[Megathread] Mass Effect Andromeda

[MonsieuRoberts]

So, I don't quite understand the class system... I thought, when I unlock a new class, I would be able to assign all skills in it from scratch. But now, it turns out, you can have only one set of skills, and you simply decide which 3 of them you want for every loadout? I was thinking of getting Vanguard as a secondary class, which would compensate for Infiltrator's weakness in short range combat - but if I have to also level Biotic skills to make Vanguard's powers manifest, then it doesn't seem that effective.


You reminded me of Samara's loyalty quest. Kill Samara, or kill Morinth... I wanted to do neither. :/ I wanted to lock Morinth up and try to help her change, but nope, one of them just had to die!

If the profiles gave you some points specific to one of the three types of combat that it improved it might seem like swapping profiles or even just obtaining them would be handy, but right now it seems like WLK talent trees, but you have access to all three at once.

Where do you put your points with all these choices? How do you try to keep yourself balanced?

I'm currently 100% tech but the turret has been very underwhelming. That might be due to me playing on Insanity though; My companions are useful for stunning or floating enemies for about 10 seconds and poof, both of them dead 'cause they don't like using cover. The turret does a great job of tanking for about 2 seconds as well. I really do like the difficulty though, you actually need to think about your position, your surrounding cover, where you can escape to if they come around a corner, come from behind, etc. It's cool that any enemy is a threat if they can get some good shots on you. Makes sense! No one stands in the open like Shepard, especially not some 20-something son/daughter of a pathfinder.

I find myself being very cautions in combat, mainly to avoid loading at an old checkpoint or a 3 minute loading screen in the open areas. Some of these battles Suuuuuuuuck because there's 3-5 encounters strung together, along with scannable items, crates and levels gained mid-combat, and there's NO CHECKPOINTS EXCEPT FOR THE VERY BEGINNING. FUCKING HELL WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA? Bad checkpoints are why I never finished Rage.

Quicksaving when?

[Slant]

Everyone is blasting through the game so fast... I still haven't even landed anywhere beside Nexus, I like to take my time to explore, to enjoy the scenery, to read the codex, to think over what an NPC just said and connect it to what else I know about the story so far...

Same here. You're not alone. I've played those 10 hours of the trial twice and continued the second playthrough and I've just now done the first story mission on Eos. And I'm probably not going to leave the planet for a while. Taking my sweet time with everything and... contrary to popular opinion, I think the game is quite good so far!

It's amusing to see everyone bitch about those faces. People are so worked up to "be the one that rants the most" that they forget how fucking bad the character acting in ME1-3 was from time to time. The eyes, man. Bioware will never get the hang of them, so what? It's not a movie. The premisse is awesome and we knew this wasn't the political/military ME1-3 type of story. This feels like a proper pioneer/survival story.

This weekend is going to be all about the exploration of Andromeda.

[May90]

If the profiles gave you some points specific to one of the three types of combat that it improved it might seem like swapping profiles or even just obtaining them would be handy, but right now it seems like WLK talent trees, but you have access to all three at once.

Where do you put your points with all these choices? How do you try to keep yourself balanced?

I'm currently 100% tech but the turret has been very underwhelming. That might be due to me playing on Insanity though; My companions are useful for stunning or floating enemies for about 10 seconds and poof, both of them dead 'cause they don't like using cover. The turret does a great job of tanking for about 2 seconds as well. I really do like the difficulty though, you actually need to think about your position, your surrounding cover, where you can escape to if they come around a corner, come from behind, etc. It's cool that any enemy is a threat if they can get some good shots on you. Makes sense! No one stands in the open like Shepard, especially not some 20-something son/daughter of a pathfinder.

I find myself being very cautions in combat, mainly to avoid loading at an old checkpoint or a 3 minute loading screen in the open areas. Some of these battles Suuuuuuuuck because there's 3-5 encounters strung together, along with scannable items, crates and levels gained mid-combat, and there's NO CHECKPOINTS EXCEPT FOR THE VERY BEGINNING. FUCKING HELL WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA? Bad checkpoints are why I never finished Rage.

