Mass Effect Andromeda: To Boldly Go

[Psyren]

It's N7 Day and we just got bombarded with ME Andromeda info, so I say, no time like the present to make a new Mass Effect thread. The old one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?427092-Mass-Effect-General-Thread-II-The-Other-Final-Frontier) I could locate is well past the necromancy threshold and there don't seem to be any others active in the subforum, so I'll link to it here since it also contains a trail back to all the other ones.

First, today's shiny new trailer, which has more story meat and gives us a hint as to the kinds of antagonist(s?) we'll be facing:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyZw_oqk7Q8

Stuff we know, spoilered for those who prefer more mystery:


Setting / Premise

- The "Andromeda Initiative" was actually started long prior to the events of ME3 - the original goal was merely to explore and colonize our neighboring galaxy Andromeda. However the Reaper invasion added far more urgency to the mission and rapidly pushed up the timetable.

- There are 4 arks rather than one, each containing a different race or set of races from the Milky Way. (One would imagine the Turians got their own.)

- Each Ark is led by a "Pathfinder." Our father (more on that later) is the Pathfinder of the Human Ark, so you can bet we end up with that title at some point. (The real reason for this of course is to give everyone we meet a title to use for us in spoken dialogue, similar to "Warden", "Herald" or "Inquisitor" :smalltongue:)

- Humanity's Ark (the Hyperion, as you can see in the trailer) arrives off-course, thus missing the others and the rendezvous hub, at least initially. (USA! USA!)

- Said hub is called The Nexus, and it was a large forward vessel / station sent ahead a decent time ago to pave the way for the Arks. We'll meet the other three Arks there; getting un-lost is probably the Act 1 "Finding Skyhold" extended tutorial phase.

- You'll also have a frigate called the Tempest, to be your "Normandy." There will be no loading screens inside.

- The beings on each Ark were in cryosleep. It's unclear how much time has passed since the events of ME3, though if that voice-over in the trailer is to be believed, the answer is probably "a lot."

- Confirmed races returning (so far) are Turians, Asari, Salarians and Krogan.

- The main antagonists will be an alien race called the "Kett."


Protagonist / Characters

- No more Paragon/Renegade.

- You're human, of course.

- Your surname is Ryder (an homage to Sally Ride.) Default names are Scott and Sarah, while your father (the human Pathfinder) is named Alec.

- Unlike Shepard, there are two Ryder siblings - a brother and a sister. Therefore, whichever gender you don't pick will still be in the game as an NPC (though probably not a squadmate, for reasons.) Similar to Bethany, Leandra, and Carver, there will be some looks customization (and likely some commonalities, like skin color?) across all three.

- Also unlike Shepard, you're considerably greener / more unproven. Basically, Bad Stuff Happens and the title (and responsibility) of the Pathfinder gets passed from your much more capable father's hands to yours. Shepard starts his game as a proven badass from level 1 - you are not.

- Alec (your dad) is voiced by Clancy Brown, aka Lex Luthor (or Mr. Krabs, depending on which you watch more.) I assume those are his silky tones in the trailer.

- There will be more romances in Andromeda than there were in the ME trilogy. There will also be far more squad dialogue; the squadmate with the least dialogue in Andromeda will have more than the one with the most in ME2.

- There will be more games (or at least the potential for more games) after MEA. There is also a NG+ mode.


Gameplay

- Andromeda is trying to combine what worked best from all three of the other games - notably, the sense of exploration/Mako from ME1, the squadmate breadth (and loyalty missions!) from ME2, and of course, the streamlined gameplay and multiplayer of ME3.

- Classes are GONE! Instead, mix and match various abilities (and weapons) to create your own builds.

- There are however, passives that reward a specific playstyle; these are called "profiles" and they are where the class names come back. For example, there could be a profile called "Adept" that rewards you for running with a biotic-heavy focus and light weaponry.

- There will be a respec of some kind.

- Abilities will have individual timers instead of global cooldowns. (Hello rotations and procs)

- There's a jetpack!

- In addition to some of our favorite guns, melee weapons like swords and hammers are being added.

- Cover is dynamic/contextual rather than button-initiated. Think The Last of Us instead of Gears of War.

- Cover is still important but the goal is to get us moving around the battlefield more.

- Our new vehicle is called the Nomad, and will be a zippier version of the Mako but with no weapons.

- Did I mention there's a jetpack?!



So feel free to discuss, or just talk about Mass Effect in general.

http://i.imgur.com/KKek3rK.jpg?1

[Dienekes]

In whose drug addled mind is the Mako "what worked best" in ME1?

Also, still no confirmation of the Elcor in an ark, meaning even less of a chance for the long awaited Elcor squadmate.

[Psyren]

In whose drug addled mind is the Mako "what worked best" in ME1?

Point :smallbiggrin: I think they meant more conceptually, i.e. the idea of exploring and a large(ish) playground to do it in, rather than the drunk-shopping-cart-execution we ended up with.


Also, still no confirmation of the Elcor in an ark, meaning even less of a chance for the long awaited Elcor squadmate.

I think they're boned, and the Volus too :smallfrown:

[Corvus]

After ME3 I'm reserving judgement. No pre-ordering and no purchase until I have heard back about it from trusted sources - ie players, not 'reporters'.

Hey, I happen to like the Mako.

If there are no volus or elcor I'll be sad. Or hanar. We need our jellies.

I hope one of the system they bring back from ME1 is the lack of ammo. Introducing ammo made zero sense. In ME1 a lack of fire disciple meant your gun was out of action for a few seconds. In ME2/3 it meant you were left with a club. No soldier would want that. Plus there would be the whole extra and unnecessary layer of logistics it would create. They are going to a new galaxy as well, one that you suspect would be technologically incompatible with the gear they took - if the ammo of the the new galaxy magically works in their guns then suspension of dis-belief is going to be shattered.

Unless Andromeda is populated by races from the Milky Way that did the same thing - decided the best way to avoid the Reapers was to flee to it.

[Dienekes]

Point :smallbiggrin: I think they meant more conceptually, i.e. the idea of exploring and a large(ish) playground to do it in, rather than the drunk-shopping-cart-execution we ended up with.

Which is more the pity. As exploration seems to hold my interest for all of, say, 5 minutes before I get bored and go do something else. Oh, what's over that next hill? Looks like another hill. Yep. That's another hill. Woo.

And don't even get me started on driving games. I ****ing hate driving games. It's the reason I haven't even bothered to pick up that last Arkham game despite loving the first two. I don't want to drive in the damn batmobile. That thing looks annoying as hell, especially since the gliding mechanics were so much fun in the last two games.


I think they're boned, and the Volus too :smallfrown:

Weird, you'd think the Turians would at least bring the Volus along, since they were their client race and everything.


After ME3 I'm reserving judgement. No pre-ordering and no purchase until I have heard back about it from trusted sources - ie players, not 'reporters'.

That's fair, though personally I really enjoyed ME3 right up until the ending. Some of the moments between Shep and the crew are some of the best writing Bioware's done.


Hey, I happen to like the Mako.

We will never see eye to eye on video games, ever.


I hope one of the system they bring back from ME1 is the lack of ammo. Introducing ammo made zero sense. In ME1 a lack of fire disciple meant your gun was out of action for a few seconds. In ME2/3 it meant you were left with a club. No soldier would want that. Plus there would be the whole extra and unnecessary layer of logistics it would create. They are going to a new galaxy as well, one that you suspect would be technologically incompatible with the gear they took - if the ammo of the the new galaxy magically works in their guns then suspension of dis-belief is going to be shattered.

Honestly, I preferred the ammo. There was nothing fun about waiting for your gun to cool down. I get that it makes 0 sense in lore, but really, if they decide to bring back the heat thing, at least make the cool down as fast as a normal reload. It's not like running out of ammo was ever really a problem in the game unless you were a sniper who never ran to pick up heat sinks. And, who cares about those dirty snipers anyway?

[5ColouredWalker]

I'm on the same boat in regards to me3 making me not preorder, but I admit to really liking what I see.

For example, biotic infiltrator with automatics, I've always wanted to do that, and a classles system works for that.

[VoxRationis]

Honestly, I preferred the ammo. There was nothing fun about waiting for your gun to cool down. I get that it makes 0 sense in lore, but really, if they decide to bring back the heat thing, at least make the cool down as fast as a normal reload. It's not like running out of ammo was ever really a problem in the game unless you were a sniper who never ran to pick up heat sinks. And, who cares about those dirty snipers anyway?

I'm going to have to go with Corvus here. Whether or not things make sense in lore is a big deal for me, and in any case, even on its own merits the no-ammunition matter worked well—it made the game different from a lot of shooters and helped create the sense of wonder and progress that ME1 was all about. And ammunition became a problem in certain situations—the last fight in ME2 was an exercise in ammunition depletion, made worse by the fact that even though heat sinks were universal, they couldn't be transferred between weapons once they were picked up. Collecting ammunition slowed down one's progress through levels, which was jarring because many levels tried so hard to impart a sense of urgency.

Edit: Also, I'm really skeptical about this. The trailer did not do justice to what I liked about Mass Effect. It was too flashy, too dramatic. Gone was the Star Trek feel of adventure and progress, or of choice—there's just some aliens that feel like killing us for some reason. The trailer focused entirely on conflict. There's no soft techno, or even the exciting orchestral themes of the later games—instead we get repetitive Trailer Foghorn Sounds. No focus on the exploration and interaction—just action sequences of people alternately getting up and getting knocked to the floor (a gripe I had about ME3 was how much time you ended up hobbled, acting out semi-cutscenes).

I do like the idea of getting to explore a new universe at the head of a colonization effort. That could end up being really well-implemented. Or it could end up like ME3's War Assets.

[Inarius]

After ME3 I'm reserving judgement. No pre-ordering and no purchase until I have heard back about it from trusted sources - ie players, not 'reporters'.

Hey, I happen to like the Mako.

If there are no volus or elcor I'll be sad. Or hanar. We need our jellies.

I hope one of the system they bring back from ME1 is the lack of ammo. Introducing ammo made zero sense. In ME1 a lack of fire disciple meant your gun was out of action for a few seconds. In ME2/3 it meant you were left with a club. No soldier would want that. Plus there would be the whole extra and unnecessary layer of logistics it would create. They are going to a new galaxy as well, one that you suspect would be technologically incompatible with the gear they took - if the ammo of the the new galaxy magically works in their guns then suspension of dis-belief is going to be shattered.

Unless Andromeda is populated by races from the Milky Way that did the same thing - decided the best way to avoid the Reapers was to flee to it.

In ME2 it was explained pretty badly, but when talking to Conrad in ME3 it gets explained a little better why they would switch to thermal clips. Biggest reason? More stopping power probably because of higher muzzle velocities which would generate higher amounts of heat. On top of that most militaries would probably equip their regular troops with the lowest tier of weapons which did in fact have heat issues after shooting 30 or 40 rounds. Granted it has a lot of logistic issues and those will be a big issue for Andromeda.

[Maryring]

What an awful trailer. I want Mass Effect: Andromeda. Not Battlefield: Andromeda. Still gonna wait for player feedback before I pick up the game. I'm one of the many who loved ME3 right up until the ending at which point my enjoyment disappeared.

[Morty]

The trailer doesn't really give us anything substantial, but what it shows about the antagonists isn't super-promising. Vaguely Turian-shaped aliens with growling voices? Hopefully there's a lot more to them.

I'm glad they're dropping classes, though. They had to keep them in the original trilogy to let Shepard keep the same one throughout all games, but there was no reason now.

Melee weapons are a curious thing. Will they be an auxiliary option, like the omni-blade in ME3, or will you be able to make a close combat specialist?

I'm automatically sceptical of any game marketing itself as focusing on exploration. But then, the open world of Dragon Age: Inquisition wasn't as bad as I'd feared, so I'm keeping an open mind. I just hope they don't add crafting or something.

[VoxRationis]

@Morty: Yeah, right now the antagonists all seem to be modeled after Saren. Not just turians in general, but Saren in particular. Which is kind of dull. I guess we're reliving the First Contact War?

Being able to make a melee weapon specialist would be kind of odd. It would be a symptom of the decreasing hardness of the Mass Effect series over time.

On a side note: Does "Pathfinder" seem like an odd title to anyone else? Like something better suited to a fantasy setting (or at least a sci-fi setting where the human culture doesn't have direct descent from modern Western civilization)? While the specific task of building an intergalactic sleeper ship to ferry a portion of humanity away from imminent destruction is unprecedented, the basic idea of "we have a ship, it is crewed by a captain" seems applicable anyway. Maybe bump them up to an admiral or something if you want to make sure they have appropriate authority. Possibly "Governor" if they're meant to be an administrator of a nascent colony.

@Psyren: So these people left the Milky Way during ME3? Depending on how that game ended, that could be kind of ironic. "We left our home to flee the destruction of our entire species..." *broods* "Hey, guys! Nice to see you made it to Andromeda! We beat the Reapers and managed to reverse-engineer their better FTL drives to beat you here. Anyway, you need a briefing on 200 years of technological development, and here's a map of all the places we've already colonized in this galaxy."

[Fri]

No, pathfinder is an actual job in military. I like the title, it give a sense of frontier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathfinder_(military)

Why I don't like is the rest of the trailer. It's just so generic "epic" sci fi. When I first heard about the premise, I was excited, I thought it'd be frontier adventure in space, no "save the universe from evil we accidentally awaken" or whatever, we have enough of that in mass effect. With personal level stories. But from the trailer it looks like... generic same 'save the galaxy' epic adventure like last one...

Also, on late frontier ships.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Centaurus

[Hunter Noventa]

I'm on the side of 'waiting for more information, not pre-ordering.' It's also really hard to get behind the fact that it'll be an Origin exclusive title on PC, because I hate Origin, so I might not even buy it at all.

[Psyren]

@Psyren: So these people left the Milky Way during ME3? Depending on how that game ended, that could be kind of ironic. "We left our home to flee the destruction of our entire species..." *broods* "Hey, guys! Nice to see you made it to Andromeda! We beat the Reapers and managed to reverse-engineer their better FTL drives to beat you here. Anyway, you need a briefing on 200 years of technological development, and here's a map of all the places we've already colonized in this galaxy."

By my understanding, the 4 Arks did leave during the big war. The Nexus meanwhile left some time before, possibly even prior to Sovereign, purely as an exploratory thing. It's all a bit unclear at this point.

As for whether Andromeda even knows what Reapers are, remains to be seen. Remember, the Catalyst's experiment was focused on the Milky Way because that's where its creators, the Leviathans, lived.



For example, biotic infiltrator with automatics, I've always wanted to do that, and a classles system works for that.

You can do that right now actually (Asari Huntress + SMG.) But yes, I'm excited about classless too.


And ammunition became a problem in certain situations—the last fight in ME2 was an exercise in ammunition depletion, made worse by the fact that even though heat sinks were universal, they couldn't be transferred between weapons once they were picked up.

How was ammo a problem in the final fight? The Human Reaper was dropping heavy weapon cases like candy, and those refill every gun you have. You can literally Cain him in the face twice, to say nothing of your lesser guns.


It was too flashy, too dramatic. Gone was the Star Trek feel of adventure and progress, or of choice—there's just some aliens that feel like killing us for some reason.


The trailer doesn't really give us anything substantial, but what it shows about the antagonists isn't super-promising. Vaguely Turian-shaped aliens with growling voices? Hopefully there's a lot more to them.

I do want to point out that they've said the Kett design is meant to be more humanoid, not as completely alien/hostile as the Collectors were. The designers want us to "empathize with them." So I expect that not all of them will hate us and there will be potential there for an amicable resolution and for us to flex our Federation-style diplomatic muscles. But conflict at the start is understandable; we are arriving on their shores en masse and starting to hoover up resources, and these people might be like the Protheans/Turians where "bellicose" is the default setting. I fully expect some big parallels to get drawn to the Refugee Crisis, which I won't discuss further here.


I'm on the side of 'waiting for more information, not pre-ordering.' It's also really hard to get behind the fact that it'll be an Origin exclusive title on PC, because I hate Origin, so I might not even buy it at all.

Honestly the Origin hate is pretty passé, they dumped SecuRom ages ago and they were the ones who pushed Steam into offering full refunds by doing it first. They also have routine free game promotions; I picked up Jade Empire for free, Nox, Crusader, and Dungeon Keeper, and there'll certainly be more.

[Rodin]

I'm on the side of 'waiting for more information, not pre-ordering.' It's also really hard to get behind the fact that it'll be an Origin exclusive title on PC, because I hate Origin, so I might not even buy it at all.

Meh, you barely have to touch Origin to play it. Bioware games are literally the only thing I have on there, and just logging in and jumping straight to my library is easy enough. It's a PITA compared to getting through another service, but if the game turns out good it's certainly not a factor in whether I play it.

I'll probably pick up Andromeda regardless, although I might not pre-order simply because I pretty much never do anyway. I don't feel the need to have a wait and see attitude, because as poor as the main plotlines of Bioware games have been getting the character interactions have only been getting better, and that's what I play Bioware games for in the first place.

All that said, I really hope they find a decent balance between Mass Effect's rail-shooter design and Inquisition's "single-player MMO" design. Both are okay for what they are, but still underachieved in general.

[Psyren]

The other good thing about Origin is that you can add those games to your Steam Library - Steam will then launch Origin and the game for you. You literally never have to even see the Origin client if you don't want to (unlike, say, UPlay.)

ME's rail shooter was indeed a problem - their biggest limitation was last-gen, hence needing to split both sequels across 2 discs. With current gen storage they should have considerably more breathing room.

[Morty]

@Morty: Yeah, right now the antagonists all seem to be modeled after Saren. Not just turians in general, but Saren in particular. Which is kind of dull. I guess we're reliving the First Contact War?



I do want to point out that they've said the Kett design is meant to be more humanoid, not as completely alien/hostile as the Collectors were. The designers want us to "empathize with them." So I expect that not all of them will hate us and there will be potential there for an amicable resolution and for us to flex our Federation-style diplomatic muscles. But conflict at the start is understandable; we are arriving on their shores en masse and starting to hoover up resources, and these people might be like the Protheans/Turians where "bellicose" is the default setting. I fully expect some big parallels to get drawn to the Refugee Crisis, which I won't discuss further here.

Yes, we need to see what their actual motives are. Their graphic/vocal design doesn't make a good first impression, but there's a lot of directions they could've taken.


Being able to make a melee weapon specialist would be kind of odd. It would be a symptom of the decreasing hardness of the Mass Effect series over time.

It would be, which is why I expect they'll be back-up weapons. Now I'm imagining going all Space Swashbuckler, with a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other. It has a certain appeal. If perhaps smacking too much of WH40K.

As far as preordering goes, I don't do it on a general basis anyway - with some exceptions. I just don't see much of a point in the practice in the era of digital distribution.

[Psyren]

Backup melee is a certainty given the usefulness of the omniblade for dramatic cutscene kills. I mean, shooting Kai Leng would have been nice and all, but straight up impaling him before the badass one-liner was easily far more dramatic.

Primary melee wouldn't surprise me either though. The N7 Shadow and the Krogan Warlord were both very well received in the MP (sword and hammer respectively.)

[VoxRationis]

As for whether Andromeda even knows what Reapers are, remains to be seen. Remember, the Catalyst's experiment was focused on the Milky Way because that's where its creators, the Leviathans, lived.

I meant that the Milky Way galaxy had recovered and colonized Andromeda in the hundreds of years between ME3 and ME:A, on account of having a bunch of advanced technology lying around with the central enemy defeated. 200 years is a long time for a scientifically active, industrialized society.

[Morty]

Backup melee is a certainty given the usefulness of the omniblade for dramatic cutscene kills. I mean, shooting Kai Leng would have been nice and all, but straight up impaling him before the badass one-liner was easily far more dramatic.

Primary melee wouldn't surprise me either though. The N7 Shadow and the Krogan Warlord were both very well received in the MP (sword and hammer respectively.)

I'm not ruling it out, no. I'm sort of hoping for it, even, since more options is always good. As long as it works and doesn't break such verisimilitude as exists in Mass Effect.

It's kind of curious that Mass Effect is much more willing to break the mould than Dragon Age. Is it just a sci-fi versus fantasy thing?

[Psyren]

I meant that the Milky Way galaxy had recovered and colonized Andromeda in the hundreds of years between ME3 and ME:A, on account of having a bunch of advanced technology lying around with the central enemy defeated. 200 years is a long time for a scientifically active, industrialized society.

While that's... possible, I don't think any post-war Milky Way folks will be coming to Andromeda any time soon, as that would force Bioware to canonize one of the endings. As far as the Andromeda folks will be concerned, they're it. Rather, I'd bet the timeskip will purely be "this is how long it takes to even get to Andromeda since there are no Mass Relays between the two galaxies, and that's why we need cryosleep to get there."

What would be interesting though is if an offshoot of the Geth show up. They're certainly popular enough to be kept around in the series, and they can also easily survive the trip. They can also propagate themselves endlessly if they just have enough hardware to live on.



It's kind of curious that Mass Effect is much more willing to break the mould than Dragon Age. Is it just a sci-fi versus fantasy thing?

