Mass Effect Andromeda Hype Thread-GS:6! UPDATE: Improving animations, performance, etc. (Huge improvement for eyes)

@FLOPPAGE_50:

That is not what I said. I said they used the TRIAL to push EA Access subs, not the other way around. And it worked, a lot of people (including me) signed up for 1 month to get the trial. Now it remains to be seen if the early sections (which aren't great) are enough to get people to drop $60. Personally I think they are going to lose a lot a sales because of how mediocre the beginning sections are.

LMAO

I lol'd! What's with her eye's? They're really out of place! I also heard you can't select a Caucasian colored in the character customization menu.

@davillain-: Yep, bad decisions; bad decisions everywhere!

However, due to its plot, the game doesn't come together properly and does a poor job setting up ME3 without two DLCs.

Make an East Asian Sara Ryder and much of her facial animation problems disappear.

One thing for certain, this game will bring us a lot of funny videos.

The animations are worse because they are "better." It's incredibly obvious Bioware got too excited about having more moving parts and more complex animation skeletons than ME1-3, but then paid no attention to whether any of these animations caused huge distractions that everyone could pick up on. Eyes twitch like they might in real life, but they twitch way too hard making every person look deranged. Eyes blink, but they stay ridiculously wide if they aren't shut. Mouths move with more parts, but they wildly exaggerate every pronunciation, or on the flipside, emote in the same way a robot might, still weirdly turning down or up into smiles and frowns, but with more polygons moving it looks uncomfortable and strange. And of course walking cycles are ridiculous. Bioware not only used hand-made animations, but also it seems like they did not consult a single character modeler at any point to make sure everything looked okay. Only reason anyone is even saying the aliens look okay is because you don't expect an alien to look normal, they don't fall into uncanny valley in the same way.

As for the "Asian" model thing, firstly sorry all Asians this conversation is probably racist, but second I suspect it improves the look because having tinier eyes and mouths forces the animations to be smaller as well, making them far less noticeable. No helping some of the terrible body movement animations though.

You can't customize away the shit-in-pants walk cycles that are showing up.

@davillain-: Question, if i download the trial will I still have to preload the actual game ?

Disagree - I thought it did the job just fine.

here's gameinformers take. at 18:38

Lets see, the idiotic plot device that causes so many philosophical issues and weakens the aspect of mortality in the series, the seeker swarm from nowhere that Mordin obtains, the absolutely wacky and bizarre Horizon mission with scenes basically out of place, TIM knowing somethings is a trap but lets Shepard walk into it without any warning with no benefit to him, the idiotic mission to nowhere to get all combat members of the ship so the crew can get kidnapped, and the downright bizarre terminator baby. The main plot of ME2 is BAD, and to look past it while criticizing the ME3 ending is hypocritical. ME2's main storyline makes absolutely no sense, it was a collection of story bits thrown together, probably to meet the deadline for game release.

ME2's plot could be average and it would be the masterpiece as people make it out to be, but its not. The story is awful, and detracts from the series.

The only thing I know is, when you do download the Trail and when the time is up, you'll be able to save your progress when you purchase the game and as for pre-load, I don't think so since the game file is still up on my main screen.

Made a Video on my thoughts, hint I thoroughly enjoyed it and want more.

Yeah mate. You didn't like the game. We get it. (Although you seem to be as confused as I am whether you're hating on ME2 or ME3). I don't know why you're continuing to rant about a 7 year old game to people who've already cemented their opinion of the game.

Actually I like ME2, but people just want to ignore its faults while bashing ME3 and MEA. I do think ME3 is better than ME2 overall.

I don't think there has been a single game that made me laugh out loud as much as this one. The gifs are simply marvelous.

@silversix_: Yeah *chuckles* I laughed my ass off!

lol your avi

This game feels unpolished and rushed. The f*** happened, isn't Mass Effect meant to be a AAA franchise?

Even fallout 4 has better facial animation than andromeda

I've never once in my life concerned myself with animations the way the kids are. It's sad... Been reading lot so comments on lots of upcoming games and the general tenor around all of them has been performance based... Animations, frame rate, resolution... Not one of them mentioning the video games themselves.

Almost feel like we're at the point where the video game aspect doesn't matter.

I didn't read the whole thread, but everyone seems to be hating on the game!

Is there any proof that it will be a bad overall game, or is it just about animations? I had high hopes for this one.

Indeed.

It's not like other games are great at facial animations, and in MEA's case, it's been blown outta proportion, bugs and glitches are common in any game and MEA will get a Day1 patch that will resolve most of them.

Overall, those who consistently bitch about animations are only looking for ways to convince themselves to not buy the game or are just flat out trolls, should have Bioware done a better job? absolutely, do they deserve to get criticized? absolutely, but being so fixated on the matter to the point that gameplay and other aspects are overshadowed is nonsensical and absurd.

@PAL360: it's just the anamation's. If you have a Xbox one you may have frame rate issues.

Lol look at this RPS article

Srsly look at the complaints:

2. It doesn’t take full advantage of its concept

10. It’s very blue

I haven’t found Mass Effect Andromeda to be objectionable or even a huge lapse in quality, but I have struggled to care about anyone. Personalities are either broad or buried behind too many layers of exposition, your own character’s role is confused, the third-person combat feels routine and, most of all, this new galaxy feels oddly similar to so many other space marine games.

5 HOURS! 5HOURS into the game and they jump into conclusions like this!

I mean how in the hell can you make a connection with characters while you haven't even gotten to know them, even in real life that's not possible.

Why can't they just play the damn game and beat it so they can weigh in on it is just beyond me.