Quicksaving when?

I've been putting points in Tech and Combat so far: trying to max out Tactical Cloak and Sniper Rifle trees before committing to anything else. Well, also Combat Fitness, as it lets you carry more than 2 weapons at once, which seems to be useful, given the limited ammo system. Again, I've only fought on Habitat 7 so far, so I cannot really comment on how well this build is going to perform. Just landed on Eos, let's see!

Same here. You're not alone. I've played those 10 hours of the trial twice and continued the second playthrough and I've just now done the first story mission on Eos. And I'm probably not going to leave the planet for a while. Taking my sweet time with everything and... contrary to popular opinion, I think the game is quite good so far!

It's amusing to see everyone bitch about those faces. People are so worked up to "be the one that rants the most" that they forget how fucking bad the character acting in ME1-3 was from time to time. The eyes, man. Bioware will never get the hang of them, so what? It's not a movie. The premisse is awesome and we knew this wasn't the political/military ME1-3 type of story. This feels like a proper pioneer/survival story.

This weekend is going to be all about the exploration of Andromeda.

After 15 hours played, I only landed on Eos now. Given my completionist nature, I doubt I will leave the planet before I've completely exhausted everything to do there. That means, many, many hours of exploration.

I don't know what people are complaining about, but I haven't seen anything that would make this game inferior to previous ME games. Sure, some UI elements could be more convenient, sure, the save system is a bit wonky, sure, the static camera in some conversations isn't great - but every game had these issues, and Bioware tends to improve their games significantly with patches.

Also, unlike DAI, which I also liked a lot, but which felt like an open world game in DA setting, rather than the next DA games - this one feels like a 100% Mass Effect game. Although, I've hardly completed even 10% of the whole game, so I probably shouldn't make the judgment so early.

[Kaelwryn]

I'm not liking the options in the First Murderer in Andromeda quest..
Why is the only option to throw him out into the wasteland or release him? In what justice system do you only have 2 options? Garbage, throw him back into stasis, but attempted murder is not actual murder, especially given the circumstances here. He deserves punishment though, that much is clear. Community service is not exactly what I had in mind.. he didn't spray a toilet stall with grafity..

Talk to him again if you haven't. Then maybe go check up on your sibling later...I do agree though, I would've liked to have a different choice in the matter of dealing with him/

Also I adore Sam's jokes. As much as my own dad's jokes make me groan, I'm a fan of dad jokes and Sam's are spot on.

[Slant]

I've been putting points in Tech and Combat so far: trying to max out Tactical Cloak and Sniper Rifle trees before committing to anything else. Well, also Combat Fitness, as it lets you carry more than 2 weapons at once, which seems to be useful, given the limited ammo system. Again, I've only fought on Habitat 7 so far, so I cannot really comment on how well this build is going to perform. Just landed on Eos, let's see!


After 15 hours played, I only landed on Eos now. Given my completionist nature, I doubt I will leave the planet before I've completely exhausted everything to do there. That means, many, many hours of exploration.

I don't know what people are complaining about, but I haven't seen anything that would make this game inferior to previous ME games. Sure, some UI elements could be more convenient, sure, the save system is a bit wonky, sure, the static camera in some conversations isn't great - but every game had these issues, and Bioware tends to improve their games significantly with patches.

Also, unlike DAI, which I also liked a lot, but which felt like an open world game in DA setting, rather than the next DA games - this one feels like a 100% Mass Effect game. Although, I've hardly completed even 10% of the whole game, so I probably shouldn't make the judgment so early.

It's actually not that static in that you can move it around a little. I like it, since I exclusively play from the main char's point of view.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Talk to him again if you haven't. Then maybe go check up on your sibling later...I do agree though, I would've liked to have a different choice in the matter of dealing with him/

Also I adore Sam's jokes. As much as my own dad's jokes make me groan, I'm a fan of dad jokes and Sam's are spot on.

I did that. It's just that him trying to run is not adequate punishment. I mean his wife left him, which kinda is I guess, but they chain of events is all kinds of wrong and providing a bit more choice here would really help.