Sci-fi actually has more flexibility than magic in some regards. It's a lot easier to justify swords in a sci-fi game than it is to justify guns in a fantasy game.

[Dienekes]

Sci-fi actually has more flexibility than magic in some regards. It's a lot easier to justify swords in a sci-fi game than it is to justify guns in a fantasy game.

It's really not hard to justify at all. Guns were around earlier than most the armor in Dragon Age. That's just Bioware showing how little research they do or their utter apathy toward military history. Whichever you think their motivations are.

As to people not pre-ordering, good. Pre-ordering is almost always silly. If the game is good you'll get it a week or so later. Nothing lost. If the game is surprisingly bad you save yourself some money. And all you lose is usually some pretty meaningless cosmetics.

As to the trailer one thing that interested me was the monstrous not-Thresher Maw seemed mechanical. It'd be interesting if the galaxy we're going to is overrun by AI. But it's probably not considering that villain.

The trailer is just a bunch of explosions spoken over by best Lex Luther, but it's a trailer. For a video game. That tends to be the case for a majority of them. But what they're saying about companions dialogue has me hopeful. Bioware writing is always best when exploring their companions and creating a sense of brotherhood rather than their actual main storyline.

[Rodin]

It's really not hard to justify at all. Guns were around earlier than most the armor in Dragon Age. That's just Bioware showing how little research they do or their utter apathy toward military history. Whichever you think their motivations are.


I'd go for C) The fantasy stories they draw from/are trying to emulate do not have guns, and people don't read fantasy for guns. How many D&D parties do you see with an arquebusier along to provide fire support? The lack of guns in a fantasy setting is just one of those breaks from reality that doesn't bother me, especially when adding them to the magic of the setting is an absolute gamebreaker. Semi-automatic crossbows like Bianca do just as good a job at filling the role without taking away from the swords and sorcery feel.

[Dienekes]

I'd go for C) The fantasy stories they draw from/are trying to emulate do not have guns, and people don't read fantasy for guns. How many D&D parties do you see with an arquebusier along to provide fire support? The lack of guns in a fantasy setting is just one of those breaks from reality that doesn't bother me, especially when adding them to the magic of the setting is an absolute gamebreaker. Semi-automatic crossbows like Bianca do just as good a job at filling the role without taking away from the swords and sorcery feel.

3 of 5. But my players are weird.

[Morty]

I wasn't really talking about guns in fantasy and swords in sci-fi - both things have their place, but won't appeal to everyone. I mean that Mass Effect's designers are willing to experiment and change the formula much more than Dragon Age's. Mass Effect has increased its character building variety over the games - arguably so between ME1 and ME2, but definitely in ME3. Dragon Age has mostly reduced it.

[Dienekes]

I wasn't really talking about guns in fantasy and swords in sci-fi - both things have their place, but won't appeal to everyone. I mean that Mass Effect's designers are willing to experiment and change the formula much more than Dragon Age's. Mass Effect has increased its character building variety over the games - arguably so between ME1 and ME2, but definitely in ME3. Dragon Age has mostly reduced it.

I don't think that has anything to do with sci fi and fantasy so much as what the games were for.

Dragon Age was supposed to bring back to the glory days of Baldur's Gate, which was itself limited by the D&D system. And there are pros and cons to class systems vs character build systems. Classes are much, much easier for new players to pick up and play and are harder to break the game with, unless the game designers have no concept of game balance (which ME1 adepts and DAO mages kind of show that balance is not really Bioware's strong suit). While builders give a lot more options for more experienced players to tailor make what they want to play.

Dragon Age is really trying to force the feeling of a D&D campaign, where your classes are supposed to work together. Which they kind of failed at in DAO with mages being able to do anything except open chests, DA2 tried to bring cross-class combos to force it to work, while DAI just did that silly locked door system, where only certain classes could open certain doors.

I do think Dragon Age would be a bit better with some kind of more in depth character creation. But they're not going to do it so long as they keep trying to make the game feel D&D-ish, and I'm sure some people are appreciative of that, even if I'm not one of them.

[LibraryOgre]

My bet would be that client races hitched rides on the Arks for their main species, with some folks maybe shoehorned into the human ship. I could see us, for example, carrying Krogan and quarians, simply because no one else would have them, and it's hard to have Mass Effect without Krogan and quarians. Figure an ark for every council species, and everyone a bit diverse in their ark.

Personally, I liked my solution to the thermal clips/internal heat sinks debate... different technologies that carry different purposes. Thermal clips are newer, provide a higher rate of fire, but also have the downside of needing supply chains to keep you in clips. (In my head, thermal clips are retrievable/reusable, just not tactically... they can salvage some from every clip to keep them going longer, but it's not something you can do under fire to have a reload handy). Heat sinks, though, have a greater sustained rate, if you know what it is. If you keep your ROF under what the heat sinks can handle, you can essentially shoot all day, which is ideal for some circumstances. Most civilian weapons are heat-sink based, because they require less outlay... buy your weapon and keep it up. Thermal clip weapons tend towards military, where a higher ROF and worse SROF can be overcome by logistics.

One thing I really don't want? ME1's inventory system. By all means, bring back omni-gel... but not the horribleness of a Quartermaster MOS.

[VoxRationis]

While that's... possible, I don't think any post-war Milky Way folks will be coming to Andromeda any time soon, as that would force Bioware to canonize one of the endings. As far as the Andromeda folks will be concerned, they're it. Rather, I'd bet the timeskip will purely be "this is how long it takes to even get to Andromeda since there are no Mass Relays between the two galaxies, and that's why we need cryosleep to get there."

Well, yes, I understand it's not likely to be implemented; I just think there's an interesting dichotomy between the mindset of the Andromeda expedition, the whole "We may be the only remnant of our species" line, and the very real possibility that the Milky Way is kicking it in lawn chairs, sipping various margarita variants, at the same time.

[Psyren]

It's really not hard to justify at all. Guns were around earlier than most the armor in Dragon Age. That's just Bioware showing how little research they do or their utter apathy toward military history. Whichever you think their motivations are.

I don't think it's remotely fair to pin this phenomenon exclusively on Bioware. How many guns are there in Skyrim? Dark Souls? Diablo? The Witcher? Legend of Zelda?

It's just not something that comes readily to mind when people consider the genre, and they're responding to that. It has about as much to do with "historical accuracy" as dragons do.


My bet would be that client races hitched rides on the Arks for their main species, with some folks maybe shoehorned into the human ship. I could see us, for example, carrying Krogan and quarians, simply because no one else would have them, and it's hard to have Mass Effect without Krogan and quarians. Figure an ark for every council species, and everyone a bit diverse in their ark.

Krogan are confirmed. I would hope Quarians are too but that presents all kinds of logistical challenges with their immune systems and no Migrant Fleet. Like, they could hitch a ride on the Turian Ark (if the Turians took them), but does that mean they have a sterile zone or something? And do they bring their anti-Geth baggage along? Do the Geth show up too?

I agree, they're popular enough to make the cut and we need a non-Tali squadmate badly, but there are questions.


Well, yes, I understand it's not likely to be implemented; I just think there's an interesting dichotomy between the mindset of the Andromeda expedition, the whole "We may be the only remnant of our species" line, and the very real possibility that the Milky Way is kicking it in lawn chairs, sipping various margarita variants, at the same time.

If we revisit the Milky Way or its inhabitants at all, my money is on the following:

1) It will be pretty far into the future - so far that any of the endings we choose, barring the Refusal ending, can be normalized. For instance, it will be far enough removed that even low-EMS-Destroy can have been recovered from.

2) They will do some hybridized form of the endings. There will be at least some degree of Synthesis, whether from the Crucible or from simple technological advancement; the Reapers will largely be destroyed (though perhaps not all of them), and there will be an AI based on Shepard kicking around observing everything (either the specific one we got from Control, or one that simply arose on its own.)

3) Some new catastrophe or threat will befall the Milky Way. This prevents even the magitech wonderland of Synthesis from solving all the setting's problems forever, and gives the Andromeda colonists a reason to return home (they need our help.)

[Dienekes]

I don't think it's remotely fair to pin this phenomenon exclusively on Bioware. How many guns are there in Skyrim? Dark Souls? Diablo? The Witcher? Legend of Zelda?

It's just not something that comes readily to mind when people consider the genre, and they're responding to that. It has about as much to do with "historical accuracy" as dragons do.


Ah, but just because others are doing it doesn't change my statement. The original point of contention was that it was harder to justify guns in a fantasy setting, when, in fact it is hilariously easy to justify guns in a fantasy setting. Just because very few people do it doesn't change how easy it is to justify.

Also I thought some NPCs had arquebuses in Witcher. I could be misremembering, it's been awhile since I played them.

[Psyren]

Ah, but just because others are doing it doesn't change my statement. The original point of contention was that it was harder to justify guns in a fantasy setting, when, in fact it is hilariously easy to justify guns in a fantasy setting. Just because very few people do it doesn't change how easy it is to justify.

Your definition of "easy" appears to merely mean "guns are something they could technically implement and historically justify." Which ignores the third aspect, "and this is something our core audience would receive positively enough to be worth the effort." Unfortunately for you, that third consideration is the most important one, and it's the one people (including myself) are thinking of when we say "it's hard." I mean, you could with a few strokes of a pen establish and justify guns in Hyrule and Cyrodil too, that doesn't make it a good idea to do.

Now, with that said, I could see guns entering Thedas as a plot point. The Qunari have gunpowder (gatlok) after all; maybe they begin proliferating their war machines, or the dwarves get their hands on it and they do it, and we see the end of an age as firearms finally put the common folk on equal footing with mages and demons alike. Or maybe instead there is one character who, like Varric, has a very special and unique weapon that only he (or she) can use - a gun rather than a mechanized crossbow.



One thing I really don't want? ME1's inventory system. By all means, bring back omni-gel... but not the horribleness of a Quartermaster MOS.

There will be crafting and scanning, so I expect at least more inventory that we had in ME3. After all, they have to give you a reason to drive around on all these worlds.

[Dienekes]

Your definition of "easy" appears to merely mean "guns are something they could technically implement and historically justify." Which ignores the third aspect, "and this is something our core audience would receive positively enough to be worth the effort." Unfortunately for you, that third consideration is the most important one, and it's the one people (including myself) are thinking of when we say "it's hard." I mean, you could with a few strokes of a pen establish and justify guns in Hyrule and Cyrodil too, that doesn't make it a good idea to do.

Now, with that said, I could see guns entering Thedas as a plot point. The Qunari have gunpowder (gatlok) after all; maybe they begin proliferating their war machines, or the dwarves get their hands on it and they do it, and we see the end of an age as firearms finally put the common folk on equal footing with mages and demons alike. Or maybe instead there is one character who, like Varric, has a very special and unique weapon that only he (or she) can use - a gun rather than a mechanized crossbow.



I think Zelda has a lot more free than you make it, considering one of their last games had a train. But Zelda always tries to be childish, dark, but childish, where even their bombs and explosives (both of which are by the way far out of the normal fantasy mold) are given a coat of color and fancy about them to make them palatable to the game, which guns tend to be harder to do. I also think Japan tends to not focus on guns, just in general with their games.

Cyrodiil I'll be honest, I don't know much about. Skyrim was one of those exploration games where I did, as I said earlier, explored for about 5 minutes and got bored, because I just didn't care what was over that next hill. 90% of the time it was just another hill. And the 10% of the time it wasn't it was just some bear or a skeleton lord that was just sitting there right outside of town for some reason, or a giant. But, I will say, I did get some amusement out of how high that giant launched me.

But all this is still side-stepping the point, that fantasy itself can quite easily justify, not just guns, but quite a lot of random concepts. Now they may not all be of interest to every player, but hell, that's the case currently. I still have about 0 desire to play as a mage, for example, but fantasy settings in general still can be created to cater to a very wide range of interest and experimentation. From the hyper realistic Calradia to the childlike Hyrule, to the grim and somehow still cartoon-y World of Warhammer which is full of guns, and weird nonsensical magic.

It's just the choices of the game makers. And if anything, the ridiculous popularity of World of Warcraft shows guns in fantasy can thrive, and show they can be easily justified and accepted, provided the they fit the tone of the game (which I would argue they definitely would in Dragon Age) and they are presented in a way that fits the setting. Which honestly in most cases should just be, they're there, why wouldn't they be? But for some reason people like explanations like "a dwarf made them" I don't know, people are strange that way.

[Morty]

There will be crafting and scanning, so I expect at least more inventory that we had in ME3. After all, they have to give you a reason to drive around on all these worlds.

Disappointing, but not surprising. I trust them to at least streamline and organize it better than the DA:I crew did.

[Psyren]

I think Zelda has a lot more free than you make it, considering one of their last games had a train. But Zelda always tries to be childish, dark, but childish, where even their bombs and explosives (both of which are by the way far out of the normal fantasy mold) are given a coat of color and fancy about them to make them palatable to the game, which guns tend to be harder to do. I also think Japan tends to not focus on guns, just in general with their games.

Cyrodiil I'll be honest, I don't know much about. Skyrim was one of those exploration games where I did, as I said earlier, explored for about 5 minutes and got bored, because I just didn't care what was over that next hill. 90% of the time it was just another hill. And the 10% of the time it wasn't it was just some bear or a skeleton lord that was just sitting there right outside of town for some reason, or a giant. But, I will say, I did get some amusement out of how high that giant launched me.

But all this is still side-stepping the point, that fantasy itself can quite easily justify, not just guns, but quite a lot of random concepts. Now they may not all be of interest to every player, but hell, that's the case currently. I still have about 0 desire to play as a mage, for example, but fantasy settings in general still can be created to cater to a very wide range of interest and experimentation. From the hyper realistic Calradia to the childlike Hyrule, to the grim and somehow still cartoon-y World of Warhammer which is full of guns, and weird nonsensical magic.

It's just the choices of the game makers. And if anything, the ridiculous popularity of World of Warcraft shows guns in fantasy can thrive, and show they can be easily justified and accepted, provided the they fit the tone of the game (which I would argue they definitely would in Dragon Age) and they are presented in a way that fits the setting. Which honestly in most cases should just be, they're there, why wouldn't they be? But for some reason people like explanations like "a dwarf made them" I don't know, people are strange that way.


WoW also has computers, submarines, starships, teleporters, lasers, and all kinds of other anachronisms that make absolutely no sense in Dragon Age. It's a wildly kitchen-sink setting and thus not a good analogy.

I agree with you that it's a designer choice not to include them in DA, but I feel it's a justified one.



Disappointing, but not surprising. I trust them to at least streamline and organize it better than the DA:I crew did.

So how the scanning supposedly works is that your sibling (i.e. the gender you didn't select) will be stuck on the ship, due to some currently unknown issue that happens when you're both being thawed out. My current guess is that they'll be filling in the "EDI" role for you of being the expositional voice in your ear when you find things, in lieu of an AI. Anyway, when you identify resources on various planets, they will assist you with cataloging those and possibly with picking them up. I don't know that we'll necessarily have to wander the surface with pockets stuffed with Iridium (which is probably a good thing, considering.) It's all up in the air at this point really.

[Dienekes]

WoW also has computers, submarines, starships, teleporters, lasers, and all kinds of other anachronisms that make absolutely no sense in Dragon Age. It's a wildly kitchen-sink setting and thus not a good analogy.

I agree with you that it's a designer choice not to include them in DA, but I feel it's a justified one..

That's kind of my point isn't it. The original question was why Biowares fantasy is more stagnant. You said it was harder to justify things in fantasy pointing out guns. I countered that guns are actually ridiculously easy to justify. That Bioware decided not to include them is their own issue. That other settings exist with far wilder things than guns pretty much proves my point you can justify a whole hell of a lot in fantasy if you want. I think we agree on that, which is I think an admittance of a more nuanced starting point from fantasy is more restrictive to Bioware fantasy decided to restrict themselves.

From there we basically just go into a discussion of personal taste. Personally, putting guns into DA would feel a straight natural progression to me, to the point that I find it silly that some version hasnt been invented yet, considering there are magic runes that can imbue items with fire and electricity with seeming no fuel. It should be a synch for someone to use that to make guns or gun like objects.

Now does their absense really bother me? No not really. Or at least not as much as the fact no one seems to know what a damn spear is.

Fight like a Spartan, my ass.

[Rodin]

So how the scanning supposedly works is that your sibling (i.e. the gender you didn't select) will be stuck on the ship, due to some currently unknown issue that happens when you're both being thawed out. My current guess is that they'll be filling in the "EDI" role for you of being the expositional voice in your ear when you find things, in lieu of an AI. Anyway, when you identify resources on various planets, they will assist you with cataloging those and possibly with picking them up. I don't know that we'll necessarily have to wander the surface with pockets stuffed with Iridium (which is probably a good thing, considering.) It's all up in the air at this point really.

My big concern is that we wind up with hunter-gatherer stupidity. It was a major issue I had with Inquisition - the quest objective is 3 hills over, so I have no problem walking over there and duffing up some bandits on the way...but ALSO on that path is 15 patches of moss of various varieties, as well as a dozen veins of ore. I spend a load of time gathering all this crap, complete the quest and turn it in...and the next quest objective is 4 hills over in the same direction...and all that moss and ore has respawned. Meaning I gotta pick it up again. If I ignore it? The game is jumping up and down and waving this huge crafting system at me, telling me I could have awesome weapons and armor if I would just complete enough of this busywork.

It's tiresome but justifiable in MMOs, because they're trying to delay you because of the subscription model. For a single player game it's infuriating.

And with Mass Effect, we have the spectre (heh) of the Suicide Mission. Mine 500 Thorium veins to upgrade the Mass Effect drive, or your favorite squadmate gets blown up in a cinematic!

..Come to think of it, maybe my day one buy isn't as assured as I thought. Plot isn't a factor, but gameplay design surely is.

[Dienekes]

My big concern is that we wind up with hunter-gatherer stupidity. It was a major issue I had with Inquisition - the quest objective is 3 hills over, so I have no problem walking over there and duffing up some bandits on the way...but ALSO on that path is 15 patches of moss of various varieties, as well as a dozen veins of ore. I spend a load of time gathering all this crap, complete the quest and turn it in...and the next quest objective is 4 hills over in the same direction...and all that moss and ore has respawned. Meaning I gotta pick it up again. If I ignore it? The game is jumping up and down and waving this huge crafting system at me, telling me I could have awesome weapons and armor if I would just complete enough of this busywork.

It's tiresome but justifiable in MMOs, because they're trying to delay you because of the subscription model. For a single player game it's infuriating.

And with Mass Effect, we have the spectre (heh) of the Suicide Mission. Mine 500 Thorium veins to upgrade the Mass Effect drive, or your favorite squadmate gets blown up in a cinematic!

..Come to think of it, maybe my day one buy isn't as assured as I thought. Plot isn't a factor, but gameplay design surely is.

Aye you got to worry about the reviews on that one.

The reviewers will say that the games depth and expansive size is chalk full of goodies to discover.

What they'll actually mean is that each map has about 20 pointless gems that clutter up your compass.

[Psyren]

That's kind of my point isn't it. The original question was why Biowares fantasy is more stagnant. You said it was harder to justify things in fantasy pointing out guns. I countered that guns are actually ridiculously easy to justify. That Bioware decided not to include them is their own issue. That other settings exist with far wilder things than guns pretty much proves my point you can justify a whole hell of a lot in fantasy if you want. I think we agree on that, which is I think an admittance of a more nuanced starting point from fantasy is more restrictive to Bioware fantasy decided to restrict themselves.

From there we basically just go into a discussion of personal taste. Personally, putting guns into DA would feel a straight natural progression to me, to the point that I find it silly that some version hasnt been invented yet, considering there are magic runes that can imbue items with fire and electricity with seeming no fuel. It should be a synch for someone to use that to make guns or gun like objects.

Now does their absense really bother me? No not really. Or at least not as much as the fact no one seems to know what a damn spear is.

Fight like a Spartan, my ass.

Again, when I say "hard to justify" I don't mean "difficult to explain in the lore" - rather I mean "difficult to sell to the majority of the fanbase." While I can only speak for myself for certain, I'd bet a sizeable sum of GP that a headline reading "Guns Added to Dragon Age!" would cause a substantial backlash, one they can easily avoid by not doing that.

You don't think it would be a problem and that's totally fine - we'll agree to disagree.


My big concern is that we wind up with hunter-gatherer stupidity. It was a major issue I had with Inquisition - the quest objective is 3 hills over, so I have no problem walking over there and duffing up some bandits on the way...but ALSO on that path is 15 patches of moss of various varieties, as well as a dozen veins of ore. I spend a load of time gathering all this crap, complete the quest and turn it in...and the next quest objective is 4 hills over in the same direction...and all that moss and ore has respawned. Meaning I gotta pick it up again. If I ignore it? The game is jumping up and down and waving this huge crafting system at me, telling me I could have awesome weapons and armor if I would just complete enough of this busywork.

It's tiresome but justifiable in MMOs, because they're trying to delay you because of the subscription model. For a single player game it's infuriating.

I 100% agree. Gathering is my biggest problem with most RPGs actually. Inquisition even had the solution - let me find the nodes first, then send my mooks out via the War Table to harvest later - but they made the scraps and crumbs you can get via this method so meager that it was barely worth clicking the button to send them out.

