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

This one is a bit different (more fluid), I feel like it's been improved, and the impressions also speak highly of combat. Gotta wait and see.

And presentation is great beside the human facial animations.

@SerOlmy said:

@uninspiredcup said:

@goldenelementxl said:

I don't understand how the facial animations are so much worse than last gen...

Technically 3.

^This, 1 million times this.

I have been saying it in numerous threads regarding both ME:A and previously Bethesda games. How in the f*** are modern games getting a pass on these objectively awful facial animations (look at the bottom image, only the eyes and mouth are being rigged)? Half-Life 2 came out 13 years ago for god's sake and since then they have only improved on the facial modeling/animation/synching. I mean even FEAR came out 10+ years ago, and while their facial tech wasn't quite as good as what Source can do, it was still way better than this garbage. We get yearly CoD/BF games with much better animations than this.

In these dialogue heavy modern RPGs (Skyrim, Fallout 3-4, ME3 and 4) this is seriously distracting and immersion breaking. I cannot overstate how annoying this is to me. It may have been excusable 5-6 years ago, but come the f*** on, how can you not license some decent tech for facial animations that does more than (bad) eye and mouth rigging when Source engine games nearly perfected it more than a decade ago. EDIT- This is Frostbite 3, same as BF1 and several others, all of which have much better facial animations, making this even more inexcusable.

/rant

As much as i don't care that much about this, I gotta say it's utterly unacceptable and you're right to be pissed off.

Don't think so

Glad to hear that.

9/10 hype

The day I let facial animations affect my enjoyment of a game is the day I put my controller down and give up the hobby.

The humans look more alien than the actual aliens.

Really enjoying it so far.

The animations are not that bad, way overblown.. they match Inquisition levels, and the walking animations/shooting are not perfect but they're not as bad as ME1.

It feels like Mass Effect, and I'm glad.. DA:I did not feel like Origins.

@mjorh said:

@SerOlmy said:

@uninspiredcup said:

@goldenelementxl said:

I don't understand how the facial animations are so much worse than last gen...

Technically 3.

^This, 1 million times this.

I have been saying it in numerous threads regarding both ME:A and previously Bethesda games. How in the f*** are modern games getting a pass on these objectively awful facial animations (look at the bottom image, only the eyes and mouth are being rigged)? Half-Life 2 came out 13 years ago for god's sake and since then they have only improved on the facial modeling/animation/synching. I mean even FEAR came out 10+ years ago, and while their facial tech wasn't quite as good as what Source can do, it was still way better than this garbage. We get yearly CoD/BF games with much better animations than this.

In these dialogue heavy modern RPGs (Skyrim, Fallout 3-4, ME3 and 4) this is seriously distracting and immersion breaking. I cannot overstate how annoying this is to me. It may have been excusable 5-6 years ago, but come the f*** on, how can you not license some decent tech for facial animations that does more than (bad) eye and mouth rigging when Source engine games nearly perfected it more than a decade ago. EDIT- This is Frostbite 3, same as BF1 and several others, all of which have much better facial animations, making this even more inexcusable.

/rant

As much as i don't care that much about this, I gotta say it's utterly unacceptable and you're right to be pissed off.

Almost as bad as this:

I'm sorry I'm trying to be mean or anything but this is just sloppy, even by Bioware standards. I'm just gonna assume they didn't have enough time with the animation models and customization but this is just bad. Half-Life does it better and that's a shame Bioware didn't.

@davillain-: Yeah, there's no denying that human facial animations are just flat out bad.

+

This is a great article:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2017/03/16/this-is-why-its-a-bad-idea-for-games-like-mass-effect-andromeda-to-have-piecemeal-embargoes/#68e3decf690e

The problems with an embargo like this are:

- Reviewers have to pretend like they’ve only played the first few hours of the game, rather than however far they actually are. It may be easy to avoid story spoilers in that format, but your impressions of how the game, its story and its systems work change over time. But you have to really just reference how they felt in that moment.

- In this instance, again, Eos was the wrong planet to start on. In its initial form, it’s covered with radiation so you cannot go many places. Without getting into specifics, this is not accurately representative of either the full scope of Eos, or other planets that are less restrictive/more interesting.

- It is impossible to fully judge characterization in a Mass Effect game when you just get a few conversations and cutscenes with various characters in the first few hours. Sure, they can make bad first impressions and there can be bad lines here and there, but would I have been raving about Garrus and Ashley and Kaiden in the first three hours of the original Mass Effect? Probably not. Sure, they’re iconic now, but it is way too early to judge stuff like that.