[Elim Garak]

I'm not liking the options in the First Murderer in Andromeda quest..
Why is the only option to throw him out into the wasteland or release him? In what justice system do you only have 2 options? Garbage, throw him back into stasis, but attempted murder is not actual murder, especially given the circumstances here. He deserves punishment though, that much is clear. Community service is not exactly what I had in mind.. he didn't spray a toilet stall with grafity..

Those are perfect options for the situation Andromeda Initiative is in - civilized survival mode.

You cannot keep him around and punish him at the same time as that will only escalate later.
You cannot punish him by death - that would be uncivilized and he didn't actually kill anybody anyway.
Imprisoning him - waste of resources.

Exile is the way to go, sad that his female partner goes with him though.
Releasing him because of Milky Way line of thinking is a possibility too, but he can kill someone next time.

Each decision has cons and pros. And you just shape your character by choosing one. What would Pathfinder do?

[May90]

Nomad seems extremely weak... Am I missing something? It is like a glass cannon, only, well, without a cannon. Some random Eos critters bit it to death, and a group of Kett blew it up in a few shots. Weird.

[Kaelwryn]

Nomad seems extremely weak... Am I missing something? It is like a glass cannon, only, well, without a cannon. Some random Eos critters bit it to death, and a group of Kett blew it up in a few shots. Weird.

Have you upgraded it at all? It is a bit..flimsy in the beginning but with a few upgrades its pretty decent.

[Kathandira]

Everyone is blasting through the game so fast... I still haven't even landed anywhere beside Nexus, I like to take my time to explore, to enjoy the scenery, to read the codex, to think over what an NPC just said and connect it to what else I know about the story so far...

Im right with you. 10 hours in, and im onnly just getting into the EOS quests.

[May90]

So Peebee is like Mission Vao and Neeshka? Definitely resembles their personalities.

Have you upgraded it at all? It is a bit..flimsy in the beginning but with a few upgrades its pretty decent.

I only got it, no upgrades yet. :/ I have to get off it every time there is a fight, which, I suppose, is reasonable at the beginning.

Im right with you. 10 hours in, and im onnly just getting into the EOS quests.

I'm loving Eos so far. Always liked sand settings!

[DarkAmbient]

Can you stop enjoying this please, I need to maintain my negative attitude about the game because I am never wrong.

[Kathandira]

So Peebee is like Mission Vao and Neeshka? Definitely resembles their personalities.


I only got it, no upgrades yet. :/ I have to get off it every time there is a fight, which, I suppose, is reasonable at the beginning.


I'm loving Eos so far. Always liked sand settings!

I like Peebee so far. She isn't anything like I expected from the early info of the game. She isn't annoying at all so far.

As for EOS itself, not a bad planet. Having the Nomad makes it pretty easy to navigate.

[Derah]

So, I don't quite understand the class system... I thought, when I unlock a new class, I would be able to assign all skills in it from scratch. But now, it turns out, you can have only one set of skills, and you simply decide which 3 of them you want for every loadout? I was thinking of getting Vanguard as a secondary class, which would compensate for Infiltrator's weakness in short range combat - but if I have to also level Biotic skills to make Vanguard's powers manifest, then it doesn't seem that effective.

The class System is extremely similar to that of Kingdoms of Amalur.

You simply dunk points into Combat, Biotic, and Tech. As you dunk points into these trees (either exclusively into one of them, or spread evenly across two or all of them) you unlock profiles, which provide passive bonuses to help synergize the skills you are unlocking. From what you've said, you seem to be going for an Infiltrator build, requiring putting points into Combat and Tech. The more points you put into both of those trees, the stronger the passive bonuses of the infiltrator profile will become.

Eventually though, your Infiltrator profile will tap out, at which point, you will want to consider putting points into something else, to unlock more profiles, and more active powers. Its a slow process that will take a while, but since there's effectively no level cap, it is possible to max out every single skill, and unlock and max out every single profile.