What I would like to do, and what I hope Andromeda does, is that you discover resource nodes instead of indvidual materials. The more you find, the bigger your income when you send the grunts out to pick it up. And then, if you're so inclined and you need a little extra, you can visit a node personally for a little boost - say all my foragers have come back and I'm only 500 platinum short of that cool upgrade, but sending out the troops to get more would take several IRL hours; rather than wait, I can just nip over to Planet Platinumopia myself and jetpack over to some nodes until I can gather that small deficit myself.

[Rodin]

Again, when I say "hard to justify" I don't mean "difficult to explain in the lore" - rather I mean "difficult to sell to the majority of the fanbase." While I can only speak for myself for certain, I'd bet a sizeable sum of GP that a headline reading "Guns Added to Dragon Age!" would cause a sizeable backlash, one they can easily avoid by not doing that.

You don't think it would be a problem and that's totally fine - we'll agree to disagree.



I 100% agree. Gathering is my biggest problem with most RPGs actually. Inquisition even had the solution - let me find the nodes first, then send my mooks out via the War Table to harvest later - but they made the scraps and crumbs you can get via this method so meager that it was barely worth clicking the button to send them out.

What I would like to do, and what I hope Andromeda does, is that you discover resource nodes instead of indvidual materials. The more you find, the bigger your income when you send the grunts out to pick it up. And then, if you're so inclined and you need a little extra, you can visit a node personally for a little boost - say all my foragers have come back and I'm only 500 platinum short of that cool upgrade, but sending out the troops to get more would take several IRL hours; rather than wait, I can just nip over to Planet Platinumopia myself and jetpack over to some nodes until I can gather that small deficit myself.


I like the sound of that, particularly if you don't need to get out of the Mako for the initial scan. Drive up, lock onto it, press a button, no progress bar - just "Yup, we know where it is now" and go. Then just have a resource chart on the ship that you can allocate workers to, and you steadily gain them throughout the game. The less time-intensive it is, the better.

[Psyren]

I like the sound of that, particularly if you don't need to get out of the Mako for the initial scan. Drive up, lock onto it, press a button, no progress bar - just "Yup, we know where it is now" and go. Then just have a resource chart on the ship that you can allocate workers to, and you steadily gain them throughout the game. The less time-intensive it is, the better.

Agreed. Physically going out to farm things should be a bonus activity, not a requirement to progress.

At the very least, if we must physically go out and pick flowers, they need to work the jetpack into that in some way, or the Mako Nomad.

[Morty]

That's a resource-gathering mechanic I could get behind, certainly. Whether or not Andromeda will have that is hard to say, but I hope so. DA2 already had a streamlined method for it, but then Inquisition back-pedalled.

One good part of an open-world design is that there are going to be fewer areas where you can't return to. In ME3, they had to introduce the option to buy weapons and upgrades you missed, otherwise most players would lose more than half of them on their first run. Seems like it'd have been easier to just not put those things in an easily-missed corner. If you can revisit an area over and over, it's less of a problem.

DA2 had two high-end resources required to craft the best runes and potions skittered away in side-rooms of areas you only visited once - Isabella's final personal mission and something else. So if you didn't meticulously check every nook and cranny, no best craftables for you.

[VoxRationis]

I have to ask why a weaponless Mako was a design priority. Our problem with the Mako as players wasn't the turret, and there's certainly no reason to think that the Andromeda expedition is sufficiently safe that it merits the active development of a weaponless vehicle.

Regarding resource collection: I too hope that that would be something left to minions. In general, I should hope that a game based around being the leader of an expedition meant to restart the human race in another galaxy should include a lot of strategic elements in the form of resource management and workforce distribution.

[5ColouredWalker]

You can do that right now actually (Asari Huntress + SMG.) But yes, I'm excited about classless too.


Are you really saying Multiplayer counts for that? In any case I meant single player, though I suppose you can technically do that if you pick a biotic power as your bonus one for Shepard, which'd give you a character with a mix of tech, guns and biotics, just limited of all three.

[Rodin]

I have to ask why a weaponless Mako was a design priority. Our problem with the Mako as players wasn't the turret, and there's certainly no reason to think that the Andromeda expedition is sufficiently safe that it merits the active development of a weaponless vehicle.

Regarding resource collection: I too hope that that would be something left to minions. In general, I should hope that a game based around being the leader of an expedition meant to restart the human race in another galaxy should include a lot of strategic elements in the form of resource management and workforce distribution.

True, but then you'd expect the Spectres to be more than just like, one dude. Seriously, how many do we meet? I'm coming up with around 3 or so, not counting the humans. And two of those were evil.

[5ColouredWalker]

I can name more.

Shepard, Bau, Saren, Tela, Nihlus and the Virmire Survivor.
*Checks*
And there's a whopping 2 more named in canon. Woo.

[Rodin]

I can name more.

Shepard, Bau, Saren, Tela, Nihlus and the Virmire Survivor.
*Checks*
And there's a whopping 2 more named in canon. Woo.

Ah, I forgot about Bau. Like I said, I wasn't counting the humans.

I hadn't even really thought about it before, but outside of Shepard and the VS, the Spectres are:

Saren - Evil.
Tela - Evil.
Nihlus - Red Shirt.
Bau - Red Shirt.

Truly, an elite organization. Given their performance on-screen, it suddenly makes sense why the Council is so hesitant to believe you.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

It all looks interesting. Unfortunately I'll probably need a hardware upgrade to run it. And that's not in the foreseeable future. Counting on my subscribed Youtubers to run a lets play when it releases.

I actually might prefer the "unproven" aspect of Andromeda's protagonist. Any backstory you picked for Shepard was just a bunch of text (with Paragon/Renegade points tacked on for ME1, ugh). Better to start as nobody and then move on from there. Classless system also sounds promising; may need some idiot-proofing so unwitting players don't derp themselves.

[Inarius]

Ah, I forgot about Bau. Like I said, I wasn't counting the humans.

I hadn't even really thought about it before, but outside of Shepard and the VS, the Spectres are:

Saren - Evil.
Tela - Evil.
Nihlus - Red Shirt.
Bau - Red Shirt.

Truly, an elite organization. Given their performance on-screen, it suddenly makes sense why the Council is so hesitant to believe you.

See I gotta dissagree about Tela a little. Nothing about the DLC she was in says she was an incompetent agent, its just that she went against Shepard/Liara and their plot armor. Sure she blows up a whole building to protect her sources identity, but the council tends to willfully ignore what the specters do as long as it produces results. Other than that we don't see a lot of other agents simply because its a big galaxy, there are under 100 agents and some of them work in non combat oriented fields.

[Morty]

Classless system also sounds promising; may need some idiot-proofing so unwitting players don't derp themselves.

There will probably be ready-made, auto-leveling packages, or something along those lines. And respecializing. Then again, the last one depends on whether we'll have free pick of all abilities, or we'll need to pick them at the start of the game.

[LibraryOgre]

On the hunter/gatherer method, I would kinda like a gradual weaning away from it, depending on the plot.

So, at the beginning, you're dependent on what you find, because you're a schlub. But, as you grow in influence throughout the game, you can delegate some of it. Problems with the gathering, not the gathering itself, becomes a source of sidequests. You might CHOOSE to gather. You might need specific rare things to seek out. But there's little reason why the Dragonborn should be smithing his own weapons when he's multi-thane with a number of retainers, leader of the Companions, and head of the College of Winterhold, and there's no reason why the Pathfinder should be digging Thorium out of the ground, instead of just placing a marker and leaving it to someone else to gather.

[Psyren]

I actually might prefer the "unproven" aspect of Andromeda's protagonist. Any backstory you picked for Shepard was just a bunch of text (with Paragon/Renegade points tacked on for ME1, ugh). Better to start as nobody and then move on from there. Classless system also sounds promising; may need some idiot-proofing so unwitting players don't derp themselves.

Indeed, I prefer both of these too.

My one fear though is that they will toss class-based dialogue or interrupts too. If I'm a biotic and another character is whining at me about how tough biotics have it, I want them to acknowledge that I know what that feels like. If I'm an Engineer and we have to hack a door or turret, I don't want to be forced to delegate to a squadmate or slather omnigel on it.


See I gotta dissagree about Tela a little. Nothing about the DLC she was in says she was an incompetent agent, its just that she went against Shepard/Liara and their plot armor. Sure she blows up a whole building to protect her sources identity, but the council tends to willfully ignore what the specters do as long as it produces results. Other than that we don't see a lot of other agents simply because its a big galaxy, there are under 100 agents and some of them work in non combat oriented fields.

Said building was also on Ilium, which is outside Council jurisdiction anyway (it's largely the point of the planet.) Even if she was discovered the Council would simply deny involvement and throw her to the wolves, and discovery would have been highly unlikely given her employer (if she were going after anybody but the aforementioned plot armor folks that is.)

[Dienekes]

What is an interesting (to me) little tidbit is that I'm willing to bet that even though our new untested protagonist will not be as well trained as Shepard, he'll at least be able to shoot straight at level 1.

God the accuracy mechanic in ME1 was horrible.

Jokes aside, I'm really interested in being able to build my own class. A heavy soldier / non-stealthy engineer character would be great.

[Rodin]

What is an interesting (to me) little tidbit is that I'm willing to bet that even though our new untested protagonist will not be as well trained as Shepard, he'll at least be able to shoot straight at level 1.

God the accuracy mechanic in ME1 was horrible.

Jokes aside, I'm really interested in being able to build my one class. A heavy soldier / non-stealthy engineer character would be great.

Indeed! My first playthrough was as an Engineer Femshep when I saw that chart showing that to be the least played class/gender combination. Unfortunately, Engineers kinda suck in both 2 and 3. Being able to customize to play the way you want to will be great.

[LibraryOgre]

Jokes aside, I'm really interested in being able to build my one class. A heavy soldier / non-stealthy engineer character would be great.

"I wear heavy armor so people don't shoot me while I am ****ing their **** up."

[dinovo29]

What an amazing, memorable game was MF2! Really waiting for this one. The only thing I hope they improve, is the 3rd person shooting and moving dynamics... it feels a bit too arcade. Wish it felt a bit more like gow4.

[Inarius]

Again, when I say "hard to justify" I don't mean "difficult to explain in the lore" - rather I mean "difficult to sell to the majority of the fanbase." While I can only speak for myself for certain, I'd bet a sizeable sum of GP that a headline reading "Guns Added to Dragon Age!" would cause a substantial backlash, one they can easily avoid by not doing that.

You don't think it would be a problem and that's totally fine - we'll agree to disagree.



I 100% agree. Gathering is my biggest problem with most RPGs actually. Inquisition even had the solution - let me find the nodes first, then send my mooks out via the War Table to harvest later - but they made the scraps and crumbs you can get via this method so meager that it was barely worth clicking the button to send them out.

What I would like to do, and what I hope Andromeda does, is that you discover resource nodes instead of indvidual materials. The more you find, the bigger your income when you send the grunts out to pick it up. And then, if you're so inclined and you need a little extra, you can visit a node personally for a little boost - say all my foragers have come back and I'm only 500 platinum short of that cool upgrade, but sending out the troops to get more would take several IRL hours; rather than wait, I can just nip over to Planet Platinumopia myself and jetpack over to some nodes until I can gather that small deficit myself.

Heh, that's pretty much the same thought I had after playing through Inquisition a couple of times. Basically just a fusion of DA2s system and DAIs system.

[ImperiousLeader]

Honestly, the lack of guns in DA is just the same as DnD ... for some reason fantasy and guns are considered not to be mixed.

Going to ME:A, I'm excited. I quite liked ME3, (yes, even the ending pre-update), and I'm psyched to go back to the Mass Effect universe. It's that lovely blend of the things I like most of Star Trek and Star Wars and Babylon 5 all fused together. In fact, this whole game is coming across like a fusion of elements from all the Bioware games. I like having a family, as I enjoyed the dynamics of DA2. I like that tone is the important part of responses, from DA:I and DA2. I like the concept of being an explorer, like in ME1 (full disclosure, I haven't played either ME1 or DA:O, I tried to get into both, but the gameplay felt really stilted after playing the sequels first). If the Nomad is really a fixed Mako, then I imagine I'll love using it, though I admit to be skeptical, I gave up on the Hammerhead expansion for ME2.

I still won't pre-order, but that's more of a general practice, I only ever pre-ordered one game, XCOM.

[Leon]

Indeed! My first playthrough was as an Engineer Femshep when I saw that chart showing that to be the least played class/gender combination. Unfortunately, Engineers kinda suck in both 2 and 3. Being able to customize to play the way you want to will be great.

FemShep Engineer was my first full play through from 1 to 3 and the class just got better with each game, i had previously done 2&3 with a Sentinel

[SorenKnight]

Hey, I happen to like the Mako.


You're the first other person I've encountered who does.


You can do that right now actually (Asari Huntress + SMG.) But yes, I'm excited about classless too.

It's worth noting that you can't have access to the Asari Huntress without spending hours grinding or participating in the micro transactions. That's a far cry from something that's likely to be available from level one.


Backup melee is a certainty given the usefulness of the omniblade for dramatic cutscene kills. I mean, shooting Kai Leng would have been nice and all, but straight up impaling him before the badass one-liner was easily far more dramatic.

Personally I didn't find any scene with Kai Leng in it to be at all dramatic or satisfying.


What would be interesting though is if an offshoot of the Geth show up. They're certainly popular enough to be kept around in the series, and they can also easily survive the trip. They can also propagate themselves endlessly if they just have enough hardware to live on.

It would be really cool if the Geth had their own separate project, so that everyone thinks their dead, but we discover their colony at some point in the game.

[Rodin]

Personally I didn't find any scene with Kai Leng in it to be at all dramatic or satisfying.



I tend to agree, but stabbing him and saying "No gunship this time, you son of a bitch!" was pretty damn satisfying. Great line delivered while shanking the most annoying character of the franchise.

[Psyren]

It's worth noting that you can't have access to the Asari Huntress without spending hours grinding or participating in the micro transactions. That's a far cry from something that's likely to be available from level one.

Well, there's a third option if you're on PC, but most people who care about ME3 already put in their grinding time years ago.


Personally I didn't find any scene with Kai Leng in it to be at all dramatic or satisfying.

Killing him was pretty satisfying to me and I think several others.


It would be really cool if the Geth had their own separate project, so that everyone thinks their dead, but we discover their colony at some point in the game.

They're too popular to be gone I think. Better still, if they left the same time we did (between ME2 and ME3) they'll be the Geth we know and love rather than the potential super-AIs they could have become through Legion's apotheosis (or, of course, dead.)

[SorenKnight]

Well, there's a third option if you're on PC most people who care about ME3 already put in their grinding time years ago.

What's the third option? I play on PC and I've never heard of it.


most people who care about ME3 already put in their grinding time years ago.

No, most people who care about ME3's multiplayer will have put in their grinding years ago. But ME3 isn't a primarily multiplayer game and a substantial number of people who love the game don't like or play the multiplayer. Myself for example, I played a lot of the ME3 multiplayer simply because I had it and not any other multiplayer shooters, but I always found it to be insufferably dull.


Killing him was pretty satisfying to me and I think several others.

I am well aware, I'm simply sharing my experience. In fact I think your well in the majority here. It was a lot like the Final Fantasy XV tie in movie for me, beautifully animated badass action, but without any real emotion or investment.

[Psyren]

What's the third option? I play on PC and I've never heard of it.

Option 3 is using a memory-editing tool like CheatEngine to gift yourself a pile of credits, then spam PSPs until you get all the classes and skins (and hopefully guns) you want. They don't monitor ME3 anymore so pretty much everyone is doing it, or at least they were back when I switched from console to PC a year ago.


No, most people who care about ME3's multiplayer will have put in their grinding years ago. But ME3 isn't a primarily multiplayer game and a substantial number of people who love the game don't like or play the multiplayer. Myself for example, I played a lot of the ME3 multiplayer simply because I had it and not any other multiplayer shooters, but I always found it to be insufferably dull.

Without meaning to offend - why on earth do you care then? :smallconfused:


I am well aware, I'm simply sharing my experience. In fact I think your well in the majority here. It was a lot like the Final Fantasy XV tie in movie for me, beautifully animated badass action, but without any real emotion or investment.

Never seen it so that analogy is lost on me. But fine - I acknowledge that there are some folks out there for whom even Kai Leng's death meant more Kai Leng and so they hated it. That's ultimately irrelevant to my original point, which was that the omniblade is pretty much here to stay in the franchise now, and that Absurdly Sharp Blades are far more dramatic in cutscenes. (Not to mention that ME barriers appear to work like Holtzman Shields, so having a knife that can cut through armor is going to be highly practical.)

Speaking of the omni-blade, we have leaked box-art, and it features prominently on one:

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e7c7cb01e99146b8a1097e19efdf93272a18b074/0_44_1846_1108/master/1846.jpg

[SorenKnight]

Without meaning to offend - why on earth do you care then? :smallconfused:

That particular statement that you quoted was more of a nitpick with your phrasing than anything else. The larger point is that an unlockable option in a side feature of a game isn't comparable to a base option in the meat of the game.

[Psyren]

That particular statement that you quoted was more of a nitpick with your phrasing than anything else. The larger point is that an unlockable option in a side feature of a game isn't comparable to a base option in the meat of the game.

I agree it's not, but when said base option doesn't exist in the main game without modding, you kinda don't have a choice. So the MP route (and note that you can in fact play MP completely solo) is at least an option.

[LibraryOgre]

You're the first other person I've encountered who does.


I liek it, too.


I tend to agree, but stabbing him and saying "No gunship this time, you son of a bitch!" was pretty damn satisfying. Great line delivered while shanking the most annoying character of the franchise.

That is a baldfaced lie.





Kai Leng isn't a character. He's a plot device wrapped in Marysuium. Characters have a personality.

[Rodin]

I liek it, too.



That is a baldfaced lie.





Kai Leng isn't a character. He's a plot device wrapped in Marysuium. Characters have a personality.

..which makes shanking him all the more satisfying.

Hated the character, loved watching him die.

[VoxRationis]

I liek it, too.



That is a baldfaced lie.





Kai Leng isn't a character. He's a plot device wrapped in Marysuium. Characters have a personality.

Kai Leng has a personality: he's evil, and more importantly, petty. He sends you an email taunting you for not stopping him, just because he feels like rubbing it in (he also ignores the fact that he was losing the fight until he called in gunship support, which makes the email that much more infuriating). But yes, he is a plot device, and it bothers me that he escapes from Shepard on two separate occasions through the magic of cutscenes—cutscenes which make Shepard look like a slow-witted noncombatant and strip away all of his or her class abilities, instead forcing the elite Alliance commando to fire occasional half-hearted pistol shots instead of tossing Kai Leng like a rag doll, making that idiotic palm-gun (seriously, ME weapons have strength proportional to length—a palm-gun is silly) of his explode, or tearing him apart with heavy weapons fire. Or even scraping him off the car onto the underside of one of the Citadel's skybridges.

[5ColouredWalker]

(seriously, ME weapons have strength proportional to length—a palm-gun is silly)

If I remember right (From the Game) Kai-Leng's supposed to be Cybernetic. Given how he holds his arm when firing, it's possible his entire lower arm and palm acts like a barrel.

[Psyren]

If I remember right (From the Game) Kai-Leng's supposed to be Cybernetic. Given how he holds his arm when firing, it's possible his entire lower arm and palm acts like a barrel.

He has cutting-edge, Illusive-Man-Sugar-Daddy versions of the Phantom (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Phantom) implants - so yes, he has a high-powered palm blaster like they do.


Kai Leng has a personality: he's evil, and more importantly, petty. He sends you an email taunting you for not stopping him, just because he feels like rubbing it in (he also ignores the fact that he was losing the fight until he called in gunship support, which makes the email that much more infuriating). But yes, he is a plot device, and it bothers me that he escapes from Shepard on two separate occasions through the magic of cutscenes—cutscenes which make Shepard look like a slow-witted noncombatant and strip away all of his or her class abilities, instead forcing the elite Alliance commando to fire occasional half-hearted pistol shots instead of tossing Kai Leng like a rag doll, making that idiotic palm-gun (seriously, ME weapons have strength proportional to length—a palm-gun is silly) of his explode, or tearing him apart with heavy weapons fire. Or even scraping him off the car onto the underside of one of the Citadel's skybridges.

Just because long guns are powerful, doesn't mean short ones can't be. Just look at the Carnifex and Executioner; hell, the Scorpion and Acolyte are even tinier but they straight up fire explosives.

[LibraryOgre]

And, since it's somewhat apropos, my Mass Effect Savage Worlds hack

http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/p/savage-worlds-mass-effect.html

[Anteros]

Killing him was pretty satisfying to me and I think several others.


I enjoyed killing him in the sense that "gosh, I finally don't have to deal with this awful excuse for a character anymore". It's not like I was relieved some great nemesis had finally fallen...I was just glad I didn't have to endure any more of the ****ty writing that surrounded him.

[Psyren]

I enjoyed killing him in the sense that "gosh, I finally don't have to deal with this awful excuse for a character anymore". It's not like I was relieved some great nemesis had finally fallen...I was just glad I didn't have to endure any more of the ****ty writing that surrounded him.