- Certain aspects of the game will dramatically change as time goes on, and trying to figure out if the open world or combat or exploration is good in the first few hours alone is bad for a game that requires so much investment. For instance, one of my “first impressions” was that the new Nomad didn’t feel enough like the Mako to be very fun. Well, thirty hours in, and that has changed, significantly. Upgrades and new zones altered that aspect of the game dramatically. Many systems will change for the better, change for the worse, or stay the same, but again, in a game like this, it’s hard to judge all of this so early.

All of this is not to say that certain praises or complaints are not valid. Something like character animations being poor is not going to change in time, for instance. But so, so much can change in an absolutely massive game like Mass Effect: Andromeda, that I don’t think this kind of early coverage/play preview concept makes much sense. For a game that has bent over backwards to keep nearly everything about it under wraps, I don’t understand why this decision was made to have the first impressions roll out this way.

Do not take this as confirmation that I either love or hate the game. I am still playing and I am not going to say anything else about it, past what I said about those first few hours in my piece yesterday. It could end up being panned or being great, but the point is that games like this usually take a lot of a time to ramp up. Do you remember playing the first few hours of the original Mass Effect? Combat was clunky, there was a ridiculous amount of talking and half your playtime was driving around barren planets or wandering around an empty ship. But obviously things picked up from there and it turned into a great game and a great series. That very well may not happen here, but regardless, that's the type of game this is.

This was the wrong tactic for a rollout, both in terms of press previews, but also, EA Access, if I had to guess how players will react to the game’s intro. This is one case where an early preview may backfire pretty badly with judgement being rendered too quickly.

My advice?

- Take first impressions pieces with a grain of salt, my own included.

- Remember how slow the first few hours of many huge RPGs are.

- If you play the Early Access preview, do not judge the entire game based on Eos.

- Wait for full reviews to get the best sense of the game. Mine may be late as it is mandatory for me to do all sidequests and talk to all the people.

Everyone just…calm down. Not to say there aren’t good and bad things to say about the game in these early previews, but this is turning into a viral fire-tornado rather quickly, which I think could have been avoided

Really like it so far, about two hours in and im hyped

@mjorh:

Sounds like it was an immensely bad miscalculation on their part for a number of reasons that alone would not have been that bad, but combined is really damaging.

1. Limiting the gaming press to only talking about the first 5 hours, which many of them admit isn't great, then having to rationalize (rightly or wrongly) that is should get better.

2. Using the trial to push EA Access subscriptions (they got me to bite FYI), which only allow for 10 hours of play time again focused on the not very good beginning sections.

3. Bad design decisions in the early game - the first planet isn't very fun and the opening dialogue/characterization is bad (many of the later planets and story parts are much stronger based on what people are saying).

All this combined not only give the game a horrible first impression, but #2 also means it is going to backfire in terms of sales. People are going to get put off after playing the trial and then not purchase the game. So they literally shot themselves in the foot by baiting people into spending $5 for the EA Access to play it an then a good portion of them will not spend the $60 based on the bad first impression and assuming the entire game will be the same.

I am really trying to grasp the strategy here, because as the guy from Forbes said, these are some really bad decisions unless EA is trying to make the game fail on purpose.

Pretty much summed it up.

This is the company that sacrificed a good game, Titanfall 2, by sandwitiching it between the latest CoD and BF1 to slow down the former, so not surprising.

the movement is amazing. feels like they took some inspiration form halo 5

boost dodges, high jump ground pounds, floating while ADS in air. lots of verticality.

playing a vanguard never felt so good. you can really zip around the battlefield. can't wait to have some better stuff

also the AI seem very improved from ME3. enemies are more aggressive and smart and less cheap. the fiends are like brutes on steriods. and the robot faction is brutal

I agree, the AI has been pretty solid so far, I've died in a few encounters just to test how far I could rush up, you really need to play smart and use cover.

the bolded is false, they did not use EA Access to push the trial, EA Access has been around for YEARS and they do this with all releases.

you get the full game as a loyal paying subscriber for 10 hours, that's a solid pay off for 4.99 a month.

#myfaceistired

agreed, I was worried the keyboard and mouse wouldn't work well for this game after DA:I had horrible keyboard controls, but this feels amazing on a kb+m. Super smooth and responsive.

I bound the biotic throw to my side-mouse button and boosting up and using this on an enemy hiding in cover while hovering is a lot of fun.

@FLOPPAGE_50: it's still being used to push the trial regardless. you're paying an extra $5 for a demo.

@with_teeth26: I remember that. And everyone call femshep ugly then as well.

but no matter how you cut it the face animations are bad in mea.

depends on your gear too. we all had to at the beginning of ME3 but after we had good gear and high level characters we didn't need to. there is a learning curve as always. I'm sure gold will be able to roam freely after some experience and gear

No, I'm paying 4.99 for the vast library I can get and play.

There's about 20+ games I can play for that price.

The trials are added bonuses.

I'm only playing the XB1 version now, but will play the PC and PS4 after it launches as well. But i use a controller on PC lol. actually i use my elite controller on all 3 systems.