Based on a bit of light (and mostly innacurate, due to lack of sleep) number crunching, you'll be having enough points to unlock a second profile and set of skills around the lvl 30-40 ish. Until then, you have to stick it out with whichever your first option was.

Also, the combat training one chooses at the beginning is more important than I thought. Not only does it define your initial starting skill, and your bonus weapon when you meet up with Cora, it also defines which profile you have unlocked by default. I selected the Scrapper training, and have put my points almost entirely into biotics (save for a single point in shotguns). And for this I have unlocked the Vanguard profile, even though the other hybrid profiles (Sentinel and Infiltrator) say that you have to put 3 points into 2 trees (Biotics and Tech for Sentinel, Combat and Tech for Infiltrator).

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So Peebee is like Mission Vao and Neeshka? Definitely resembles their personalities.

Every single person was swearing she was gonna be the next Sera, but I took one look at her and the way she was described and what came to mind was indeed Mission Vao, and Vette (Not sure if you've played The Old Republic, you should if you haven't) instead of Sera.

Quite a few reviewers have noted that she was indeed their favorite crew member. I already predict I'm gonna be permanently running with her and Drack.

The human squadmembers are always the most boring ones in all the mass effect games. I couldn't wait to get rid of ashley and kaidan in ME1, Jacob and Miranda in ME2, Vega and Virmire-Survivor in ME3.

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Can you stop enjoying this please, I need to maintain my negative attitude about the game because I am never wrong.

Nevah!!!!!!!.

The internet unfairly decided to make Andromeda their whipping boy, anyone who actually plays the game can see that its not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe its not "Game of the Year" material, but its an enjoyable romp nonetheless.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Hm, after thinking it through over the last few days, I think I will be waiting about a month or so before I decide to buy the game. There are things that do concern me about this game, but I am also interested in playing it because of the good stuff people have reported about Andromeda. I am already too busy with Breath of the Wild and university for me to put my teeth into another long game.

[Derah]

Hmm so apparently I may not need to wait until ALL of the game finishes downloading before I can resume playing, I think its more like I need to wait for another 10% before I can continue. So.......12 hours maybe?

[Poppincaps]

The more I play ME:A the more I feel like I'm playing Dragon Age 2 all over again. A decent game with very obvious and objective flaws that gets almost unfairly criticized because of the Bioware name. Also after ME3, I feel like people almost want this game to fail.

Bioware has officially lost my trust with this game though. Bioware has created Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2, which I think are undoubtedly two of the best RPGs in the last 10 years, but they also made Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect: Andromeda which are decent games with clear flaws. I'd simply label Bioware as inconsistent as fuck and I'm not longer going to get hyped over their releases, because there's just no way to know whether they'll have a hit on their hands or just another disappointment. I've enjoyed all of their releases in the past 10 years, but they certainly aren't the top tier developer that they used to be.

[Cairhiin]

Same here. You're not alone. I've played those 10 hours of the trial twice and continued the second playthrough and I've just now done the first story mission on Eos. And I'm probably not going to leave the planet for a while. Taking my sweet time with everything and... contrary to popular opinion, I think the game is quite good so far!

It's amusing to see everyone bitch about those faces. People are so worked up to "be the one that rants the most" that they forget how fucking bad the character acting in ME1-3 was from time to time. The eyes, man. Bioware will never get the hang of them, so what? It's not a movie. The premisse is awesome and we knew this wasn't the political/military ME1-3 type of story. This feels like a proper pioneer/survival story.

This weekend is going to be all about the exploration of Andromeda.

Pretty much same for me. While I think the facial animations aren't that good and the lip synch is especially bad, they aren't any less than they were in ME3. It's never really been BioWare's forte. The better looking characters somehow have been the alien races in ME like the Asari. Humans have looked always a bit off in ME. One thing I find a bit odd, is that combat animations are extremely fluid (well bar the jump over obstacles one) but then the facial animations are pretty bad at times. My only real gripe is that the previous ME game was 5 years ago, and current gen games handle facial animations much better. BioWare could definitely step it up there. Some minor annoyances: no quick save and a bit bloated UI.