Oh I definitely agree, but what I was specifically referring to was that the omniblade was a visceral way of taking him out. It's dramatic and brutal and fun, and I'm glad it and other melee weapons are apparently sticking around in the series.

[SorenKnight]

Oh I definitely agree, but what I was specifically referring to was that the omniblade was a visceral way of taking him out. It's dramatic and brutal and fun, and I'm glad it and other melee weapons are apparently sticking around in the series.

Well of course. Variety is the spice of life after all. Or death, as the case may be. :smalltongue:

[Corvus]

With how they are going for a classless system in ME:A, I wonder how that will impact the MP side of the game?

Being able to customise a character for MP might be fun if you could do it for the different races.

[ImperiousLeader]

I'd assume that multiplayer is going to have a class system. It's just that your Ryder has free multiclassing.

[Inarius]

I'd assume that multiplayer is going to have a class system. It's just that your Ryder has free multiclassing.

Wouldn't surprise me if companions also have restrictions on what powers they have access to.

[darksolitaire]

Origin is having a Black Friday sale.

Question: does anyone who has the games in Origin know if they actually have all the DLC for mass effect series available? I'd rather have everything in one place and I don't want to fiddle around with Bioware points et al.

[Psyren]

Origin is having a Black Friday sale.

Question: does anyone who has the games in Origin know if they actually have all the DLC for mass effect series available? I'd rather have everything in one place and I don't want to fiddle around with Bioware points et al.

Mass Effect Trilogy has most of it but IIRC there will still be some fiddling.


Wouldn't surprise me if companions also have restrictions on what powers they have access to.

Yes, and I expect a bonus power system too - i.e. you can freely spec Ryder, but some specialized powers like Reave will be locked until you get the squadmate who'll teach you that ability to be loyal.


I'd assume that multiplayer is going to have a class system. It's just that your Ryder has free multiclassing.

My prediction is that there will still be a "kit" setup, with a set of base powers, and then you can swap those out from within a somewhat wider pool for that kit. So for example, you'll have a class called "Turian Technician" that starts with a bunch of tech powers - let's say, Tech Armor, Overload, Incinerate, and Defense Drone. But then you can swap out some of those for others, like dropping Tech Armor for Adrenaline Rush since all Turians go through Soldier training, or dropping Overload for Arc Grenade to give you more burst but less sustain. But you wouldn't be able to go whole hog and replace Incinerate with Singularity because he's not biotic. Stuff like that.

This will also enable Bioware to make certain specialty powers (e.g. powerful stuff like Flare or Pylon) into rare rewards for their inevitable loot box system.

[darksolitaire]

Mass Effect Trilogy has most of it but IIRC there will still be some fiddling.


Not the answer I was hoping for, but thanks. I guess I don't need to replay them anytime soon.

[Anonymouswizard]

Looking forward to this, I loved all of the Mass Effect games when Kai Leng wasn't on screen. I won't be buying on day 1, mainly because I don't have a device that can play it (I'll likely get a PS4 eventually, but I'm not in a position to right now), but from what I can tell it looks great.

I'm not a big fan of exploration games, but I have to admit that ME1 is my favourite of the series because the levels just feel bigger. I didn't hate the Mako, didn't particularly like it but I loved the idea of it and I personally didn't have too many problems with controlling it (but then again I mainly used it in missions and got out to fight), so I'm looking forward to the Nomand.

Things that specifically make me intrigued are the Jetpack and return to a non-initiated cover system (hopefully better than ME1's, but then I rarely used cover in ME1 if I wasn't an Infiltrator). It feels like combat is going to be more dynamic and characters are expected to be on the move, I look forward to trying out a character who doesn't use cover (because really, I don't like cover shooting that much). Plus jetpacking around the map will be fun, although I suspect it'll work on a limited amount of thrust instead of letting me soar though the sky, but anything that allows me to play Juan RicoRyder is a good game.

As far as the story goes, if we get something as good as ME3 (which isn't bad as much as it is not as good as expected) it should be fine. I'm not happy on these new villains as far was I've seen, but I hope that there's a variety of them so we don't get stuck with discount Saren for the entire game (because while I enjoyed Mass Effect 1 I don't need another ME game with the same villain).

Actually, now that I think about it, the only ending in the series so far I actually liked was ME1, because of the final level to reach and defeat Saren. If they can let me defeat a villain that I've been fighting against for the entire game again MEA will be awesome, rather than the letdown of Harbinger.

[Douglas]

I didn't hate the Mako, didn't particularly like it but I loved the idea of it and I personally didn't have too many problems with controlling it (but then again I mainly used it in missions and got out to fight), so I'm looking forward to the Nomand.
In the actual missions, the Mako was excellent - every mission had mostly flat or gently rolling ground that was easy to steer on, and its durability and firepower were great.

The problem is on all the random exploration planets. Such places tend to have large amounts of hilly and mountainous terrain, often with sharp curves and/or near-vertical inclines with no obvious way around, which has to be navigated through to reach the special loot/explorer/resource locations. In that kind of terrain the Mako's steering goes straight wildly swerving to hell, and on the steeper slopes finding the path that's just barely gentle enough to drive up can be an exercise in frustration.

[Inarius]

In the actual missions, the Mako was excellent - every mission had mostly flat or gently rolling ground that was easy to steer on, and its durability and firepower were great.

The problem is on all the random exploration planets. Such places tend to have large amounts of hilly and mountainous terrain, often with sharp curves and/or near-vertical inclines with no obvious way around, which has to be navigated through to reach the special loot/explorer/resource locations. In that kind of terrain the Mako's steering goes straight wildly swerving to hell, and on the steeper slopes finding the path that's just barely gentle enough to drive up can be an exercise in frustration.

The open world areas aren't really that bad. Most of them have a route you can use to traverse them that is as smooth as the main mission areas you use the Mako in. Some of those routes tend to be very round about though and the worst worlds tend to be the Garden Worlds like Elantia and Ontarom.

[Dienekes]

The open world areas aren't really that bad. Most of them have a route you can use to traverse them that is as smooth as the main mission areas you use the Mako in. Some of those routes tend to be very round about though and the worst worlds tend to be the Garden Worlds like Elantia and Ontarom.

You're probably totally right. But all I remember is getting bored looking up where **** was then pointing he mako in the right direction and reading a book until I got there.

[Lethologica]

The open world areas aren't really that bad. Most of them have a route you can use to traverse them that is as smooth as the main mission areas you use the Mako in. Some of those routes tend to be very round about though and the worst worlds tend to be the Garden Worlds like Elantia and Ontarom.
Most worlds have easy traversal around hard parts of the map. But a lot of the notable locations (read: OCD fodder) are buried deep in hard parts.

[Anteros]

Most worlds have easy traversal around hard parts of the map. But a lot of the notable locations (read: OCD fodder) are buried deep in hard parts.

You call it OCD fodder, but when most of us played the first game we had no idea what would and wouldn't carry over to future titles. We basically had to do all these annoying little meaningless quests or risk missing out of future plot points.

[Lethologica]

You call it OCD fodder, but when most of us played the first game we had no idea what would and wouldn't carry over to future titles. We basically had to do all these annoying little meaningless quests or risk missing out of future plot points.
That seems like a very specific level of knowledge, given that the general expectation would not be for that stuff to carry over at all, and also because (at a guess) many of us played the first game without any knowledge of 'future titles'.

However, I think the basic point is fair since there was no knowing ahead of time whether that stuff would be relevant later in the same game.

[Anteros]

That seems like a very specific level of knowledge, given that the general expectation would not be for that stuff to carry over at all, and also because (at a guess) many of us played the first game without any knowledge of 'future titles'.

However, I think the basic point is fair since there was no knowing ahead of time whether that stuff would be relevant later in the same game.

I just know that it was the reason I did all that annoying stuff even though I didn't care about it. It's like "I already spent 60 hours on this game...am I really going to miss out on potential future plot lines because I didn't want to do the last bunch of gathering quests?"

If I'm remembering correctly, at least one or two of those types of quests had a (small) effect on future games as well.

[LooseCannoneer]

I just know that it was the reason I did all that annoying stuff even though I didn't care about it. It's like "I already spent 60 hours on this game...am I really going to miss out on potential future plot lines because I didn't want to do the last bunch of gathering quests?"

If I'm remembering correctly, at least one or two of those types of quests had a (small) effect on future games as well.

The matriarch discs for the Conrad Verner quest.

[Psyren]

You call it OCD fodder, but when most of us played the first game we had no idea what would and wouldn't carry over to future titles. We basically had to do all these annoying little meaningless quests or risk missing out of future plot points.

Agreed - sowing in useless 100% completion quests is enough of a crime to begin with, but doing it in a series where you import your saves is downright sadism.

Having said that, my hope is that they do a "Dragon Age Keep" style of import for future titles, where it's abundantly clear which activities will matter and which won't.

[Anonymouswizard]

In the actual missions, the Mako was excellent - every mission had mostly flat or gently rolling ground that was easy to steer on, and its durability and firepower were great.

The problem is on all the random exploration planets. Such places tend to have large amounts of hilly and mountainous terrain, often with sharp curves and/or near-vertical inclines with no obvious way around, which has to be navigated through to reach the special loot/explorer/resource locations. In that kind of terrain the Mako's steering goes straight wildly swerving to hell, and on the steeper slopes finding the path that's just barely gentle enough to drive up can be an exercise in frustration.

I'm not surprised here, most of the time when I went on a nonmission planet the Mako was harder to control, but I did that maybe three times before I got bored (I'm not an exploration junkie, which makes it harder for me to complete all those little quests). I suspect that the problem is then the fact that the designers didn't make terrain that fit the Mako (which really should have been a nice thing to drive in a few missions).

I must say that Mako combat was terrible. I ended up using it because the alternative was basically taking on Mako-assuming enemies at level 10 with crappy gear, but it was just a case of 'park the mako, shoot the gun until it's dead, use Omni-Gel if you lost Mako health' as far as I was concerned, so losing that is a big bonus.

What I'm hoping is that either the Nomad is able to hover, or we'll be able to jetpack up the troublesome areas and then either nab all the stuff and jetpack back down, or just ask our ship to deliver a new Nomad so I don't have to retrieve the old one. Of course, my actual plan is to leave the Nomad where it begins the darn mission if jetpacking about is at all feasible, it really seems redundant with the jetpack (have I mentioned that the jetpack is my favourite part of the new stuff? I'll just slap on heavy armour and rain biotic death on foes from above).

[LibraryOgre]

I found that by using the map, I could usually find a relatively easy path to go through. Check the overhead map, figure out my route, drive the route, check the map every so often to see if I'm in the right spot, and so on.

[VoxRationis]

I'm not surprised here, most of the time when I went on a nonmission planet the Mako was harder to control, but I did that maybe three times before I got bored (I'm not an exploration junkie, which makes it harder for me to complete all those little quests). I suspect that the problem is then the fact that the designers didn't make terrain that fit the Mako (which really should have been a nice thing to drive in a few missions).

I must say that Mako combat was terrible. I ended up using it because the alternative was basically taking on Mako-assuming enemies at level 10 with crappy gear, but it was just a case of 'park the mako, shoot the gun until it's dead, use Omni-Gel if you lost Mako health' as far as I was concerned, so losing that is a big bonus.
If you just park the Mako, you'll end up taking a lot more damage. A ton of enemies in that game have bad tracking on their slow-projectile weapons. Plus, watching Geth Armatures and Colossi flail about like geese when you ram them is hilarious.


What I'm hoping is that either the Nomad is able to hover, or we'll be able to jetpack up the troublesome areas and then either nab all the stuff and jetpack back down, or just ask our ship to deliver a new Nomad so I don't have to retrieve the old one. Of course, my actual plan is to leave the Nomad where it begins the darn mission if jetpacking about is at all feasible, it really seems redundant with the jetpack (have I mentioned that the jetpack is my favourite part of the new stuff? I'll just slap on heavy armour and rain biotic death on foes from above).

What if the distances to traverse are too long for the jetpack? I could easily see it as being of a speed more appropriate to an infantry battle. I feel as though it is likely that the game space is huge for most explorable planets and the Nomad's speed will be tailored to that far more than your running speed.

[Sholos]

If you wanted to be REALLY cheeky in ME, you could weaken the big enemies to almost-death with the Mako's weaponry, then hop out and deliver the final shots on foot. Which meant you didn't get the XP nerf you normally would for killing them in the Mako. Cue easy XP.

[Anonymouswizard]

If you just park the Mako, you'll end up taking a lot more damage. A ton of enemies in that game have bad tracking on their slow-projectile weapons. Plus, watching Geth Armatures and Colossi flail about like geese when you ram them is hilarious.

Yes, but I have dyspraxia. I have bad aiming when on the move in the Mako. Not that the extra damage mattered, considering how much Omni-Gel I had.


What if the distances to traverse are too long for the jetpack? I could easily see it as being of a speed more appropriate to an infantry battle. I feel as though it is likely that the game space is huge for most explorable planets and the Nomad's speed will be tailored to that far more than your running speed.

I suspect that this is going to be the case, which actually saddens me a bit because the jetpack is much more exploration-friendly than a vehicle that mainly moves in two-dimensions. I think I'd be much more accepting of the Nomad if it wasn't for the jetpack, it just feels like saying 'we have sticky toffee pudding for the main course and roast beef for pudding', just wrong.


If you wanted to be REALLY cheeky in ME, you could weaken the big enemies to almost-death with the Mako's weaponry, then hop out and deliver the final shots on foot. Which meant you didn't get the XP nerf you normally would for killing them in the Mako. Cue easy XP.

That's exactly what I did. At least until I got bored and decided to see if I could snipe an Armature to death without running out of medi-gel.

[Corvus]

You call it OCD fodder, but when most of us played the first game we had no idea what would and wouldn't carry over to future titles. We basically had to do all these annoying little meaningless quests or risk missing out of future plot points.

Well, the good news is that now we can safely ignore every single one of those quests as they have zero impact on the way the game ends.

[Anteros]

Well, the god news is that now we can safely ignore every single one of those quests as they have zero impact on the way the game ends.

And all the story quests as well!

[Haruspex_Pariah]

If you wanted to be REALLY cheeky in ME, you could weaken the big enemies to almost-death with the Mako's weaponry, then hop out and deliver the final shots on foot. Which meant you didn't get the XP nerf you normally would for killing them in the Mako. Cue easy XP.

Ha ha, once I found out about this I tried it as often as I could. Mostly against Thresher Maws.

[Psyren]

Well, the good news is that now we can safely ignore every single one of those quests as they have zero impact on the way the game ends.

I know (or at least hope) you're being facetious here, but still wanted to point out that "this affects the trilogy's ending" isn't a particularly good yardstick for how meaningful a given piece of content is. Lots of stuff that mattered a great deal to people didn't impact the endings at all, or at best just gave you a handful of war assets for your trouble. For example, who Shepard chose to romance (if anyone at all) is a pretty big deal to lots of people, but doesn't change anything about the Crucible.


Ha ha, once I found out about this I tried it as often as I could. Mostly against Thresher Maws.

It works well on Geth Colossi too. (Anything smaller generally isn't worth it, just mow em down.)

[tonberrian]

I never bothered, seeing as you can fairly easily hit level cap without it. I'd rather not spend more time on the shooting instead of getting to the interesting parts.

[Psyren]

It's not just about the cap/total XP though; leveling quickly is a quality of life issue too. For instance, the longer it takes your tech character to max out their lockpicking skills, the more likely it is that you'll come across a chest or safe that you'll be unable to hack, which means either missed loot or more backtracking. And while they're pouring points into those skills, they're weaker in combat or healing, particularly vs. organic foes. Similarly, a low-level biotic can be annoying to play with their long cooldowns and weak force. So it's easy to see why XP tricks are desirable; you can hit cap without them, but faster is still better.

[tonberrian]

It's not just about the cap/total XP though; leveling quickly is a quality of life issue too. For instance, the longer it takes your tech character to max out their lockpicking skills, the more likely it is that you'll come across a chest or safe that you'll be unable to hack, which means either missed loot or more backtracking. And while they're pouring points into those skills, they're weaker in combat or healing, particularly vs. organic foes. Similarly, a low-level biotic can be annoying to play with their long cooldowns and weak force. So it's easy to see why XP tricks are desirable; you can hit cap without them, but faster is still better.

To a certain extent, yeah, but getting more experience doesn't necessarily equate to getting experience "faster" due to the more time it takes to get the experience. Moreover, I never had any problem getting my lockpicking skills high enough to get any loot I wanted, and it's not like the randomly generated loot in Mass Effect is really worth backtracking for - there's very few points where any given loot piece available in a safe will dramatically effect your character's efficiency anyways, and often enough you'll have enough credits to buy whatever you need when you stop back at the Citadel.

Granted, I played ME1 on Normal, and gameplay wasn't my focus, so I could be a bit biased.

[Dienekes]

I never bothered, seeing as you can fairly easily hit level cap without it. I'd rather not spend more time on the shooting instead of getting to the interesting parts.

But, you can't even reach the level cap in a single playthrough of ME.

[Anonymouswizard]

But, you can't even reach the level cap in a single playthrough of ME.

To be honest, I personally never hit the level cap due to not finishing any NG+ playthroughs and hitting the cap being really redundant on the difficulties I play (normal when I started, Veteran these days as it's better balanced, although I've completed a Hardcore run of ME2 and plan to do so fou the other games.

Yeah, I normally finished ME1 in the mid 30s and ME2 in the low 20s (essentially what you'll get from doing all the story and loyalty missions). Even at those levels I could beat Saren by having my biotic disable him and shooting.

[Anteros]

I wouldn't bother doing a hardcore run of ME1. To call the enemies bullet sponges would be an insult to bullet sponge enemies everywhere. They're all raid bosses. I got about halfway through before just giving up. It's not even hard, it's just tedious.

[GloatingSwine]

I wouldn't bother doing a hardcore run of ME1. To call the enemies bullet sponges would be an insult to bullet sponge enemies everywhere. They're all raid bosses. I got about halfway through before just giving up. It's not even hard, it's just tedious.

Use the Warp power and Shredder ammunition. That resolves all your bullet sponge problems.


But, you can't even reach the level cap in a single playthrough of ME.

You can, but you have to farm the bit on the Citadel at the end where you can spawn infinite geth. IIRC if you do absolutely everything with no cheese you hit about 58-59.

[Morty]

Seems we have a... somewhat more substantial gameplay trailer. Using a jetpack will be a major feature of combat, looks like. And it seems we're going to be picking up resources bit by bit. Yee.

[VoxRationis]

Not liking it. The default Pathfinder looks cartoony, so we'll have to put in a lot of effort in character creation. The "craft everything yourself" idea is... out of place, in my opinion. Mass Effect is supposed to be a setting full of science and progress. Cutting-edge armor and weapons should be made by large corporations and specialized groups full of people who devote their lives to engineering, not someone who is also a soldier and also a surveyor and also the expeditionary leader of what is for all intents and purposes all of humanity. Also, seriously? We have a bunch of renegade pirates setting up their own independent ports? How does that happen? We all just came from the same sleeper ship! How do you desert a sleeper ship and get enough materiel to build up a pirate town before representatives of the sleeper ship come to visit? I have a feeling that the writing is going to be Fallout 4-level.

[Corvus]

Something does seem a little odd about the femRyder, yeah.

And it does have a shooty-actiony feel to it. ANd they went with the ammo system. Amazing that aliens from another galaxy use the same ammo...

Nut on the plus side - female turian squadmate.

[Dienekes]

Huh. Some of the abilities look interesting. I agree that human pirates are a thing now is weird.

I could see Krogan getting off the ship and right away hiring themselves out to pre-existing alien bandits. But to see a human run one this early seems weird.

Or is it so early? Do we know how many years since arrival it's been?

About crafting, do we know we're building it. Or are we just gathering new alien materials so our tech people back at base can implement the new "andronium" to make stuff.

[Psyren]

The trailer in question: (Note that I can't add it to the OP as posts have a one video limit)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOIzH6UcoW4

My thoughts:

1) The jetpack looks like it will add A LOT of fun, variation and dimensionality to the combat. It's the Turian jumpjets from ME3 on steroids.

2) It looks like elite mobs with instakills are back, so kiting and dodging will remain key.

3) Yes! Portable cover! I knew they would need this going into a more Inquisition-y open combat world and it neatly solves the "chest-high-walls-therefore-combat-is-imminent" problem that ME2 and ME3 had. Looks like we have a biotic handheld shield, and an engineering "tech wall." we can pop out from behind. Soldiers will probably just have really thick armor and shields to tank shots, and use the natural terrain.

4) They've kept the Inquisition dialogue system where your responses include a mood icon to preview what you'll say.

5) If the fighting looks that good on console, I can't wait to see what the much faster-paced PC version will look like. I'm also wondering if, like ME2 and ME3, the PC version will be able to map more powers.


Also, seriously? We have a bunch of renegade pirates setting up their own independent ports? How does that happen? We all just came from the same sleeper ship! How do you desert a sleeper ship and get enough materiel to build up a pirate town before representatives of the sleeper ship come to visit? I have a feeling that the writing is going to be Fallout 4-level.

