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

Also this

I experienced the same exact thing. I used an older save and it worked ok, but still had to do the annoying walk through the streets again.

Haven't gotten very far. I find my character a bit jarring, as well as other animations, but that horse has been beaten to death. I will say though the the only real problem is the eyes and maybe mouth. Those seem to be the most unnatural movements. Encountered some other glitches and bugs, but it's all right so far. I just finished the early prologue so it hasn't gotten very interesting yet, but it seems like those who said the first few hours were unsettling are kind of right, at least in my case. I like Cora more than I expected to and Liam comes off a bit unnatural at times (in terms of dialogue), but seems like an okay character.

I dunno, I definitely need to delve deeper, but the animations do make it hard to take things seriously.

I was dying towards the last couple of minutes.

Watched the last 10 minutes to see his conclusion and he's positive about it, I'll definitely watch the whole thing, I love the fact that he analyses games so thoroughly and is open-minded.

It's a slow start but it'll get better and better, so keep on playing.

After about 20 hours, i think the worst decision they made outside of the galaxy map and animations is the lack of a defined class.

Having to constantly switch powers and profiles is annoying.

Id much rather have a well rounded class and have to supplement with my party.

They took away all the party customization and powers

Edit: Also, why is it when you throw enemies off cliffs or edges............they dont die? It bugs the game and you cant activate a terminal or trigger an area clear because they jackass is at the bottom of the mountain with a small bit of health.

Took me over an hour to figure out why i couldnt activate the Voeld vault and it was because i used throw on a bot and he fell off the platform................and survived.

Happens on every planet, every encounter.

I just stopped using Throw altogether

if anyone wants to see a terrible playthrough of MEA watch Angry joes playthrough, Man criticizes everything without looking at another perspective. or giving things a chance, also when he rages and is wrong it's the best thing ever,

@navyguy21: that same thing happen though i had a quick save

ME Andromeda sold well in the UK.

http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2017/03/uk_sales_charts_mass_effect_andromeda_sits_behind_predecessors

The true culprit of MEA's mixed reviews.

This game has a huge narrative web. Its crazy how so many quest lines relate to each other. I am surprised game journalists haven't even picked this up, but games journalism is stupid.

Instead of having a linear story like the first three games, its a giant narrative web that moves along with events in the story. Even the loyalty quests have main narrative purpose.

In fact, it goes to show how the original trilogy hardly ever tackled multiple storylines at once, and did so really only through loyalty or EMS. And really, I am starting to think now that MEA is better than each trilogy game individually, especially ME2, which is heavily overrated.

He also seems to suck at this game. Seriously, I like him, but he plays like an idiot.

thats him with a lot of games, but seriously i am 100% certain he finishes a game then googles every little detail after wards to make him sound like he did everything

Something I don't care for... Picking the "spiral" option, which I guess is witty? Makes Scott Ryders next line a cheesy uncharted Nathan drake quip and I can't stand that my mass effect character sounds, and kinda looks like Nathan drake.

He's only bitching about the whole MP Microtransction which he forgets the fact that ME3 had this and wasn't a huge problem so I have no idea what the fucks he's bitching over for.

I wasn't aware of the collector's edition. This changes everything.

So did I read correctly and is it true; the ability to pause combat is gone? Lose all the strategics of giving orders to you team members and what powers to use on specific targets?

If so, that's a fundamental change in ME game-play that should have remained and may be a total deal breaker for me since the last thing I wanna do is play ME like it's Gears or something. :(

Well, yes, those things are gone but it doesnt feel like a gears game anymore.

They overhauled the combat a lot and its a better game for it, but the overhaul SCREAMS for pause gameplay and squad controls now since enemies are much more mobile and come from all angles.

Its one of the things i miss.

Squad controls are super basic and they dont listen or stay half of the time.

Not to mention they are weaker unless you upgrade them........................in YOUR skill tree...........which is stupid.

Fun game though, much better than i expected

Thanks for the confirmation my friend and I must say, that really, really puts a damper on things and probably the worst mistake IMO they could have made, I mean, heck with the facial animations and other complaints I've read, those I could live with but fundamentally changing what I loved about the team combat aspects when you could pause combat and order squad members around just plain stinks and now it won't be hard to wait for this game until I see it at about 10 bucks or less, sadly.

So I've played a bit of ME:A and I have to say that I don't get the harsh criticisms. This game is ok so far and the story seems interesting and it's moving along. It feels like a Mass Effect game running on a fancy engine. The animations aren't that bad and they grew on me a bit. The characters so far are decent and the gameplay is solid, except for the way you have to change shoulders when in cover. I keep forgetting to change the key mapping. Alt is an awkward key to press for something like that. So far it's an 8/10.

Haven't progressed that much to confirm this but i hope i get to be in line with you.

It's definitely better than ME3 for me so far.

As you said it's not like Gears at all.

But I think pausing would've made this fast-paced combat slow, what we have here is thanks to the removal of pausing and ordering your squad (which i loved it in the trilogy), let's be honest we had enough of that in the trilogy so the fresh air is much appreciated.

@SecretPolice: I hope you get it sooner, once it gets patched up, don't worry about the combat, you'll have fun.

I've assigned that to my mouse keys, if your mouse has extra keys I suggest you assign powers and changing shoulders to them.

@mjorh:

Thanks for the advise and eh, I buy things on impulse all the time so ME:A could be sooner than I predicted for me especially since just recently I did another play through of ME3 and pumped for more ME space opera sci fi goodness. We'll see. :)

I had a mouse like that, but don't now. I've always preferred the keyboard though. Thanks for the suggestion!

It's hard not to find comedy in these.

