either be completely unable to understand it and because they will struggle to understand it they will become angry and upset and thus not like your product.

It's why "aliens" are never really that alien, they're just exaggerated elements of human culture with a twist. Even AI, which the series routinely says "has completely different needs than organics" is shown to have highly human motivations. Even The Great Old Ones in much of Lovecraftian horror, for as alien and inhuman and incomprehensible as they are, have pretty human motivations for their actions.

Creating really alien aliens is a fun thought experiment, but typically comes across poorly in writing and other mediums.

Well, of course, aliens should be relatable. Creating "alien" aliens for the sake of them being alien leads to poor writing, because the stunt effect and the writer's imagination doesn't justify how poorly the aliens will fit in the story.

But there is a lot of room for experimentation even so. Rachni are a good example of a very alien species, with which you still can communicate easily, with which you can work together on a construction of a poorly understood device, with which you can unite forces to fight off the invaders. Of course, a romance with a Rachni wouldn't be very easy to write, but an attempt would be interesting to see!

Ironically, the most ''alien'' species Bioware has ever created is probably the Qunari in Dragon Age, who really do have a society and system of beliefs that are incompatible with most human cultures. The most alien Mass Effect ever went is with the Rachni (basically nicer Zerg) and the Geth in ME2, before ME3 made them into boring ass Pinocchio bots that want to be human.

I do think the Angara should have been more alien in their beliefs. They really look and sound like they belong in the Milky Way, not another galaxy. The Remnant kinda fill the niche of more bizarre species, but for most of the game they're little more than killbots.

I can't help but think of the Gungan, when I look at the Angara. And Gungan were almost a joke species, so it breaks the immersion quite a lot.

[Sunseeker]

Well, of course, aliens should be relatable. Creating "alien" aliens for the sake of them being alien leads to poor writing, because the stunt effect and the writer's imagination doesn't justify how poorly the aliens will fit in the story.

But there is a lot of room for experimentation even so. Rachni are a good example of a very alien species, with which you still can communicate easily, with which you can work together on a construction of a poorly understood device, with which you can unite forces to fight off the invaders. Of course, a romance with a Rachni wouldn't be very easy to write, but an attempt would be interesting to see!

Maybe to a select few, but they would be very existential thought experiments, which people tolerate poorly. Obviously the Asari lady we meet in ME2 who crashed near the Rachni and they saved her expresses almost love-like feelings for them, though I think this is in some part due to Asari being socially encouraged to "branch out" with alien species in order to better randomize the gene pool.

I certainly think the aliens in MEA are not that alien, they hold to your traditional "ugly aliens bad, pretty aliens good" trope, though the Angara aren't really that pretty (I'll take a Batarian over an Angaran thank you). But that's not new to Mass Effect (or sci-fi, so I won't hold it against them). But I certainly felt like the past Mass Effect games at least gave some more social diversity, there are "bad" Angaran, species-ist, nationalist, anti-space refugees (Modern political parallels? In a video game? Nooooooo! Couldn't be!) but there's no mercenary groups in Helius (that we didn't bring), there's no "unaligned" groups and it bothers me from a socio-political standpoint.

Anyway...."alien" cultures are also difficult for a writer to even create because ya know, they're human. You can get inverted human culture. You can get extreme human culture, you can get completely makes-no-sense human culture, but at the end of the day, you're writing from a human perspective so whatever you make will be well, human.

[frogger237]

Anyone craft the Naladen or get one in single player yet? Got it in multiplayer and not sure if its a bug or what but cover seems to negate 100% of the explosion dmg