Um, you may want to reread the OP :smalltongue:

Simply put, we're not the first group of settlers from the Milky Way; The first group are the ones we are traveling there to meet, i.e. the folks who built the new Citadel-esque hub called the Nexus. So yes, there's been plenty of time to establish a government, economy, piracy etc before we get there.


ANd they went with the ammo system. Amazing that aliens from another galaxy use the same ammo...

Well... no matter where you're from, physics are physics and guns generate heat. So heatsinks would need to be a thing. Any differences in design can be handwaved by the microfacturing technology in our omnitools, which was established in the first game's codex.



Or is it so early? Do we know how many years since arrival it's been?

It's early for our wave, but not for the settlers as a whole. Note that the Pirate Queen Lady knows what Pathfinders are; you're not the first one she's met.



About crafting, do we know we're building it. Or are we just gathering new alien materials so our tech people back at base can implement the new "andronium" to make stuff.

I'd imagine it works this way, just like Skyhold had a forge person that we handed all the unobtainium to.

[Dienekes]

Thank you for the clarification Psyren.

Also may I add, I love that more games (including MEA it looks like) are moving away from the silly rolling around on the floor and are now going for the smoother looking side-step. Thank you, Bloodborne. Or whatever game Bloodborne got that idea from.

[Psyren]

Thank you for the clarification Psyren.

Also may I add, I love that more games (including MEA it looks like) are moving away from the silly rolling around on the floor and are now going for the smoother looking side-step. Thank you, Bloodborne. Or whatever game Bloodborne got that idea from.

To be fair to dodge-rolling, a sidestep really doesn't build that much distance unless you're on a pretty slick floor. Or in the case of MEA, if you have a means of quick propulsion, like multi-directional suitjets or biotics.

Note however that ME3 had side-step dodging years before Bloodborne existed. Only certain kits had it (e.g. Asari, Geth, and Turians), but it was there.

[Dienekes]

To be fair to dodge-rolling, a sidestep really doesn't build that much distance unless you're on a pretty slick floor. Or in the case of MEA, if you have a means of quick propulsion, like multi-directional suitjets or biotics.

Note however that ME3 had side-step dodging years before Bloodborne existed. Only certain kits had it (e.g. Asari, Geth, and Turians), but it was there.

And a roll isn't actually a fast recovery like it is in video games or serve a purpose outside of the very specific diving behind cover. It's all a fantasy. Only the side step has less of an effect on the camera, and doesn't look as dumb as flopping on the floor every second.

Never once played the multiplayer though. So now I learned they had side steps. Neat.

[Psyren]

Even in single-player you can watch the Geth bunny-hopping side to side to avoid your powers and shots. (It can get pretty annoying actually, especially when you're trying to prime a biotic detonation.)

[Anonymouswizard]

About crafting, do we know we're building it. Or are we just gathering new alien materials so our tech people back at base can implement the new "andronium" to make stuff.

If the designers/writers have any sense the crafting will work in a couple of steps:
1) find materials/sources of materials to build stuff.
2) get scientists back at the base to design blueprints.
3) feed materials and blueprints into Maketron 3000 to get items.

Can't really comment on the rest right now, I'll watch the trailer later, but most of it sounds good.

[Morty]

Implementing crafting systems has an unfortunate tendency to remove any sense and restraint from designers. So I make no assumptions.

[Anonymouswizard]

Crafting systems can be done well, but they usually aren't. I actually in theory like how the crafting in Dragon Age: Inquisition works, although I'm not willing to go through all the materials and recipes scrounging required to make gear better than I can find in the next sidequest (and if DA:I had gone full action RPG I'd be playing it far more). I used it once to make a sword, then spent most of my materials on Requisitions in order to get more Power with the occasional enhancement (and even then I didn't use sockets anywhere near as much as DA:O or DA2).

I think a game should either make crafting the primary way of getting good gear, or just drop the idea completely, and I mean 'anything bar the basic tier must be crafted'. Which for MEA might actually be a reasonable thing, but for most systems if I can already loot good gear and buy good gear, why am I going to waste steel ingots crafting a sword I could just buy from Geoff the shopkeep or loot from the dime-a-dozen bandits. Having upgrades makes it all worse, your average player won't jump through hoops to get the skills and materials necessary to forge the Epic Sword of Awesome when they can just take a basic sword and slap a few upgrades on there until it's good enough to beat the game with. Especially as late game goblins might be carrying fully upgraded basic swords anyway.

[Inarius]

If the designers/writers have any sense the crafting will work in a couple of steps:
1) find materials/sources of materials to build stuff.
2) get scientists back at the base to design blueprints.
3) feed materials and blueprints into Maketron 3000 to get items.

Can't really comment on the rest right now, I'll watch the trailer later, but most of it sounds good.

I actually think that's how it will be. In ME2/3 you weren't buying the guns from the store, instead you were buying the licensing and designs in order to allow your armory to fabricate the weapons for yourself and your squad mates.

[GungHo]

And a roll isn't actually a fast recovery like it is in video games or serve a purpose outside of the very specific diving behind cover. It's all a fantasy. Only the side step has less of an effect on the camera, and doesn't look as dumb as flopping on the floor every second.
Now there needs to be a Top Shots Part Tre' where the hero rolls around back and forth on the ground everywhere dodging and is left gasping for air after a minute.

[GloatingSwine]

I think a game should either make crafting the primary way of getting good gear, or just drop the idea completely, and I mean 'anything bar the basic tier must be crafted'.

Yeah. Where crafting is bolted on to an existing game in addition to other means of obtaining gear, the effort required to produce anything from crafting is very often not worth the small, incremental, and soon to be replaced bonus obtained from it.

So crafting becomes irrelevant until the player reaches the endgame and wants to craft the absolute tippy top gear but now hasn't invested enough time in the crafting system to really care about using it and so is disincentivised to bother with all the extra grind they now need to do for the parts.

Crafting needs to be integral and preferably not noticably more time intensive than shopping for gear.

[VoxRationis]

I am of the opinion that the crafting system should be a lot less about personal equipment and a lot more about colony management. This is a game where you're the leader of what may be the last hope of your species, desperately flung into the void in the hopes of building your civilization anew. Those exotic metals you're mining and those researchers & engineers you're employing should be spent trying to bring the resurgence of the human race, not providing minor armor bonuses to a single fire team. ME:A should be, in my opinion, half strategy game.

[LibraryOgre]

I am of the opinion that the crafting system should be a lot less about personal equipment and a lot more about colony management. This is a game where you're the leader of what may be the last hope of your species, desperately flung into the void in the hopes of building your civilization anew. Those exotic metals you're mining and those researchers & engineers you're employing should be spent trying to bring the resurgence of the human race, not providing minor armor bonuses to a single fire team. ME:A should be, in my opinion, half strategy game.

I'd tend towards this, too. We already know (from ME1) that manufacturing is such that, getting a prototype means you can usually reproduce it infinitely... that's why your quartermaster required licenses. Out beyond the old Alliance range, there's little reason that you can't have the sweet gear distributed widely... but you're still going to need resources to run the machines and build the settlement that services the machines.

I wonder if we'll see the return of ME1's Identical Prefab Outposts?

[Psyren]

I wonder if we'll see the return of ME1's Identical Prefab Outposts?

Heh, and you just know Elkoss Combine made a mint on those too...

[VoxRationis]

Isn't the Elkoss Combine a volus company? I don't think they made it on the Arks...
Speaking of Arks, I wonder what terms other species and cultures use for the vessels. Ark makes sense to humans with a Judeo-Christian cultural background.

[Psyren]

Isn't the Elkoss Combine a volus company? I don't think they made it on the Arks...

I meant the cheapo prefabs in ME1 that littered literally every planet (and were generally empty because frontier scientists tend to Die Horribly.) Rupe Elkoss makes a wisecrack about it in ME3.



Speaking of Arks, I wonder what terms other species and cultures use for the vessels. Ark makes sense to humans with a Judeo-Christian cultural background.

It's likely irrelevant because whatever term they use would just translate to "Ark" once fed through our Translator Microbes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TranslatorMicrobes).

Not that they'd necessarily be opposed to just using "Ark" in any event. The Geth were certainly happy to dip into our cultural background for "Legion", and I didn't see any of the other aliens stumbling over the word either.

[LibraryOgre]

Heh, and you just know Elkoss Combine made a mint on those too...

I'll be honest, I loved those things. I wound up deciding that, instead of the programmers being lazy, they were simply an efficient prefab design that was widely popular and imitated. The Underground structures were better, but these were designed for quick set-up (maybe even a suborbital drop insertion) to get you homesteading as quickly as possible.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yes, one of the things I loved about ME1 was that it really felt like the future. All those identical buildings dotting the various planets? Why design a specific building when a prefab will do just as well. Buy guns? No, just buy licences for the fabber and pay for the feedstock* (plus the requisition officer's family). Ammunition? Don't worry about it, we can get a decent punch by shooting a smaller projectile at a faster speed (on that note, why do we have to use ammo instead of a combined system, I think I only ran out of ammo for my gun like twice on a ME2 hardcore run [maybe I'll run out more when I port over the infiltrator playthrough I'm currently doing on ME1, seeing as I'll actually be using sniper rifles]). My favourite classes to play are the Engineer and Infiltrator, because they feel like the Science Fiction hero I've always wanted to see in stories.

* Yeah, I'm using the Eclipse Phase terms, it's what I'm comfortable with.

I'd love to see decent colony management. Maybe in part 1 before we meet up with everyone else crafting is less important, but once you've got the support of all the other races it really comes into focus. Go to a planet and use your resources to build prefab buildings and create colonies. Maybe a sidequest can be clearing an area in which to begin the colony. Build an armoury so the settlers can defend themselves, a garage so you can use the Nomad on this map, and litter the area around the map with refuelling posts for your jetpack.

Of course, it'll really only be used for upgrading your guns and building new armour pieces. Because it's not like I'll spend hours building a colony on the planet Zig, and having to manage jetpack fuel is an additional layer of challenge to the more mobile gameplay (although one I'd love to see even if it makes combat more static).

[DaedalusMkV]

Thank you for the clarification Psyren.

Also may I add, I love that more games (including MEA it looks like) are moving away from the silly rolling around on the floor and are now going for the smoother looking side-step. Thank you, Bloodborne. Or whatever game Bloodborne got that idea from.

Considering the dev team for both games was the same, I'd guess they stole it from Armoured Core 4, which could probably be called "Dodging attacks via rapid application of horizontal acceleration the Game". Of course, that was clearly inspired by similar things that have been around in the mecha genre for ages, so it's a long chain of inspiration. Either way I have to agree. Dodge rolling was always silly, and rapid sidesteps just look much more badass.

[GloatingSwine]

I am of the opinion that the crafting system should be a lot less about personal equipment and a lot more about colony management. This is a game where you're the leader of what may be the last hope of your species, desperately flung into the void in the hopes of building your civilization anew. Those exotic metals you're mining and those researchers & engineers you're employing should be spent trying to bring the resurgence of the human race, not providing minor armor bonuses to a single fire team. ME:A should be, in my opinion, half strategy game.

I think we need to return to the era where having a townbuilding minigame was part of the RPG expectation set, so that instead of crafting the cool sword you have to build a forge and recruit a smith and he will craft the cool sword for you, and only require special materials for the really cool endgame super sword.

[Anteros]

I think we need to return to the era where having a townbuilding minigame was part of the RPG expectation set, so that instead of crafting the cool sword you have to build a forge and recruit a smith and he will craft the cool sword for you, and only require special materials for the really cool endgame super sword.

As long as it is well integrated and not just tacked on I'm all for it. Something like Fallout 4's settlements really end up just detracting from the game instead of adding to it.

If they add a colony management mini game to Mass Effect I expect it to mostly take a form similar to DAO's mission table....which is essentially just a needlessly tedious menu with no actual gameplay. I can't say I'm crazy about that idea.

[GloatingSwine]

As long as it is well integrated and not just tacked on I'm all for it. Something like Fallout 4's settlements really end up just detracting from the game instead of adding to it.


I was thinking more like building your cool pirate island in Skies of Arcadia, or the Township in Breath of Fire 2, or rebuilding Colony 6 in Xenoblade Chronicles. One thing, well designed and well integrated, not thirty different things with a faff-about interface for trying to make them do anything under the name of "creativity" which 99% of people will ignore in favour of plonking down some basic stuff so it goes away and lets them get back to the questing.

[Anteros]

I was thinking more like building your cool pirate island in Skies of Arcadia, or the Township in Breath of Fire 2, or rebuilding Colony 6 in Xenoblade Chronicles. One thing, well designed and well integrated, not thirty different things with a faff-about interface for trying to make them do anything under the name of "creativity" which 99% of people will ignore in favour of plonking down some basic stuff so it goes away and lets them get back to the questing.

I'm all for that too. I'm not sure Bioware will implement anything like that though unfortunately.

Knowing EA, the best parts of it will be DLC even if they do add it.

[russdm]

In the actual missions, the Mako was excellent - every mission had mostly flat or gently rolling ground that was easy to steer on, and its durability and firepower were great.

The problem is on all the random exploration planets. Such places tend to have large amounts of hilly and mountainous terrain, often with sharp curves and/or near-vertical inclines with no obvious way around, which has to be navigated through to reach the special loot/explorer/resource locations. In that kind of terrain the Mako's steering goes straight wildly swerving to hell, and on the steeper slopes finding the path that's just barely gentle enough to drive up can be an exercise in frustration.

That wasn't much of a problem for me, but refused to submit to gravity concerns. There were quite a few times when I just decided to drive up the mountain and got the Mako pointed almost straight vertically while going up. You hit that point then go either left or right a bit and you could just keep going up. Or driving sideways semi-vertically as continued pushing upwards. When there was minor trouble in getting further up, some jump-jet helped solve that.

Besides, those difficult terrain features were just to test how much rock-climbing in the Mako you were willing to commit on. I think if there was actual dialogue for the characters when I was doing that stuff, they would be complaining about everything falling down to how gravity was supposed to work. Never liked going around.

My most annoying moment was trying to get past that gap on Liara's world that was there to force you out on foot. I finally managed to get through it and used the Mako on the Geth on the hill. It shortened that fight considerably.

Steering the Mako was my biggest issue with the 3rd person, which is also how I learned that the Mako was in fact designed to go straight up the mountain, because after a bad steering move, I would find myself able to keep going upwards.

Edit: This game looks interesting, and I do like the naming convention. It allows for you to get spoken to directly rather than have your name silent like in Kotor 1 & 2. Plus you should still be able to name the character with a first name.

I have named my Shepard Deadbeat. I think we should be able to name Ryder something, like Sally? It does allow for customization. I like the new system, which seems inspired some by Skyrim.

[SangoProduction]

I'm going to have to go with Corvus here. Whether or not things make sense in lore is a big deal for me, and in any case, even on its own merits the no-ammunition matter worked well—it made the game different from a lot of shooters and helped create the sense of wonder and progress that ME1 was all about. And ammunition became a problem in certain situations—the last fight in ME2 was an exercise in ammunition depletion, made worse by the fact that even though heat sinks were universal, they couldn't be transferred between weapons once they were picked up. Collecting ammunition slowed down one's progress through levels, which was jarring because many levels tried so hard to impart a sense of urgency.

Edit: Also, I'm really skeptical about this. The trailer did not do justice to what I liked about Mass Effect. It was too flashy, too dramatic. Gone was the Star Trek feel of adventure and progress, or of choice—there's just some aliens that feel like killing us for some reason. The trailer focused entirely on conflict. There's no soft techno, or even the exciting orchestral themes of the later games—instead we get repetitive Trailer Foghorn Sounds. No focus on the exploration and interaction—just action sequences of people alternately getting up and getting knocked to the floor (a gripe I had about ME3 was how much time you ended up hobbled, acting out semi-cutscenes).

I do like the idea of getting to explore a new universe at the head of a colonization effort. That could end up being really well-implemented. Or it could end up like ME3's War Assets.

I agree. I really, really, really hated the ammo system. Perhaps because I really liked to play sniper in ME1...and then in ME2, it's like "Oh, you have 2 attacks...period." I found the heat cool down thing really satisfying as well, giving an element of strategy for how fast you shoot.

[LibraryOgre]

When doing My Mass Effect/Savage Worlds (http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/p/savage-worlds-mass-effect.html) conversion, I wanted to account for the switch from integral to modular heat sinks. I decided that the old-style heat sink weapons were still around, and more popular on the civilian market, since it meant less upkeep... you didn't have to buy ammo, and since you were less likely to get involved in long firefights, it made them cheaper in the long run. The modular heat sinks were favored by the military because it allowed a greater sustained rate of fire, and made stolen weapons less long-term useful.

The side effect, in my conception, was that modular heat sinks might be favored for assault rifles and submachineguns, lots of people for whom rate of fire was less of a concern (including snipers, or folks carrying sidearms) would prefer integral heat sinks.

[SangoProduction]

Erg. I just watched the gameplay trailer. OK. Yeah, that all is just a big turn off. And here I was, going to make arguments that "even though it's open world, it might not be that bad, despite undoubtedly being bombarded with the 'collect 10 spacebear arses' quests', because at least the game play could be fun."

And admittedly, the gunplay does actually look even more improved. Props to them...but crafting and picking flowers? Oh god. And that "analyzer" thing? No thanks.

[Seerow]

Erg. I just watched the gameplay trailer. OK. Yeah, that all is just a big turn off. And here I was, going to make arguments that "even though it's open world, it might not be that bad, despite undoubtedly being bombarded with the 'collect 10 spacebear arses' quests', because at least the game play could be fun."

And admittedly, the gunplay does actually look even more improved. Props to them...but crafting and picking flowers? Oh god. And that "analyzer" thing? No thanks.

See, I'm the exact opposite.

I'm happy to go around analyzing and picking flowers and crafting stuff. But the updated combat looks more FPSish than ever. I have traditionally played ME games as a turret, huddling behind some cover and using tech/biotic powers to pick off enemies from a range without needing to worry about pesky things like targetting. I do this because I am spectacularly bad at aiming, especially in a fast paced environment. But ME was the one shooter-style game I could get into because its mechanics let me ignore that aspect of the game and turn it into a slower nearly turn based game by sticking to cover and using powers. The trailer has me seriously worried that playstyle is going to be gone in favor of a combat that looks a lot more like every other shooter in the world.

[Beleriphon]

On the note of crafting I'd like to see a system where you drop a collection robot/thing/station on a plant with appropriate ore/stuff and it gets funneled to you at certain intervals. You need these things to produce more collection stations, and some specialized stations require different items only available on certain planets. For example if you're mining uranium you need build radiation resistant collectors which requires lead. So you can't build said station until you collect enough lead.

[Rodin]

I just wish they would leave all the crafting crap out of story-based RPGs. I'm there to save humanity, not pick wildflowers, no matter how streamlined you make it. Take the time made making those systems to put in more sidequests which give rich details about the world.

I care that the inhabitants of Betelgeuse IV are fighting against their oppressive overlords from Betelgeuse V, but maybe the rebels use unscrupulous tactics making it a tough decision to support them.

I do not care that the main exports of Betelgeuse IV are coal, iron, vibranium, and silkweed due to the planet getting an average 15 inches of rainfall per year. Save that for geography textbooks and let me get back to being a hero.

Crafting is a pox on modern games that needs to die - or rather, be limited to the specific genre of games that appeal to that demographic. Crafting in survival games - yes. Crafting in space opera - hell no.

[Psyren]

Honest question - what about Skyrim? Did crafting work there, or no? (UI-based concerns aside.)

EDIT: Or Morrowind for that matter

[Dienekes]

Honest question - what about Skyrim? Did crafting work there, or no? (UI-based concerns aside.)

EDIT: Or Morrowind for that matter

Well. I made hundreds of iron bars then made one of the best armors in the game then trivialized much of the combat. Before getting bored and stopped playing. So, you tell me.

[Inarius]

Honest question - what about Skyrim? Did crafting work there, or no? (UI-based concerns aside.)

EDIT: Or Morrowind for that matter

Crafting in Skyrim broke the game. That's sort of the problem with crafting because its usually designed to be optional. Its either not worth the effort because it makes weaker gear to what you find in the world or it makes the best gear in the game and breaks the game. Making it equal to dropped gear usually leads to me not bothering with crafting either because crafting isn't usually a fun experience.

[Dienekes]

See, I'm the exact opposite.

I'm happy to go around analyzing and picking flowers and crafting stuff. But the updated combat looks more FPSish than ever. I have traditionally played ME games as a turret, huddling behind some cover and using tech/biotic powers to pick off enemies from a range without needing to worry about pesky things like targetting. I do this because I am spectacularly bad at aiming, especially in a fast paced environment. But ME was the one shooter-style game I could get into because its mechanics let me ignore that aspect of the game and turn it into a slower nearly turn based game by sticking to cover and using powers. The trailer has me seriously worried that playstyle is going to be gone in favor of a combat that looks a lot more like every other shooter in the world.

Gotta agree with Sango on this one. If I wanted to pick flowers I would go outside and pick flowers. But because that's a boring thing to do I don't do it. And I have no desire to pay for the virtual experience of picking flowers.