Not to mention all games are discounted for members.

yea... i think that point has been made and we can move on now?

what do you use to play the elite controller on the PS4?

I'm so disappointed in the PS4 controller, but if I could use my elite on it.. that would be dope

I think what really shot them in the foot is cancelling the Beta in the first place and just went on with this trail is what really gonna hurt EA/Bioware. We were promise to play the Beta which would have avoided all these complaints but after playing the Trail, everyone is now gonna think the game sucks just because the first planet is bad and horrible without spending more time with the full game after finishing Eos.

Cronus max.

they are like 60 bucks on amazon. work great but you do need to do some set up on it to compensate for the touchpad. basically the back button becomes the touchpad, the start button becomes the option button and the share button is back and R3. But you can adjust it how you like if your willing to take the time to do it. it has a lot of cool features.

https://www.amazon.com/Cronusmax-Plus-Bluetooth-Dongle-Sound-Card/dp/B01EB6LV4C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1489696190&sr=8-2&keywords=cronus+max

You also need a 4 port USB hub https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-4-Port-USB-2-0-Ultra-Mini/dp/B003M0NURK/ref=pd_bxgy_63_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B003M0NURK&pd_rd_r=DNJXMX6B6K7R95SGE33D&pd_rd_w=bWVjp&pd_rd_wg=WOe2n&psc=1&refRID=DNJXMX6B6K7R95SGE33D

and a couple of USB cords, one of them long enough to play with as your controller needs to be wired. at least the version I have is like that due to some sony BS trying to block 3rd party controllers.

NO! We must harp on it forever and ever! Its like the Song That Never Ends

@with_teeth26: as much it's a broken record. ...I think do have to make the point many times. Bioware needs to that something like this is unacceptable. Just compear the face animations to dai and you can see it's night and day.the faces don't move or emote. They are just stiff.

I doubt this game will get higher than 8 on GS after playing the trial. The game needed more time for polish. 7 or 8 out of 10 is my guess.

I really don't think the bad facial animations at the end of the day take away from the experience. You might have a few, that was weird moments, but overall the game plays great and it seems like it's going to be an awesome world to explore.

pretty much. I'm not sure why people are acting so surprised, there has been lots of gameplay footage showing what the animations are like.

if they ruin the experience for someone, thats their loss. I'll be over here enjoying the game. If slightly wonky facial animations are the biggest problem in ME:A, i'll be thrilled

Also...

here's some mp.

the first two ME games were great in terms of graphics by then , yes they weren't GPU King but the the graphic was really good for an RPG game and I think the reason most of people are trashing this game is because they couldn't see the improvement they expected from Bioware after 5 years of development , also mass effect was so popular and well-known for its hot female characters ,sure its not the main reason that make the game good but it's one of many things that made it so fun for its fans

Haven't played the trial, but my guess is 8. 8.5 at the tops.

And there are infinitely more important things than facial animations. Like, I dunno, story and world-building and character? It's not like you stopped reading a book because the protagonist didn't describe him/herself extensively enough.

you don't judge a book by by its cover , I'll give you that but it's really hard to trust Bioware after DAI , and as long as I can remember, ME2 had a great intro

@dreman999 said:

Also...

:O Wow!

Haven't played any of the Dragon Ages. But yes, ME2 was incredible, not only on a technical and gameplay level, but writing level, too, which is incredibly important to me.

ME2's main plot is objectively terrible, so not all the writing is good. The best written parts of ME2 are the loyalty quests.

And to reply to the one that replied to you, ME2's intro is terrible and the Lazarus Project is the stupidest plot device in the series. In fact, Bioware seems to struggle with intros other than maybe DAO (but then crashes after the intro).

Wow, I noticed a huge workaround to the facial animations, especially for the main character. The smaller the eyes and the smaller the lips, the smaller the problem. And really, somehow, they actually do facial animations of Asian characters far better than others. I have noticed this when the gameplay for the intro was first revealed and the Captain of the Hyperion having much better facial animation than everyone else. Some how the animation is indeed worse than the past games, except for Asians.

I'm so glad they stuck to the ME3 MP formula, it's really good. I don't mind the facial animations that much, that's most games. The movement seems a dozen times better than previous games though.

Still minus points on the faces, I can see people disliking it.

Then I'm not sure what you're doing in this thread, if ME2 is literally "teh worst thing EVAR" and how all the writing "objectively" sucks balls. There's more to writing than plot. It's called character, which I believe you mentioned as "loyalty quests".

the intro wasn't terrible , at least not to me and more than a good plot , I liked ME2 for its good narrative and stronger characters (except those collectors , so boring) ,

@the_master_race: after the fall from space it was boring. The Cerberus base and the abandoned colony we're pretty generic.