And RPS is supposedly one of the best websites, this is embarrassing.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/no-mass-effect-andromeda-animation-improvements-co/1100-6448802/

That's it, preorder canceled. :P

I kid tho I do think I'm gonna wait a while before buying, no day one for me.

Yeah I saw that and read the article this morning. It just blows Bioware didn't pay attention to find out that the models, animations are disappointing yes but not a game breaker for me however, the combat in this game is fluid as ever cause I'm just trying to adjust my ME3 gameplay & in with the new one. So with that, this is still a day one buy for me on PC and I'm glad Bioware is aware the issues and day one patches never bother me anyways.

Understood and heck, I'm not certain I won't be playing it day one since ME is way up there as one of my favorite VG franchises and on impulse alone I'll likely bite. :)

better animation makes the game more immersive for its audience , especially in a game like Mass Effect that characters converse face-to-face most of the time

Yeah, I'm gonna get the game Day 1 and will play it myself and form my own opinion.

The thing is, I hate this negativity and bitching around the game based on a 5 hour playthrough, it's not fair, granted it's EA's fault but what's happening is quite pretentious, it's a RPG and one should pour in at least 30 hours to have a founded opinion.

@the_master_race: nah, that's a bunch of garbage right there. Immersiveness in gaming happens as a sum of its parts. The art style, the meaningfulness of its missions and side missions. The characters dialog, and relationships... The "who am I and what am I doing here" means infinitely more than picking apart the facial animations of conversation cut scenes, which mind you are filled with video game characters as displayed on machines that do not offer photo realism as a feature... No game has made me feel more connected to its characters because of its facial animations. Not a single game. They are not real people, they are not in real places. They are video game people in video game places. There is no lines being blurred... Nathan drake looks like a video game person, LANoire looked like video game people... Witcher 3 looked liked video game people... The worth of all of those games were determined by the substance of the actions YOU make with the characters and the imagination you apply to the fake world you are in. Never has it mattered to the execution of the narrative or the relationship of the characters that facial animations look computer generated... Never. They all do.

If you want to bang up Bioware because they didn't seem to evolve their animations to meet some of the more progressive attempts in the industry, sure, go ahead and fallout4 the hell out of mass effect, but this stance that somehow gamers won't be immersed into the game because the characters lips move funny or the animations seem unevolved is ridiculous.... The game has over 1000 speak able characters which equates to adventure, the potential of meaningful moments which immerse you to your place within it faaaar more than a characters wonky run, or facial expression.

it actually makes me question whether gamers have an imagination at all or if they've spent too much of their lives playing with other people's imaginations to the point that they don't know how to have one of their own.

IDK why people are bitching about the characters. So far the only one I dont give a shit about is Liam. Cora is a fucking human Asari Commando, whats not to like?

Couldn't agree more.

Now you can see those saweet animations in 4K. :P

J/K and PSA....

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/new-mass-effect-andromeda-trailer-shows-4k-pc-game/1100-6448804/

I think the dumbest criticism I've seen is people saying that they don't give a meaningful reason for the Andromeda Initiative. Like, being the first fucking creatures in history to go explore a new and unknown galaxy isn't adventure enough? ****, why did we ever go to the moon in the first place then?

:D

Great video, PC version is obviously the best.

I kinda agree. On the one hand, it is a letdown that a 2017 AAA game of the caliber of Mass Effect features these occasional low quality animations and perhaps the game required a delay in order to receive additional polishing. But to simply dismiss the entire game because of this is foolish imo and those that do so, well it's their loss. If other aspects of the game hold (world design, story, characters, combat, ME feel) then I'll consider my money well-spent.

Some ppl are hell-bent on downplaying the game, so it's not a surprise.

Man i'm just tried of all this, March 23rd can't come soon enough.

Thanks man.

I'm also a huge ME fan, and from what i have seen so far, the animations and graphics are good to me. I was more worried about everything else (story, character, lore, gameplay, etc), but it's good to hear those aspects will not disappoint.

@dreman999: Thanks :) I was worried about other aspects, the graphics look good to me. I'll be playing on the Pro. Hopefully it doesn't have dips on that system.

I spent an hour reading through threads on Reddit yesterday and honestly the response seemed to be overwhelmingly positive. Most people enjoyed it to varying extents. This place has been a try hard cesspit of negativity since long before the Trial launched.

For me however, gameplay is very smooth and enjoyable. And I absolutely love the exploration. Then again I've been waiting for an open world game like Mass Effect for a while Besides Witcher 3. I still need to hit up the multiplayer to get my impressions on that. I feel like people are nitpicking visuals and ignoring the fun stuff like blasting an enemy in the face with explosive weapons and I'll say this, the Aliens in Andromeda are all okay and spot-on, it's the Humans that everyone is nitpicking and I agree, but that doesn't take away my enjoyment of the game and I'm gonna be there launch day.

@davillain-: Yeah, i read your impressions and others who've played and it really relieved me, but majority of websites and social media in general, have been bashing the game so far and as they have a significant amount of exposure i'm worried that the game's success would get affected by them negatively, I know it's my enjoyment that matters the most but i can't be indifferent towards the success of it.

With that being said, we haven't seen a huge chunk of the game yet, so i hope it turns out to be a fantastic game as a package.

@mjorh: All will be good, I'm sure the game will be fine on launch day since this is the newest Mass Effect game we are getting since it's been 5 years after ME3 release.

That right there would have been so sweet and really personalize the game for gamers. They should have done it. :D

@silversix_:

Hahahahah.... Always the funny gif... Love it. :D