Screw the flowers.

[Morty]

I just wish they would leave all the crafting crap out of story-based RPGs. I'm there to save humanity, not pick wildflowers, no matter how streamlined you make it. Take the time made making those systems to put in more sidequests which give rich details about the world.

I care that the inhabitants of Betelgeuse IV are fighting against their oppressive overlords from Betelgeuse V, but maybe the rebels use unscrupulous tactics making it a tough decision to support them.

I do not care that the main exports of Betelgeuse IV are coal, iron, vibranium, and silkweed due to the planet getting an average 15 inches of rainfall per year. Save that for geography textbooks and let me get back to being a hero.

Crafting is a pox on modern games that needs to die - or rather, be limited to the specific genre of games that appeal to that demographic. Crafting in survival games - yes. Crafting in space opera - hell no.

Your ideas intrigue me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

As far as combat goes - I welcome the direction it seems to be heading in. More dynamic, less reliant on cover. Plus lack of global cooldowns might open a lot of tactical possibilities. I'm honestly not sure where else they could go with ME combat. ME1 combat is a bore. ME2 is better, but too linear and formulaic. ME3 improved it to some degree, and it looks like Andromeda might continue the trend.

I do hope the powers don't resemble that from the existing games too much. I want something new - and besides, if they're going for a classless setup, it needs to be balanced differently. My first Ryder will probably be a lightweight combat specialist, if possible. If not, then either a dash of tech, or heavy armour. Depending on how it all fits together.

[Psyren]

Well. I made hundreds of iron bars then made one of the best armors in the game then trivialized much of the combat. Before getting bored and stopped playing. So, you tell me.


Crafting in Skyrim broke the game. That's sort of the problem with crafting because its usually designed to be optional. Its either not worth the effort because it makes weaker gear to what you find in the world or it makes the best gear in the game and breaks the game. Making it equal to dropped gear usually leads to me not bothering with crafting either because crafting isn't usually a fun experience.

Well hang on; this is Elder Scrolls we're talking about here, they practically design the game to be broken. This is a game series where you can steal anything you want by putting a bucket on the shopkeeper's head first, or become a grandmaster archmage conjurer by summoning the same dog 5000 times.

"Crafting gets you the best gear" does not have to equal "crafted gear breaks the game." And there's plenty of useful things you can craft that don't break the game, particularly on the alchemy side of things. That's more what I was getting at.



I do hope the powers don't resemble that from the existing games too much. I want something new - and besides, if they're going for a classless setup, it needs to be balanced differently. My first Ryder will probably be a lightweight combat specialist, if possible. If not, then either a dash of tech, or heavy armour. Depending on how it all fits together.

Mine will be as close to "archpsion biotic" as you can get. Like the N7 Fury but with even more biotics crammed in there. I want to constantly forget that there's a gun on my hip. I remember in Citadel. on the Silversun Strip, there's a biotic complaining about getting a Graal VII from Alliance Procurement because she doesn't use shotguns., and how she wouldn't even carry her pistol if it weren't for regulations - that's who I plan for my Ryder to be.

(The whole thing is of course a tongue-in-cheek jab at the random lootbox system.)

[Rodin]

Well hang on; this is Elder Scrolls we're talking about here, they practically design the game to be broken. This is a game series where you can steal anything you want by putting a bucket on the shopkeeper's head first, or become a grandmaster archmage conjurer by summoning the same dog 5000 times.

"Crafting gets you the best gear" does not have to equal "crafted gear breaks the game." And there's plenty of useful things you can craft that don't break the game, particularly on the alchemy side of things. That's more what I was getting at.



Silly power-breaking stuff aside, to answer your question I don't consider crafting to be a terrible thing in the Elder Scrolls games.

Primarily, this is because they aren't what I would call a story-based RPG. They're sandbox games with an optional story. They've made the optional story more intrusive with each generation, and I feel that's to the detriment of the series. I've never played the first two, but in Morrowind literally the only story hook is some dude telling you to deliver a package. In Oblivion and Skyrim, they thrust you right into the plot at the start and tell you you're special from the beginning - this is why Live Another Life and mods like it are so handy.

To return to the crafting - they're there because you may not be the great hero. Maybe you're a researcher for the Mage's Guild. An itinerant Alchemist, looking for a rare plant to cure your sick daughter back home. Or you're a Forest Ranger, trying to make a living in the wilderness.

What the Elder Scrolls games do best is let you tell your own story, and the crafting helps with that. It has a place there, and it can be a logical way to interact with the living, breathing world they created. When I'm an apprentice in the Mage's Guild, being told to go gather 3 Witches' Locks from a remote hillside and brew a potion of Invisibility fits right in.

I don't expect the same fidelity in world-building from a tightly plotted story driven game. There doesn't need to be an option for me to chuck it all and turn to farming, because I'm not playing Custom McPlayername whom I've decided was a farmer before getting thrown on a prison ship - I'm playing John/Jane/Whoever Shepard, established military officer and certified badass. There's no option for Shepard to bog off to Omega and open a Pyjack chow store, because there's no conceivable universe where Shepard would do that.

Now, ideally, the option would be there to do both. Realistically though, that's unlikely in the extreme. The development time that gets pushed into developing an entire city in Skyrim gets put into writing the dialogue of a single major character in Mass Effect - that's why the difference is so notable and huge. Neither team is doing anything wrong by doing so, because they're playing to the strengths of the game they're designing.

When you cross those wires, the cracks start to show. Fallout 4's Companions are noticeably flat compared to any from Bioware's games, and the attempts at a compelling main story mostly flail around without landing emotionally. Dragon Age Inquisition's attempt at an open world feels empty and lifeless, bloating the game and making it the only Bioware game I've played through only once (well, of those I've played at all and didn't miss entirely due to outside life).

Basically, game companies need to know what they do well, and stick to it, rather than chasing whatever is in vogue at the time. Fallout 4 ended up in a very weird place because it tried to be Minecraft and Mass Effect and Fallout, and the result was a mess. Inquisition tried to become Elder Scrolls, and suffered for it. And many other games are filling my inventory with junk and telling me to craft stuff, because crafting is popular, yo. And 9 times out of 10, the game becomes worse as a result of spending precious development time on something totally unnecessary to enjoying the actual experience they were trying to craft.

I'm not even going to get into the glut of Survival games out there - that's a rant for another day and rather off-topic. The way game companies follow trends, I fully expect in the next iteration that Ryder getting shot will require finding needle, thread, and alcohol and crafting them together into a cure or Ryder will die of sepsis.

[VoxRationis]

See, I'm the exact opposite.

I'm happy to go around analyzing and picking flowers and crafting stuff. But the updated combat looks more FPSish than ever. I have traditionally played ME games as a turret, huddling behind some cover and using tech/biotic powers to pick off enemies from a range without needing to worry about pesky things like targetting. I do this because I am spectacularly bad at aiming, especially in a fast paced environment. But ME was the one shooter-style game I could get into because its mechanics let me ignore that aspect of the game and turn it into a slower nearly turn based game by sticking to cover and using powers. The trailer has me seriously worried that playstyle is going to be gone in favor of a combat that looks a lot more like every other shooter in the world.

Yeah, I like tactical, methodical gameplay too. I'm not sure if the game is actually going to play like it shows, though. I'm guessing trailers for 1 and 2 didn't show the player pausing every second and a half either, since that wouldn't be very appealing to watch.

[Morty]

Mine will be as close to "archpsion biotic" as you can get. Like the N7 Fury but with even more biotics crammed in there. I want to constantly forget that there's a gun on my hip. I remember in Citadel. on the Silversun Strip, there's a biotic complaining about getting a Graal VII from Alliance Procurement because she doesn't use shotguns., and how she wouldn't even carry her pistol if it weren't for regulations - that's who I plan for my Ryder to be.

(The whole thing is of course a tongue-in-cheek jab at the random lootbox system.)

Lack of global cooldowns will likely help with that. I am curious how "combat" powers will look like, though. Will we see the return of ME1-style boosts to weapons and armour? Or ammo powers? Or maybe mostly passives.


Silly power-breaking stuff aside, to answer your question I don't consider crafting to be a terrible thing in the Elder Scrolls games.

Primarily, this is because they aren't what I would call a story-based RPG. They're sandbox games with an optional story. They've made the optional story more intrusive with each generation, and I feel that's to the detriment of the series. I've never played the first two, but in Morrowind literally the only story hook is some dude telling you to deliver a package. In Oblivion and Skyrim, they thrust you right into the plot at the start and tell you you're special from the beginning - this is why Live Another Life and mods like it are so handy.

To return to the crafting - they're there because you may not be the great hero. Maybe you're a researcher for the Mage's Guild. An itinerant Alchemist, looking for a rare plant to cure your sick daughter back home. Or you're a Forest Ranger, trying to make a living in the wilderness.

What the Elder Scrolls games do best is let you tell your own story, and the crafting helps with that. It has a place there, and it can be a logical way to interact with the living, breathing world they created. When I'm an apprentice in the Mage's Guild, being told to go gather 3 Witches' Locks from a remote hillside and brew a potion of Invisibility fits right in.

I don't expect the same fidelity in world-building from a tightly plotted story driven game. There doesn't need to be an option for me to chuck it all and turn to farming, because I'm not playing Custom McPlayername whom I've decided was a farmer before getting thrown on a prison ship - I'm playing John/Jane/Whoever Shepard, established military officer and certified badass. There's no option for Shepard to bog off to Omega and open a Pyjack chow store, because there's no conceivable universe where Shepard would do that.

Now, ideally, the option would be there to do both. Realistically though, that's unlikely in the extreme. The development time that gets pushed into developing an entire city in Skyrim gets put into writing the dialogue of a single major character in Mass Effect - that's why the difference is so notable and huge. Neither team is doing anything wrong by doing so, because they're playing to the strengths of the game they're designing.

When you cross those wires, the cracks start to show. Fallout 4's Companions are noticeably flat compared to any from Bioware's games, and the attempts at a compelling main story mostly flail around without landing emotionally. Dragon Age Inquisition's attempt at an open world feels empty and lifeless, bloating the game and making it the only Bioware game I've played through only once (well, of those I've played at all and didn't miss entirely due to outside life).

Basically, game companies need to know what they do well, and stick to it, rather than chasing whatever is in vogue at the time. Fallout 4 ended up in a very weird place because it tried to be Minecraft and Mass Effect and Fallout, and the result was a mess. Inquisition tried to become Elder Scrolls, and suffered for it. And many other games are filling my inventory with junk and telling me to craft stuff, because crafting is popular, yo. And 9 times out of 10, the game becomes worse as a result of spending precious development time on something totally unnecessary to enjoying the actual experience they were trying to craft.

I'm not even going to get into the glut of Survival games out there - that's a rant for another day and rather off-topic. The way game companies follow trends, I fully expect in the next iteration that Ryder getting shot will require finding needle, thread, and alcohol and crafting them together into a cure or Ryder will die of sepsis.

Once again, I find myself agreeing. Crafting might be a good gameplay element if a game really put effort into it and made it central. But most of the time, it's just tacked on because game devs seem to think it's obligatory.


Yeah, I like tactical, methodical gameplay too. I'm not sure if the game is actually going to play like it shows, though. I'm guessing trailers for 1 and 2 didn't show the player pausing every second and a half either, since that wouldn't be very appealing to watch.

Did the series ever really have tactical and methodical gameplay, though?

[Psyren]

I don't expect the same fidelity in world-building from a tightly plotted story driven game. There doesn't need to be an option for me to chuck it all and turn to farming, because I'm not playing Custom McPlayername whom I've decided was a farmer before getting thrown on a prison ship - I'm playing John/Jane/Whoever Shepard, established military officer and certified badass. There's no option for Shepard to bog off to Omega and open a Pyjack chow store, because there's no conceivable universe where Shepard would do that.

Here's the key point you're forgetting though - you're NOT playing John Shepard, certified badass officer, anymore. Ryder IS an unproven greenhorn schlub. Like the Skyrim and Morrowind protagonists, you ARE thrust into the spotlight, but unlike Shepard, you may not deserve to be and you are in fact starting from the bottom in this new galaxy. So all your examples - like needing to Apprentice at the Mage Guild and slowly rise through the ranks to make a name for yourself - those could actually apply to Andromeda's situation much better than you think, and certainly moreso than they did to the original trilogy.


Lack of global cooldowns will likely help with that. I am curious how "combat" powers will look like, though. Will we see the return of ME1-style boosts to weapons and armour? Or ammo powers? Or maybe mostly passives.

I expect boosts to be the main choices on the Soldier side, with things like Marksman, Adrenaline Rush and Fortification making a return. One only has to look at Overwatch (and I guarantee you that Bioware definitely is doing so) to see the kinds of powers we could get there. A great update to Marksman would be making it like Soldier 76's tactical visor - turning on aimbot and also giving you faster reload times. While Adrenaline Rush would be closer to Ana's Nanoboost, upping your damage, toughness and movespeed.



Did the series ever really have tactical and methodical gameplay, though?

It can, with frequent pausing and micromanaging the squadmates. But no-pause gameplay isn't just more fun to watch, to me it's more fun to play too. If my squadmates were invincible but did little to no damage, or even only came out during cutscenes, I'd actually prefer that.

[Rodin]

Here's the key point you're forgetting though - you're NOT playing John Shepard, certified badass officer, anymore. Ryder IS an unproven greenhorn schlub. Like the Skyrim and Morrowind protagonists, you ARE thrust into the spotlight, but unlike Shepard, you may not deserve to be and you are in fact starting from the bottom in this new galaxy. So all your examples - like needing to Apprentice at the Mage Guild and slowly rise through the ranks to make a name for yourself - those could actually apply to Andromeda's situation much better than you think, and certainly moreso than they did to the original trilogy.



This strikes me as missing the forest for the trees. You could make a logical argument for gathering stuff in Inquisition too - Skyhold needed materials desperately and every little helps, and all that.

That didn't make it good gameplay, because it was tacked on and unnecessary busywork to pad the game.

An even better example is mineral mining in Mass Effect 2, a system everyone hated. Sure, it made a certain degree of sense story-wise for the ship to be going around gathering materials to imrpove its armor and whatnot (although why an outfit like Cerberus couldn't just BUY the materials on the black market is beyond me), but the actual mechanic was terribly boring.

I have no problem with the end result of crafting - custom weapons are fun as heck. But there's a huge difference between Mass Effect 3 (find weapon parts, equip them between missions, swap out depending on what you need that mission) and Fallout 4 (find blueprint, find 500 desktop fans, 5 typewriters, and a deathclaw liver, lug all that 500 miles across the Wasteland, upgrade crafting specific skill, then REPEAT all that every time you want a new one).

One is fun and easy to use, the other is tedious and a pain in the ass.

[VoxRationis]

An even better example is mineral mining in Mass Effect 2, a system everyone hated. Sure, it made a certain degree of sense story-wise for the ship to be going around gathering materials to imrpove its armor and whatnot (although why an outfit like Cerberus couldn't just BUY the materials on the black market is beyond me),

To be fair, Cerberus spent a lavish amount of money on a) hiring a bunch of people to work with you (even some party members are pretty much "paid for" in this way), b) giving you a ship full of classified, military-grade tech and unnecessary civilian luxuries, and c) bringing you back from the dead after you suffocated in orbit and crashed into a planet's surface. They had to cut corners somewhere, and not buying the hundreds of kilos of rare earth minerals needed to synthesize unknown upgrades sometime in the future is a reasonable place to do it.

[Lethologica]

To be fair, Cerberus spent a lavish amount of money on a) hiring a bunch of people to work with you (even some party members are pretty much "paid for" in this way), b) giving you a ship full of classified, military-grade tech and unnecessary civilian luxuries, and c) bringing you back from the dead after you suffocated in orbit and crashed into a planet's surface. They had to cut corners somewhere, and not buying the hundreds of kilos of rare earth minerals needed to synthesize unknown upgrades sometime in the future is a reasonable place to do it.
It would probably cost Cerberus less to have a dozen other teams collecting those minerals than it would to have Shepard's team do those things. There's no shortage of Cerberus meat walking around, but there's lots of stuff only Shepard can be counted on for.

[Morty]

I expect boosts to be the main choices on the Soldier side, with things like Marksman, Adrenaline Rush and Fortification making a return. One only has to look at Overwatch (and I guarantee you that Bioware definitely is doing so) to see the kinds of powers we could get there. A great update to Marksman would be making it like Soldier 76's tactical visor - turning on aimbot and also giving you faster reload times. While Adrenaline Rush would be closer to Ana's Nanoboost, upping your damage, toughness and movespeed.

I'd be down for that. Better than ammo powers or weirdness like Concussive Shot. Generally, I hope they don't reuse too much from the previous games. Some overlap is inevitable, since there's no reason to drop Throw, Pull or Overload - but there's a lot of potential for something new.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Would it be considered thread necromancy to bring this thread into the new year? I had a question but am not sure if I should start a new thread or not.

[LibraryOgre]

Would it be considered thread necromancy to bring this thread into the new year? I had a question but am not sure if I should start a new thread or not.

The Mod Wonder: Thread necromancy is more than 45 days. This is not thread necromancy. However, had it been thread necromancy, asking the question would've been sufficient for the warning, so PM me if you have a question.

But, yeah, ask away.

[Leon]

Thread Conjuration?

[LibraryOgre]

Thread Conjuration?

Accio thread!

[ImperiousLeader]

Well, everyone has probably seen this by now, but:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsgrYq967TM

Gotta admit, the Tempest is pretty sexy.

[Dienekes]

Is it bad that everything about the all terrain vehicle and drop drones reminds me of all the worst parts of DAI?

I pray we can just ignore the worlds and won't be punished by having all my crew die or something.

[Psyren]

I can hardly wait! I hope they delay it if they need to though. The last thing we need are more billboards and cupcakes.

Other news items:

- No plans (at least, not currently) to bring MEA to the Switch.
- You can name the weapons you craft, and can craft melee weapons. Melee weapons have a dedicated slot like the ranged weapons, letting you incorporate them into various builds.



Gotta admit, the Tempest is pretty sexy.

And to think, all we had to give up for that style were our ship's guns! :smallbiggrin:

[Morty]

Part of me hopes I can play a space swashbuckler with a tech-sword and a pistol, but the other part says not to set myself up for a disappointment.

[Dienekes]

- You can name the weapons you craft, and can craft melee weapons. Melee weapons have a dedicated slot like the ranged weapons, letting you incorporate them into various builds.

Hah, neat. I really want to make a melee weapon called "laser hammer" that is just a normal hammer. To confuse my enemies.

[ImperiousLeader]

And to think, all we had to give up for that style were our ship's guns! :smallbiggrin:

Eh, without Garrus, who'd calibrate them? I'd love to see a size comparison between the Tempest and the two Normandy's. I assume the Tempest is the smallest, but she's got such spacious interiors. Maybe she's a TARDIS?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Anyway, the question I was asking if I could ask was what class I should make my CanonShep (Male Colonist/War Hero). I've narrowed it down to Engineer, Vanguard or Sentinel, but I can't decide!

Engineer

Pros: The ONLY class-specific interaction in the entire Trilogy along with other little dialogue tidbits, "brains over brawn" style is kind of compelling, cheaper upgrades in 2, plays up "Man/Machine" dichotomy a bit, FLAMING Omni-Blade!

Cons: Redundant with Tali (who I plan on bringing with on a majority of the game), biotics feel left out, takes time and work to become strong.

Vanguard

Pros: Biotics but not as squishy as an Adept, Charge is BADASS AS HELL!, BIOTIC PUNCH!

Cons: No cool Omni-Blade, downplays "Man/Machine" dichotomy which is essential to the plot with Synthesis ending (which is what I'm going for), takes some finesse to be successful with.

Sentinel

Pros: Best of both worlds!, Tech Armor makes me feel like Horatius or Audie Murphy, TWO Omni-Blades which is objectively TWICE as cool!, sort of makes Shep a foil to Saren in the first game (since he's got biotics and technical stuff, and sort of foreshadows the Synthesis ending).

Cons: No cool dialogue options like Engineer, somewhat plain compared with Vanguard, has to take fewer weapons so I can't use all the cool guns like the Vanguard can.

All three are too cool! (I've already done Soldier and Infiltrator, and honestly, Soldier's kind of boring and I'm planning on making my Ryder an Infiltratory type).

[5ColouredWalker]

And to think, all we had to give up for that style were our ship's guns! :smallbiggrin:

I know right, and with all that spare room?
I mean, come on. I know we're supposed to be living on the thing for extended periods, but we're supposed to dock back with larger ships and the not-citadel. Whoever designed this thing for comfort instead of designing it like a submarine/standard ship (All rooms marginally larger than the height maximum unless room is needed for big things like engines or torpedo storage, so don't stand on your toes) deserves to be bolted to the front of the ship for ramming operations.

I hope the Turian version of the ship (if we ever see it) is more Spartan, given that's one of the Turians' big sticks (Up their but. Standard issue, along side several other sticks. They're never unarmed.).


That said, sudden point. Maybe this expedition had too many civilians on the boards, which would make a good explanation ala ME2. (Of course it's big and comfy! Civilian designed military vessel!)