Is anyone having issues with the Biotic combos attacks in this game? I'm finding Biotic combos to be weaker, not the explosions themselves, but the lack of quality primers, and the longer cooldowns. Despite splitting cooldowns, the time for setups are much longer. ME3 combo was base 7 seconds (3 sec pull, 4 sec throw). Now it's base 10 seconds (10 sec each). We also can't under-weight loadouts for 50% CD reduction. It also makes wiffing a detonator or primer pretty rough.

The lack of warp and reave is hurting too. Those were our universal primers through either shields or armor. Now we only have singularity and annihilation field. Singularity only lets us put out 1, and the CD won't start until it ends. This means a slow cooldown, coupled with it's painfully slow projectile speed. Annihilation field is shotgun range only. Biotic Combos are weaker and not stronger enough in ME3 was and Bioware needs to patch up those Biotic attacks more so. Same goes for Tech Combos.

yea I get Nathan Drake vibes from the male Ryder as well. Sometimes Ryder talks to himself in ways that remind me of Nathan so its not even tied to the conversation choices all the time. They definitely tried to go for a more charming rogue type character which I'm not a big fan of either. I usually stick with the more logical responses and that keeps the cringey dialogue to a minimum.

Have you guys watched his streams? He actually thinks the game is okay in terms of gameplay and MP microtransactions is not his only complaint about this game. He is also dislikes the plot and the characters.

Yea, i REALLY miss the warp power.

On top of that, they nerfed the overload as well. Its weird now, doesnt convey the power of it at all.

Some of the new powers are cool though, but yea, that annihilation field is stupid

you seem to know things, a lot of the best content seems to be under 'heleus assignments' or whatever rather than Priority Ops (eg. deciding who runs things in Kandara). Are these questlines optional, or if you get to a certain spot in the story will it force you to complete them?

if they are optional I wonder how many reviewers rushed through the game without seeing a lot of this stuff

I think they just streamlined the counter-measures. Overload and Energy Drain are already there to take down shields, and Incinerate and the new Flamethrower have the anti-armor task. I'm kinda fuzzy but was cryoblast effective against armor? Either way it seems they placed all the defense counter-measures in the Tech tree.

As a general rule. Allies and Relationships have vital top of the line quests. Most Heleus Assignments are excellent quests but some of them can be clunkers, and Additional Tasks are hit and miss, but many Hub tasks are pretty good. Its the planet tasks that can suck.

70% of the side content is excellent, 20% have nice stories but could have better quest design (which is true in even The Witcher 3), and 10% of the side quests needed to be cut.

The thing is, Tech is easier because it can lock down shielded and armoured enemies easier than Biotics can. Biotics can end up being pretty effective against shields but unless you're going for a specific build, Biotics still aren't that effective against armour. Which makes no difference on Normal, you'll still be whupping folks with explosions for days. Anything harder than Normal though and you'll see Biotics weakness compared to Tech at least in the early going. Also the Flamethrower is the strongest Tech I use so far and it's almost like it never change from ME3 MP Vorcha and Geth Troopers when they had it.

How do you find flame thrower compares against incinerate; stream vs blast, range vs damage ?

Mostly been sticking to Shockwave speced to detonate AND set up combos. Followed by Pull and Energy Drain speced with a detonator and a set up. Pull into E Drain into Shockwave. Two bio bombs and they're all flying in the air from the Shockwave cc. Works great on Insane. But i do miss Warp (would use it over Pull) and Cryo Blast a lot.

yea I've finished Jaals and Cora's quest lines and both were pretty excellent. Huge bump in quality from the majority of side content in DA:I and even the older Mass Effect games (aside from the loyalty missions in ME2/3 I guess). Very much reminiscent of the side quest structure in The Witcher 3.

Incinerate was great for heavy single targets that you didn't want to get near but Flamethrower is a much powerful for most basic mobs control and I find it to be more effective on various enemies and can drop down shields more so and I pick Flamethrower's armor weakening and it was very effective as well. Incinerate is good for doing long tech combos from afar.

do it too much and it will affect his or her autodialogue.

thing is thats not how a reviewer should work it should be about an objective view not personal, sure micro transactions suck but does the game pressure you into buying it, do you have to buy the Transactions? Thats why I hate his Halo 5 review he complains about something that effects 1 mode and isnt needed at all to buy. That and complaining about length of SP when he played it on easy on 4 player co op was dumb.

thing is MEA should be taken slowly, hell he even said he should really play the game off stream so he pays attention and isn't distracted. Characters are far better than most think and plots while Cliche at times is not bad at all really opens up later on,

totalbiscuit was right, the lighter tone doesn't fit the game. You're supposed to find a new home for humans, thousands depend on your ass, and instead, you're flirting with every male and female you encounter. It simply doesn't make sense to me.

Also, what is up with the over usage of the word "vids"? Hearing it once surprised me. Its not something you hear very often if at all. But i've now heard it 6 times... SIX. Seriously? vids???

Yeh after playing it for a bit yesterday, I can relate to that. The game definitely sets a much lighter tone than the ones before, some may like it but I personally don't and I don't think it fits the series well either.

How is it possible for this game to look worse than the Mass Effect from 10 years ago? Did I miss something? Was this game still developed by the same devs or what??

@aia89: It's more or less made by a different team than the ones before, think this one had done some dlc's for ME3 etc

Probably a quirk of one of the writers, and since the game is basically the best possible outcome of a major AAA game being messily slapped together at the last minute, they didn't have time to proofread the script and iron it out.

Oh okay, then it makes sense. It's such a shame though.

For the most parts, the reason why this game is tone down is the fact that they remove the renegade/paragon in this game and Ryder isn't renegade enough at all. Bioware had 460 million investing this game and this is how they spend it? I can understand why most of the hardcore Mass Effect team left, it really hurt the game more then it should.