Nevertheless, it hasn't bothered me. I am having a lot of fun. I'm about 9 hours in, and on Eos, and the world just looks beautiful. Combat is extremely fun, and a lot lot better than in ME3.

[Orby]

The more I play ME:A the more I feel like I'm playing Dragon Age 2 all over again. A decent game with very obvious and objective flaws that gets almost unfairly criticized because of the Bioware name. Also after ME3, I feel like people almost want this game to fail.

Bioware has officially lost my trust with this game though. Bioware has created Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2, which I think are undoubtedly two of the best RPGs in the last 10 years, but they also made Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect: Andromeda which are decent games with clear flaws. I'd simply label Bioware as inconsistent as fuck and I'm not longer going to get hyped over their releases, because there's just no way to know whether they'll have a hit on their hands or just another disappointment. I've enjoyed all of their releases in the past 10 years, but they certainly aren't the top tier developer that they used to be.

It feels more like Dragon Age: Inquisition. replace the ping spam with scan everything. The open world that is just wasted space. Bioware with he last two games have created open worlds where open worlds don't need to be. Dragon Age: Inquisition didn't need to be an open world, the game carried itself well on the story and was awesome on its own. Why not just give it more attention to detail with smaller scale like Origins.

I also think they are not doing the frostbite engine justice. Its sucks that consoles get awesome games like Horizon and Zelda and us PC players are left with tables scraps like ME:A. While not a bad game this could have been so much better. ME:A is graphically a downgrade from ME:3 too. I know it was done with a side developer and not the mains studio butt hat shouldn't be an excuse.

By the way I am one of the few who actually liked Dragon Age 2 lol.

[Derah]

The more I play ME:A the more I feel like I'm playing Dragon Age 2 all over again. A decent game with very obvious and objective flaws that gets almost unfairly criticized because of the Bioware name. Also after ME3, I feel like people almost want this game to fail.

Bioware has officially lost my trust with this game though. Bioware has created Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2, which I think are undoubtedly two of the best RPGs in the last 10 years, but they also made Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect: Andromeda which are decent games with clear flaws. I'd simply label Bioware as inconsistent as fuck and I'm not longer going to get hyped over their releases, because there's just no way to know whether they'll have a hit on their hands or just another disappointment. I've enjoyed all of their releases in the past 10 years, but they certainly aren't the top tier developer that they used to be.

Meh, I don't see it that way.

If the games are still enjoyable despite their clear flaws, the company name still deserves the hype attached to their games.

As bad as DA2 was (Seriously, that dungeon recycling got to my nerves) I still enjoyed the shit out of that game, the game is a comedy gold mine when playing Sarcastic!Hawke.

I'd label Bioware as "inconsistent as fuck" if they released good games, and blatantly BAD games that are impossible to enjoy at any level. But if they alternate between releasing masterpieces of perfection, and decent but not perfect games, I'd say they're doing a good job. Far better than so many other companies.

Wanna talk about inconsistencies, look at Creative Assembly. That team created some of the most perfect strategy games of all times, such as Total War Shogun 2, and Total War Warhammer, but they also released incredibly shitty unpolished, and flat out NOT FUN entries such as Rome 2, and Napoleon. When I get a total war game, I'm essentially placing a bet, the game is either gonna blow me away, or its gonna piss the hell out of me.

Bioware isn't in that state. Every game of theirs I've obtained has left me as a satisfied customer. Even if some of them have had flaws glaring enough to make me say more than once "how come nobody caught this?"

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And speaking of flaws, here's ANOTHER thing about ME:A that is perplexingly annoying for me.

The key mapping for the UI.

In most games, the key that opens the map, is also the same key that closes the map. Not in Andromeda. I open the map with M, but then have to tap Esc twice to close it. Not okay.

When I'm trying to buy something in a shop, I have to press Spacebar to select an item, enter to finish transaction, then spacebar again to confirm. Why can't I do all of it with enter? or with spacebar? why this alternating? its like this for a lot of menus, to confirm or select something, you need to press spacebar sometimes, and enter on others. Why? And there's no way to remap that BTW.