That said, it's still cool as hell and I want one

[Douglas]

Eh, without Garrus, who'd calibrate them?
Part of me thinks they really shouldn't have made Garrus' "I have nothing to talk about" line in ME2 something that would imply such extreme devotion to one activity when repeated a bunch of times. The rest of me thinks it's too good a source of jokes to give up, and I remember the devs acknowledging it in-game with joking references in ME3.

[Inarius]

Anyway, the question I was asking if I could ask was what class I should make my CanonShep (Male Colonist/War Hero). I've narrowed it down to Engineer, Vanguard or Sentinel, but I can't decide!

Heh, I just started another playthrough myself and went with Vanguard. Partly because it was one of two classes in ME1 that I hadn't gotten to 60, but also because its by far my favorite class in the games. Plus it makes ME2 faster since it borks out the wave spawning mechanics in ME2 so you fight fewer enemies if you charge to the back of a room.

As for engineer, that is actually a pretty good option to go with Tali in the second and third games due to stacking up on combat drones. They can wreak some havoc on your foes by staggering them. Plus you can go triple drones with Legion in ME2 for even more staggering mayhem.

[Psyren]

Part of me thinks they really shouldn't have made Garrus' "I have nothing to talk about" line in ME2 something that would imply such extreme devotion to one activity when repeated a bunch of times. The rest of me thinks it's too good a source of jokes to give up, and I remember the devs acknowledging it in-game with joking references in ME3.

I believe it was simply an oversight on their part, they didn't realize that obsessive folks like us would literally go chat up the crew after every single mission.

They of course forgot that we're the same fanbase that turned "Shepard. Wrex. Shepard. Wrex." into god-tier meme status from the first game too.


*snip*

I can't tell which game you're talking about, or if you mean the whole trilogy. You mention omni-blades (ME3) and charging vanguards (ME2/ME3) but then you also talk about Sentinel having fewer guns, which is a ME1 thing only. You also mention being redundant with Tali which definitely isn't the case in 3 (in fact, you get the two big tech powers that she doesn't, Incinerate and Overload, which can combo with her ED to create devastating tech bursts and actually make her a stronger pick.)


I know right, and with all that spare room?
I mean, come on. I know we're supposed to be living on the thing for extended periods, but we're supposed to dock back with larger ships and the not-citadel. Whoever designed this thing for comfort instead of designing it like a submarine/standard ship (All rooms marginally larger than the height maximum unless room is needed for big things like engines or torpedo storage, so don't stand on your toes) deserves to be bolted to the front of the ship for ramming operations.

I hope the Turian version of the ship (if we ever see it) is more Spartan, given that's one of the Turians' big sticks (Up their but. Standard issue, along side several other sticks. They're never unarmed.).


That said, sudden point. Maybe this expedition had too many civilians on the boards, which would make a good explanation ala ME2. (Of course it's big and comfy! Civilian designed military vessel!)

Yeah, it's intentionally less spartan than the Normandy. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call it a civilian vessel, but definitely comfort is more of a concern for the Andromeda Initiative than it was for the Alliance.



As for engineer, that is actually a pretty good option to go with Tali in the second and third games due to stacking up on combat drones. They can wreak some havoc on your foes by staggering them. Plus you can go triple drones with Legion in ME2 for even more staggering mayhem.

Drone-stacking in 2 sounds good until you remember that their drone cooldowns are astronomically long. Yours is great for popping baddies out of cover though by spawning it behind them.

[LibraryOgre]

Anyway, the question I was asking if I could ask was what class I should make my CanonShep (Male Colonist/War Hero). I've narrowed it down to Engineer, Vanguard or Sentinel, but I can't decide!

Engineer

Pros: The ONLY class-specific interaction in the entire Trilogy along with other little dialogue tidbits, "brains over brawn" style is kind of compelling, cheaper upgrades in 2, plays up "Man/Machine" dichotomy a bit, FLAMING Omni-Blade!

Cons: Redundant with Tali (who I plan on bringing with on a majority of the game), biotics feel left out, takes time and work to become strong.


I'm a fan of the engineer, myself. ME1 is a bit rough (though you don't have to worry about opening things), but since you're doing an NG+, you can liven them up with a bonus talent (assault rifle is good, or biotic lift, making you a pseudo-Sentinel).

You might also play around with different combinations, and change classes between games. I did a pure tech engineer in ME1, added a biotic ability on NG+ (arguing that my time in space introduced eezo infection to make me biotic), and went with my engineer with a bit of biotics through the series. While you ARE redundant with Tali, that's not necessarily horrible, and I had great fun in ME2 running an Engineer, Tali, and Legion together... all with their own drone out.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Yes, Psyren, I am talking about the entire trilogy with specific things from each installment, just to clarify. :smallsmile:

[VoxRationis]

I know right, and with all that spare room?
I mean, come on. I know we're supposed to be living on the thing for extended periods, but we're supposed to dock back with larger ships and the not-citadel. Whoever designed this thing for comfort instead of designing it like a submarine/standard ship (All rooms marginally larger than the height maximum unless room is needed for big things like engines or torpedo storage, so don't stand on your toes) deserves to be bolted to the front of the ship for ramming operations.

I hope the Turian version of the ship (if we ever see it) is more Spartan, given that's one of the Turians' big sticks (Up their but. Standard issue, along side several other sticks. They're never unarmed.).


That said, sudden point. Maybe this expedition had too many civilians on the boards, which would make a good explanation ala ME2. (Of course it's big and comfy! Civilian designed military vessel!)

It's possible that the ridiculous crew quarters came as a side effect of earlier design processes. They might have concluded that they need a hull of a particular size (say, because they wanted to put in a certain reactor), but wanted to emphasize speed and stealth over combat ability, and chucked out armor and the main gun. Then they had a bunch of extra space and couldn't think of a better thing to do with it, so they expanded crew space.

Of course, the Normandy showed that you don't actually have to compromise on guns and armor to make a ship fast and stealthy, so I'm not quite sure why they'd take the risk of having humanity's last hope be practically unarmed. I'm predicting that this ship will be lost and you'll have to upgrade to the villain's ship.

[Psyren]

Yes, Psyren, I am talking about the entire trilogy with specific things from each installment, just to clarify. :smallsmile:

If it's the entire trilogy then you'll have to compromise somewhere. Engineers are solid in ME1 (though you end up almost entirely redundant with Tali), they hit a low point in ME2 (having weak weapons and no good answers to the most prevalent enemy defense late-game), and then in ME3 they become extremely badass casters.

So either you accept the fact that bringing Tali along makes you deficient/redundant in some instances until 3, or... well, there is no other option but to accept that or play another class really.



Of course, the Normandy showed that you don't actually have to compromise on guns and armor to make a ship fast and stealthy, so I'm not quite sure why they'd take the risk of having humanity's last hope be practically unarmed. I'm predicting that this ship will be lost and you'll have to upgrade to the villain's ship.

I kinda doubt that - the design is a bit too sleek/marketable for them to just throw it out and have you switch to something else.

[Rodin]

I kinda doubt that - the design is a bit too sleek/marketable for them to just throw it out and have you switch to something else.

They could just blow it up again and then refit it with weapons.

[Eldan]

It's possible that the ridiculous crew quarters came as a side effect of earlier design processes. They might have concluded that they need a hull of a particular size (say, because they wanted to put in a certain reactor), but wanted to emphasize speed and stealth over combat ability, and chucked out armor and the main gun. Then they had a bunch of extra space and couldn't think of a better thing to do with it, so they expanded crew space.

Of course, the Normandy showed that you don't actually have to compromise on guns and armor to make a ship fast and stealthy, so I'm not quite sure why they'd take the risk of having humanity's last hope be practically unarmed. I'm predicting that this ship will be lost and you'll have to upgrade to the villain's ship.

But the Normandy did compromise on guns. It didn't have giant spinal main guns like a dedicated warship.

[Psyren]

They could just blow it up again and then refit it with weapons.

Who knows, "Andromeda 2" might start with the whole thing getting blown up and Ryder getting spaced :smalltongue:


But the Normandy did compromise on guns. It didn't have giant spinal main guns like a dedicated warship.

IIRC, frigates don't usually have those. It was thanks to Garrus' questionably-legal tech that we were able to get one in the SR2, but that was out of the ordinary.

[LibraryOgre]

It's possible that the ridiculous crew quarters came as a side effect of earlier design processes. They might have concluded that they need a hull of a particular size (say, because they wanted to put in a certain reactor), but wanted to emphasize speed and stealth over combat ability, and chucked out armor and the main gun. Then they had a bunch of extra space and couldn't think of a better thing to do with it, so they expanded crew space.

Might also be that additional decks and bulkheads would add mass, which would throw off the drive specs.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Something I've run into...I reinstalled Mass Effect on my new computer, and the configuration utility upon launching the game keeps crashing...apparently I need to download a couple patches, but when I go to the website for the patches and try to download them, the website crashes! Now what?! :smallfrown:

[SangoProduction]

Something I've run into...I reinstalled Mass Effect on my new computer, and the configuration utility upon launching the game keeps crashing...apparently I need to download a couple patches, but when I go to the website for the patches and try to download them, the website crashes! Now what?! :smallfrown:

Make sure it's plugged in. Turn it off, then on again. Contact customer support.

If all of that fails, you already bought the game. Just "pirate" it. They tend to actually work.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm liking the Tempest, although I'm not convinced of the Nomad. If they can make it handle on non-mission maps as well as the Mako did on mission maps then I'll be happy.

I'm hoping for the possibility of a 'melee weapons only' playstyle, even though it's unlikely, because I'm looking for nostalgia from even older Space Operas than the 80s. Even without that, if they can make me feel like I'm an agent of the Foundation, exploring and exploiting a generally less developed galaxy I'll be happy.

So yeah, nothing looks bad, it looks like materials scavenging might be 'find a resource and get a boost to your resources income', which will be an awesome way to do it, where you can probably complete the new space gun you want in a sidequest or three instead of having to scour the landscape for the necessary beard veins.

Any mention of if they're going with ammo or cooldowns on the guns? Because I'd expect that the old 'no ammo shots' guns would have been brought if going somewhere there might be hostiles with potentially higher technology and you might not have the ability to create new thermal clips for an unspecified amount of time. Plus I think it's unlikely that the residents of Andromeda will be convenient enough to have developed thermal clips exactly like the ones in the Milky Way. On that note, I'll be annoyed if the native species of Andromeda haven't developed unique technology.

On the technology note, does anybody know what the standard power source is in the Mass Effect universe? As far as I can tell each soldier carries at least one in their armour, then guns and omnitools at the very least have a decent battery in them, possibly their own generator, and I'm not 100% sure fusion generators can be scaled down that much (fission would be potentially dangerous if the shielding breaks). I know it's not eezo, because we need to get electricity to run through that to create mass effect fields.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Make sure it's plugged in. Turn it off, then on again. Contact customer support.

If all of that fails, you already bought the game. Just "pirate" it. They tend to actually work.
All the customer service stuff just points me to the patches that won't download!

[SangoProduction]

All the customer service stuff just points me to the patches that won't download!

Ding ding ding. I think you noticed the common trend with the suggestions in that line lol. Aside from being steps that should be taken in chronological order.

I bought all my games once. But the first 2 got lost, and that store interface the third one uses is a pain in the ass. It's sad when hack jobs on the net provide a better user interface than a store built by a multi(b?)illion dollar enterprise.

Clarification: by "bought all my games once" I meant, I already bought them.

[Corvus]

Any mention of if they're going with ammo or cooldowns on the guns? Because I'd expect that the old 'no ammo shots' guns would have been brought if going somewhere there might be hostiles with potentially higher technology and you might not have the ability to create new thermal clips for an unspecified amount of time. Plus I think it's unlikely that the residents of Andromeda will be convenient enough to have developed thermal clips exactly like the ones in the Milky Way. On that note, I'll be annoyed if the native species of Andromeda haven't developed unique technology.



They are going with ammo as seen in the gameplay footage shown so far. And the Andromeda aliens have the same ammo clips as the Milk Way galaxy races it looks like.

Makes zero sense, but after ME1 they were trying more for the shooter demographic and apparently ammo is needed for that.

[SangoProduction]

They are going with ammo as seen in the gameplay footage shown so far. And the Andromeda aliens have the same ammo clips as the Milky Way galaxy races it looks like.

Makes zero sense, but after ME1 they were trying more for the shooter demographic and apparently ammo is needed for that.

Yeah....sigh. But it's not 100% confirmed for everything. Maybe there's actual choice with regards to ammo this time around. Then again this is Bioware...but this is also Mass Effect...a spin off anyway.

[5ColouredWalker]

Yeah....sigh. But it's not 100% confirmed for everything. Maybe there's actual choice with regards to ammo this time around. Then again this is Bioware...but this is also Mass Effect...a spin off anyway.

Given ME3 had guns which did both (Though not at the same time), you may have some options for either way.

That said, they might have all been DLC/Multiplayer gated. It's been a while.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Does the Origin version of Mass Effect (I registered my product code from my old game with it) contain Bring Down The Sky, or will I have to get that separately (I already had Pinnacle Station from when I had it installed on my old computer)?

[Psyren]

Something I've run into...I reinstalled Mass Effect on my new computer, and the configuration utility upon launching the game keeps crashing...apparently I need to download a couple patches, but when I go to the website for the patches and try to download them, the website crashes! Now what?! :smallfrown:

You should probably try their official forums as there are likely to be more folks that know a way around this issue than the relative handful of us in this thread.


They are going with ammo as seen in the gameplay footage shown so far. And the Andromeda aliens have the same ammo clips as the Milk Way galaxy races it looks like.

Makes zero sense, but after ME1 they were trying more for the shooter demographic and apparently ammo is needed for that.

How does it not make sense? Nearly every character in the setting is carrying around a sophisticated micro-factory on their forearm. Repurposing various scrap and other materials into heat sinks isn't that farfetched; it's not like Andromeda is based on a completely different periodic table after all, most of the same building blocks are there. (They'd better be, or we have no hope of getting around or even staying alive once our own food and fuel run out; our trip would be exceedingly short.)


Does the Origin version of Mass Effect (I registered my product code from my old game with it) contain Bring Down The Sky, or will I have to get that separately (I already had Pinnacle Station from when I had it installed on my old computer)?

A quick google turned up this. (https://gamerant.com/mass-effect-trilogy-dlc/) The answer appears to be yes, the PC version of MET should include both Pinnacle Station and Bring Down The Sky.

For the record, even if it didn't, Bring Down The Sky affects nothing in ME2 and exactly one scene in ME3, the flag for which you can easily just flip in Gibbed instead.

[Inarius]

Does the Origin version of Mass Effect (I registered my product code from my old game with it) contain Bring Down The Sky, or will I have to get that separately (I already had Pinnacle Station from when I had it installed on my old computer)?

It was always free for PC users so they just wrapped it together with the ME1 download on Origin and made it a part of the base game.

[Morty]

I don't see what the big deal is about ammo, really. All that really changes is the need to hit reload every once in a while. This looks more like a matter of principle to the people who complain about heat sinks, really. I'm far more worried about things I've heard about elements from the ME1 inventory returning.

[LibraryOgre]

I don't see what the big deal is about ammo, really. All that really changes is the need to hit reload every once in a while. This looks more like a matter of principle to the people who complain about heat sinks, really. I'm far more worried about things I've heard about elements from the ME1 inventory returning.

I maintain that Commander Shepherd's secondary MOS was Quartermaster.

[Psyren]

Looks like if you sign up for Origin Access ($5 /mo) there will be a 10-hour preview of the game prior to launch.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-23-10-hour-trial-of-mass-effect-andromeda-out-five-days-before-launch

[Inarius]

Looks like if you sign up for Origin Access ($5 /mo) there will be a 10-hour preview of the game prior to launch.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-23-10-hour-trial-of-mass-effect-andromeda-out-five-days-before-launch

That really doesn't seem worth it unless you already have a subscription.

[Psyren]

That really doesn't seem worth it unless you already have a subscription.

Eh, YMMV. I think five bucks for an extra week is fine, and it comes with other free games.

Doesn't seem to be an option for Playstation players though...

[Driderman]

Eh, YMMV. I think five bucks for an extra week is fine, and it comes with other free games.

Doesn't seem to be an option for Playstation players though...

It would be fine, if I wasn't actually paying money to EA, for something as shoddy as Origin. I'd feel like a moron for spending money on that :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

It would be fine, if I wasn't actually paying money to EA, for something as shoddy as Origin. I'd feel like a moron for spending money on that :smalltongue:

Any money you spend on the game is going to EA at some point. (That's kind of how publishing works :smalltongue:)

Also, of all the things to hate EA for (and there are quite a lot), I think Origin hate is a bit passé. The service has come a long way, and if it never existed, Steam might never have been pressured into offering refunds. Competition is a good thing, y'know?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Gotta agree here, especially since it's enabling me to play games I can't patch normally anymore.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Hey, are the Mass Effect comics any good? Part of me wants to pick up the Omnibus Edition to enhance my upcoming canon playthrough, but part of me worries it'll necessitate picking up the novels as well, including...*shudder*...Deception! :smalleek:

[Psyren]

No clue, I've never been a big "Expanded Universe" guy myself. Anything important from them usually ends up on the wiki, while the confusing, poorly-written or non-canon stuff is easy to disregard.

Having said that, I did enjoy "Blue Rose of Ilium" (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comicsandcosplay/comics/escapist-comics/9758-Blue-Rose-of-Illium), though that was a fan-comic IIRC.

[Driderman]

Any money you spend on the game is going to EA at some point. (That's kind of how publishing works :smalltongue:)

Also, of all the things to hate EA for (and there are quite a lot), I think Origin hate is a bit passé. The service has come a long way, and if it never existed, Steam might never have been pressured into offering refunds. Competition is a good thing, y'know?

Luckily, my dislike of things is not really determined by what is currently fashionable :smallsmile:

[ImperiousLeader]

New Cinematic Trailer!


https://youtu.be/NNG_szaXNNU

I'm liking the crew. We'll see how things develop.

[Lentrax]

Well, time to start scrounging change for a preorder...

[Psyren]

Luckily, my dislike of things is not really determined by what is currently fashionable :smallsmile:

*shrug*

You do you bud


New Cinematic Trailer!



I'm liking the crew. We'll see how things develop.

*salivates profusely*

I'm doing the preorder AND the early access thing!

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I've already had my preorder in the bag for a while, but I think I'll skip the access thing. I'll just end up waiting for the Prima Guide anyway, so I don't care about a few hours of stumbling around the game not knowing what the heck I'm doing. :smalltongue:

[5ColouredWalker]

You know, after ME3 I vowed not to pre-order.

The only reason I haven't yet is because I'm broke, I think the universe is doing it's best to make me keep my vow because it thinks it's funny.
Well, I've got to upgrade my computer anyway unless I want looking at the game to give me eye cancer.

And while the 'I've got a Krogan' was cool, I had a fit at 'This is exactly why we came'... Yes, I'm certain that's true for a bunch of fans.

[Psyren]

And while the 'I've got a Krogan' was cool, I had a fit at 'This is exactly why we came'... Yes, I'm certain that's true for a bunch of fans.

Screw the plot and gameplay - we want cheesecake! :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

[Dienekes]

You know, after ME3 I vowed not to pre-order.

The only reason I haven't yet is because I'm broke, I think the universe is doing it's best to make me keep my vow because it thinks it's funny.
Well, I've got to upgrade my computer anyway unless I want looking at the game to give me eye cancer.

And while the 'I've got a Krogan' was cool, I had a fit at 'This is exactly why we came'... Yes, I'm certain that's true for a bunch of fans.

That's interesting. If the continuation of the human race is a key element of the plot. This may make the first Bioware game I actually do the romance option on purpose instead of randomly having it jump up on me like my first time playing ME.

Well, except DA2. But I'm not sure if that counts. Oh, Aveline, I wish you well with that one guy you ended up with. Whatever his name was, I think it was Genericguard McPlainface.

[Zevox]

New Cinematic Trailer!



I'm liking the crew. We'll see how things develop.
You know, the part at the beginning about that planet being "New Earth, if we're lucky" at the start and them needing to make sure it was safe immediately made me wish that this game was about just exploring a single planet and setting up a new colony there to grow it into a new homeworld for the races of the Milky Way. That sounds like it would make a pretty interesting game to me.

[tonberrian]

We also have to think about the Asari. And the Krogan, but having sex with a krogan wouldn't help them.

[5ColouredWalker]

That's interesting. If the continuation of the human race is a key element of the plot. This may make the first Bioware game I actually do the romance option on purpose instead of randomly having it jump up on me like my first time playing ME.

Well, except DA2. But I'm not sure if that counts. Oh, Aveline, I wish you well with that one guy you ended up with. Whatever his name was, I think it was Genericguard McPlainface.

Probably not a key element, but mentioned. Sleeping with Asari/Other Xeno's without contributing to the continueation of the Human race (Now approximately 20K People, +Some Arc People (I.e. The Warlord in previous trailers) - Whoever dies in the plot.) might get a mention by crew members.
Especially if it's Asari, since you end up continuing their race as well.

That said, the Salarians will repopulate quickly, as could the Krogan depending on what sort of limiters there are on their breeding (At the very least I bet they got a toned down version of the genophage, hopefully without the dead baby piles.).

Also, unless the new arrivals have some technological advancement on everyone else, Milky Way races may end up getting absorbed by the Andromeda races due to their tiny size. I mean, Rougly 20K people*7 (Based on the trailer), welcome to sci-fi Curacao (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cura%C3%A7ao), never before heard of, and quickly destroyed the moment they annoy anyone...
Or by random Pirates/Raiders.

Edit: I don't know the name of the Non-Ket aliens, but I bet they and the Asari both hit it off. Their bodies are a bit broader, but they're very similar, with the head tentacles and all... Lets them be in 'Big Strong Arms' without the problems associated with Turians or Krogan.

[Anonymouswizard]

They are going with ammo as seen in the gameplay footage shown so far. And the Andromeda aliens have the same ammo clips as the Milk Way galaxy races it looks like.

Makes zero sense, but after ME1 they were trying more for the shooter demographic and apparently ammo is needed for that.

Grumble grumble.


I don't see what the big deal is about ammo, really. All that really changes is the need to hit reload every once in a while. This looks more like a matter of principle to the people who complain about heat sinks, really. I'm far more worried about things I've heard about elements from the ME1 inventory returning.

Here, it's more of an immersion thing. I wouldn't mind going back to ammo from MEA2 onwards, when there's been time to adjust to this galaxy's version of thermal clips.

Actually, if ammo is relatively rare in the tutorial missions, then we have one where we fight the native aliens for the first time, I wouldn't mind having the ammo system if the research tutorial is 'modify our guns to use Andromeda ammo'.


We also have to think about the Asari. And the Krogan, but having sex with a krogan wouldn't help them.


having sex with a krogan

I shall now be disappointed if there isn't a Krogan romance option.

[5ColouredWalker]

I'm sure you'll be able to ride the bull Krogan.

[Psyren]

That's interesting. If the continuation of the human race is a key element of the plot. This may make the first Bioware game I actually do the romance option on purpose instead of randomly having it jump up on me like my first time playing ME.

Not saying you shouldn't feel the urge, but there are apparently 20k humans on your ark alone, never mind whoever went before you to set up the Nexus. So I don't think you should feel overly guilty about remaining celibate or boinking another race if you choose. And that's before we get into things like in vitro fertilization, gene therapy etc.


We also have to think about the Asari. And the Krogan, but having sex with a krogan wouldn't help them.

Maybe not, but it would help me :smallcool:


Grumble grumble.



Here, it's more of an immersion thing. I wouldn't mind going back to ammo from MEA2 onwards, when there's been time to adjust to this galaxy's version of thermal clips.

Actually, if ammo is relatively rare in the tutorial missions, then we have one where we fight the native aliens for the first time, I wouldn't mind having the ammo system if the research tutorial is 'modify our guns to use Andromeda ammo'.

Okay, I'm sorry, but I just don't see how this approach makes sense. "Shoot the dudes" is a core mechanic of this series, and making ammo scarce would accomplish nothing except to nerf one playstyle - the most popular one in all three previous games, no less - into inferiority for no damn good reason.

And as for the immersion point: Yes, we're in a new galaxy, but omnitools are still a thing. We'll have plenty of thermal clips. At most there will be craftable upgrades to pick up more ammo per clip, increase your guns' ammo capacity, or both, but the clips themselves will be around and will drop from enemies. To do otherwise would be bad design, end of.

[Anonymouswizard]

Okay, I'm sorry, but I just don't see how this approach makes sense. "Shoot the dudes" is a core mechanic of this series, and making ammo scarce would accomplish nothing except to nerf one playstyle - the most popular one in all three previous games, no less - into inferiority for no damn good reason.

And as for the immersion point: Yes, we're in a new galaxy, but omnitools are still a thing. We'll have plenty of thermal clips. At most there will be craftable upgrades to pick up more ammo per clip, increase your guns' ammo capacity, or both, but the clips themselves will be around and will drop from enemies. To do otherwise would be bad design, end of.

First off, you could always balance the game/missions for rarer ammo (like I'm asking for a couple of easy intromissions where you begin with plenty of ammo for the objectives then you research a thing and bam, back to normal). I'm just asking for a touch of immersion, we don't know if Omnitools can produce thermal clips.

What really annoys me is that, instead of refining a kinda fun but problematic system, it got thrown out for a system that every other shooter uses. I played soldier in ME2 and ME3, and I almost never ran out of ammo for my assault rifle. Maybe once or twice, I think the Archangel mission was the only one where I had to run out to collect ammo, but otherwise the difference between ME1 and ME2 on my soldier use were that I had to hit a face button every few seconds of firing. No, I never played Insanity, bit I completed ME2 on hardcore. I can't really see what the ammo system adds to the game other than 'out of ammo for the sniper rifle' (yeah, stopped using that regularly on my soldier playthroughs, couldn't land headshots and there just wasn't enough ammo capacity*).

* These guns all take the same thermal clips! Why can't I have a stack of spares I'm carting around to slap into weapons as needed!? For that matter, why didn't we leave the cooldown mode in and just make the guns slightly bulkier?

[Psyren]

First off, you could always balance the game/missions for rarer ammo (like I'm asking for a couple of easy intromissions where you begin with plenty of ammo for the objectives then you research a thing and bam, back to normal). I'm just asking for a touch of immersion, we don't know if Omnitools can produce thermal clips.

What really annoys me is that, instead of refining a kinda fun but problematic system, it got thrown out for a system that every other shooter uses. I played soldier in ME2 and ME3, and I almost never ran out of ammo for my assault rifle. Maybe once or twice, I think the Archangel mission was the only one where I had to run out to collect ammo, but otherwise the difference between ME1 and ME2 on my soldier use were that I had to hit a face button every few seconds of firing. No, I never played Insanity, bit I completed ME2 on hardcore. I can't really see what the ammo system adds to the game other than 'out of ammo for the sniper rifle' (yeah, stopped using that regularly on my soldier playthroughs, couldn't land headshots and there just wasn't enough ammo capacity*).

* These guns all take the same thermal clips! Why can't I have a stack of spares I'm carting around to slap into weapons as needed!? For that matter, why didn't we leave the cooldown mode in and just make the guns slightly bulkier?

They didn't actually throw out recharging completely - ME3 had the Particle Rifle and Collector Rifle, and their popularity (the former especially) all but guarantees that we'll have at least one recharging gun in Andromeda.

Anyway, I did play Insanity (extensively), and Gold/Platinum regularly in the multiplayer too, so I'll try to explain why an ammo system is better. With recharging, you end up with three options - none of which are good enough to carry the entire core mechanic on their own.


Recharging matters, leaving combat juddery and stilted - if you ever have to wait for your gun to recharge more than once in a fight, it really hurts the game flow. Sitting in cover waiting for a heat bar to drain is not engaging, especially if you're also waiting on powers to cooldown and therefore have basically nothing to do for a few seconds.

Recharging ends up basically not mattering and the gun effectively has infinite ammo - this is what ME1 resorted to by introducing Frictionless Materials at endgame. Without that, the waves upon waves of Geth in the final two missions would be nothing but a slog to fight through at higher difficulties (see above). So you end up with a core combat system that you're forced to actively bypass/invalidate to make things flow properly.

Your gun is powerful enough to kill multiple enemies in a single clip/recharge cycle - This is what ME3 did with the Particle Rifle. This preserves the game flow while still letting recharges matter - beating both of the problems above. But you can't make every gun in the game that powerful or there ends up being no variation; you might as well just have a single assault rifle. So they took this approach with a couple of ultra-rare weapons that they could afford to make more powerful than normal, so that the difference would be palpable when you used it. Best of all, they feel diffferent/alien in the game's own universe - you don't see every Cerberus mook running around with beam weapons. It gives them an easy shorthand way to say "higher high-tech," which we'll need now that we're exploring an alien unknown that even the other aliens are unfamiliar with.


TL;DR Innovation for innovation's sake is not good design, there needs to be a purpose behind it. To lift a quote from Yahtzee: "It's like someone made a submarine out of metal, and the metal submarine worked perfectly fine and became the norm, but then someone said, "Everyone makes submarines out of metal - let's make one out of bread!" Some conventions become standards for a reason, and the fact that everyone does something a certain way does not make it bad; quite the opposite in many cases.

[LibraryOgre]

As I understand it, the in-universe reason for the switch to thermal clips was an improved rate of fire... if you can eject the clip and start firing again, you have a greater ROF than if you have to wait for the cooldown. It was felt (in-universe) to be important when dealing with shielded enemies.

However, I wouldn't mind a mix of clipped and heat sinked weapons.

[Morty]

I feel like they could take a page out of Overwatch's book and have a reloading mechanic without having to pick up thermal clips. It introduces breaks in the firefights and differentiates weapons by magazine size without having to hunt down the clips. I'm perfectly fine if they stick to the way ME2 and ME3 did it, mind you.

[Psyren]

However, I wouldn't mind a mix of clipped and heat sinked weapons.

I'd be very surprised if we don't get this. The only real question is whether the latter will be restricted to DLC again (which I personally hope is not the case.)


I feel like they could take a page out of Overwatch's book and have a reloading mechanic without having to pick up thermal clips. It introduces breaks in the firefights and differentiates weapons by magazine size without having to hunt down the clips.

I can get why they didn't do it that way before - ME2 and ME3 were cover-based a la Gears of War. Needing to pick up ammo was therefore an additional layer of challenge, since you simply didn't last very long out of cover no matter how tough you were. (Well, for most kits. ME3 gave you the tools to become a cover-scorning juggernaut if you wished.)

But I digress. For this game, not needing to hunt clips could actually work, since it's not as married to cover-based firefights in carefully-crafted arenas, and instead has more of a sandboxy approach where you can come at engagements from multiple angles and fabricate your own defenses on the fly (like that biotic shield and tech wall we saw in the gameplay trailer.) So yeah, I'd be totally fine if we don't have to physically run over ammo like Overwatch. The only thing I'm not fine with is making every gun (or even most guns) into a recharge gun.

[Anima]

In the gameplay trailer you can see both ammunition and charge based weapons. Though I think it's more the alien weapons that are charge based.

[5ColouredWalker]

New Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Wwyflz1Qg)

Looking at the Roster, my first thoughts included 'Ah, Nepotism' and 'Why aren't you/one of you two in charge instead?'
The the first is probably the answer to the later.

Also, we've got an AI again. Apparently it was decided we could risk it since we're a galaxy a way


They didn't actually throw out recharging completely - ME3 had the Particle Rifle and Collector Rifle, and their popularity (the former especially) all but guarantees that we'll have at least one recharging gun in Andromeda.

From gameplay trailers with people who have better eyes the Particle Rifle and Collector Sniper Rifle might have made it through, despite how that screws with the lore. They probably have different names. Maybe the 'Ket Particle Rifle' :smalltongue:

[Anonymouswizard]

Part of the problem I also have with the ammo system is that either it's suitable for people like me, or my dyspraxia causes me to waste a lot of ammo missing many of my shots (the reason I never played insanity). I'm going to admit up front, what I want is a hybrid system where instead of having to scrounge ammo you have it slowly recharge while it's below maximum (fluff it as a compromise between thermal clips and the old ME1 style guns).

That's really the problem, there's a reason I don't normally play shooters (I didn't know ME was a shooter when I started as I went in blind, I still rarely make an effort to follow game media), and the cooldown system didn't feel like it was punishing me for poor aim. As it was, waiting for 2-3 seconds actually allowed me to plan out my next move or wait for my shield to recharge, I certainly spent longer not doing anything in ME2 due to how fast my shields dropped (I'd generally be in cover longer than I was shooting). If we are much more mobile in MEA I can see using cooldowns (or reloads) to encourage it by giving you your second or two when you aren't firing to jetpack somewhere.

Maybe it's because I'm not a 'serious' gamer, but honestly I had less problems with waiting for my gun to cooldown in ME1 than I did with hiding in cover in ME2. I do think cooldowns could have been a tad faster, but honestly I don't particularly like cover based shooting, I wanted ME3 to be more mobile.

On the squadmates/characters:
-Can't I play as this guy instead?
-Idealist? Oh well, at least it isn't Jacob.
-I was hoping we'd originally been part of a different department. I was looking forward to playing 'Geoff Ryder, botanist, Pathfinder, and bedder of krogan'.
-Looks like we're going to have pretty human love interest girl again. If there isn't a better choice it's going to be 'Susan Ryder, botanist, Pathfinder, and bedder of krogan'.
-Spoiler, spoiler spoiler, see above post.

No, I do not know why I want to play a botanist, it was just the first thing that came to mind. I'm not overly hyped by this advert, it seems annoyingly standard, and has nothing on the squadmates I'm actually interested in (I mean we get a Krogan again, literally my favourite Mass Effect Race, and it's not featured).

I'm also chuckling at the fact that a Fate setting was released with the same basic premise this month. It went in a completely different direction (it's assumed that PCs will age in it, and possibly be replaced by a younger generation), but I'm still amused.

[5ColouredWalker]

On the squadmates/characters:
-Can't I play as this guy instead?

I know right.
We have (Minute spoilers):
-N7 Veteran, One of the first people to go through the relays (Went through Charon), probably a FCW veteren, and based on the breifing, a skilled diplomat. Daddy Ryder.
-First Responder Expert, trained soldier/medic/etc.
-Breifing Girl, a Human Biotic skilled enough to fight alongside Asari Huntresses.
-Kiddy Ryders, Newly trained soldiers who've only done embassy duty.

Ok, between the last three we have a Skilled Soldier/Scientist (Maybe)/Diplomat (Maybe), so ok, that works for the team... But why is the succesfully unfrozen Embassy Guard the team leader?

[Psyren]

New Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Wwyflz1Qg)

Looking at the Roster, my first thoughts included 'Ah, Nepotism' and 'Why aren't you/one of you two in charge instead?'
The the first is probably the answer to the later.

Also, we've got an AI again. Apparently it was decided we could risk it since we're a galaxy a way

I don't consider anything in a trailer to be a spoiler so I'll talk openly - I had thought SAM was a VI but I always knew it would end up being an AI at some point. I didn't think they'd do that right off the bat but I guess I was wrong. I wonder if he knows EDI?



From gameplay trailers with people who have better eyes the Particle Rifle and Collector Sniper Rifle might have made it through, despite how that screws with the lore. They probably have different names. Maybe the 'Ket Particle Rifle' :smalltongue:

How does having both "screw with the lore?"

[Anonymouswizard]

I know right.
We have (Minute spoilers):
-N7 Veteran, One of the first people to go through the relays (Went through Charon), probably a FCW veteren, and based on the breifing, a skilled diplomat. Daddy Ryder.
-First Responder Expert, trained soldier/medic/etc.
-Breifing Girl, a Human Biotic skilled enough to fight alongside Asari Huntresses.
-Kiddy Ryders, Newly trained soldiers who've only done embassy duty.

Ok, between the last three we have a Skilled Soldier/Scientist (Maybe)/Diplomat (Maybe), so ok, that works for the team... But why is the succesfully unfrozen Embassy Guard the team leader?

I hate it when we're given a newbie and it doesn't make sense we're commanding the team. No matter what Shepard's backstory we knew they were a badass from the word go, and we knew they had earned their command decision.

It just feels like there's many more qualified people for the mantle of Pathfinder to fall to. I hope at the very least the story is like DAI and Kiddy Ryder is just another guy until we finish act 1 and get promoted to Pathfinder after something.

Although I'm actually annoyed Cora isn't the replacement Pathfinder, she's the obvious replacement. Maybe Kiddy Ryder worked in the planet observation and analysis section and they just wanted someone really good at determining if the planets they come across are suitable for colonisation leading the group. I mean, I'd have no problem with Bioware trying something new and keeping the PC as the local second in command. Sure, it'd mean having biotic girl stay on the ship to command it, but if we're going to be the galactic errand boy again then I at least hope we still have someone giving us a paycheck.

[5ColouredWalker]

How does having both "screw with the lore?"

The Andromada Innitiative left around 2, After Shepard is revived, but before Arrival, canonically.

The Particle Rifle is a recreation of Javik's rifle, who is found in ME3, while the collector weapons are either loot from ME2 or gained from interactions with freed collectors in 3.

So, like I said, either screwing with the lore, or having different origins. I.e. 'Ket Particle Rifle'.



I'm spoilering it so that I don't screw over people still asleep in other timezones.


I hate it when we're given a newbie and it doesn't make sense we're commanding the team. No matter what Shepard's backstory we knew they were a badass from the word go, and we knew they had earned their command decision.

It just feels like there's many more qualified people for the mantle of Pathfinder to fall to. I hope at the very least the story is like DAI and Kiddy Ryder is just another guy until we finish act 1 and get promoted to Pathfinder after something.

Although I'm actually annoyed Cora isn't the replacement Pathfinder, she's the obvious replacement. Maybe Kiddy Ryder worked in the planet observation and analysis section and they just wanted someone really good at determining if the planets they come across are suitable for colonisation leading the group. I mean, I'd have no problem with Bioware trying something new and keeping the PC as the local second in command. Sure, it'd mean having biotic girl stay on the ship to command it, but if we're going to be the galactic errand boy again then I at least hope we still have someone giving us a paycheck.

Yep. At least in DAI it was a case of 'We're using you, you're only in control because game mechanics' at the start. Hopefully the game gives better reasoning than the trailer.

[Dienekes]

Yeah I'm with anyone who thinks it would be cooler to play as Lex Luthor the N7 vet than one of his spawn.

But that won't happen.

[Psyren]

The Particle Rifle is a recreation of Javik's rifle, who is found in ME3, while the collector weapons are either loot from ME2 or gained from interactions with freed collectors in 3.

Collector weapons ARE Prothean. So even if the particle rifle seen is not an Andromedan creation, we can still explain it if we need to.


I hate it when we're given a newbie and it doesn't make sense we're commanding the team. No matter what Shepard's backstory we knew they were a badass from the word go, and we knew they had earned their command decision.

It just feels like there's many more qualified people for the mantle of Pathfinder to fall to. I hope at the very least the story is like DAI and Kiddy Ryder is just another guy until we finish act 1 and get promoted to Pathfinder after something.

Although I'm actually annoyed Cora isn't the replacement Pathfinder, she's the obvious replacement. Maybe Kiddy Ryder worked in the planet observation and analysis section and they just wanted someone really good at determining if the planets they come across are suitable for colonisation leading the group. I mean, I'd have no problem with Bioware trying something new and keeping the PC as the local second in command. Sure, it'd mean having biotic girl stay on the ship to command it, but if we're going to be the galactic errand boy again then I at least hope we still have someone giving us a paycheck.

I mean, they've said from the jump that we were going to be a newbie thrust into command. You can probably RP your Ryder as incompetent and unable to take the pressure if you want - leaving all your companions disloyal. But some people would indeed rise to that challenge despite their lack of experience, and my Ryder will be one such.

But yeah, I'm sure they'll explain why the chain of command passed to you. Probably nepotism, but that by itself doesn't mean you're unsuited for the job.

[Douglas]

I'm expecting Mr. N7 Vet to die in the prologue as part of explaining why your actual PC needs to step up to be the new Pathfinder. Possibly in a heroic sacrifice to save the entire expedition from the primary villain's introduction, or something along those lines.

[Anonymouswizard]

I mean, they've said from the jump that we were going to be a newbie thrust into command. You can probably RP your Ryder as incompetent and unable to take the pressure if you want - leaving all your companions disloyal. But some people would indeed rise to that challenge despite their lack of experience, and my Ryder will be one such.

But yeah, I'm sure they'll explain why the chain of command passed to you. Probably nepotism, but that by itself doesn't mean you're unsuited for the job.

The thing was, until squadmates began to be revealed I had no problem.

What springs to mind is Dragon Age: Origins, where The Warden is young and inexperienced, yet leads the team. The arrangement starts because Alistair wants someone to follow and Morrigan is potentially even less suited to it, Sten has command experience but I'd willing to follow your orders because you seem to be capable, and then I don't believe any of the other major party members have significant command experience (maybe Oghren, but he's barely capable).

So I think my problem is Cora. We know that badass Daddy Ryder is going to be shoved fridgewards, but out of the squad Cora screams 'replacement pathfinder', she's competent, is apparently already relatively high in rank, and has already proven to be competent, whereas I plan to nab the archeologist backstory for my Ryder if at all possible and leave soldier Ryder on the ship, so if the game doesn't allow me to roleplay 'incompetent and unable to handle the pressure' slowly becoming 'competent and unable to handle the pressure', or even just the option to roleplay the latter, then I'm going to be annoyed.

[Psyren]

My guess is there's going to be an explanation for why you are next in command and not her. Maybe the expedition protocols/SAM are genetically coded. Maybe you get something downloaded into your head a la Prothean Cipher or the Rift Palm thing from Inquisition. Or maybe she simply doesn't want it. Point is we'll find out.

Tell you what - when I do the early access thing, I'll post a spoiler letting you know the reason :smallbiggrin:

[5ColouredWalker]

Well, apparently some people can read that tiny text from the trailers and paused it enough to read.


Cerberus is alive and well.
Daddy Ryder was obsessed with using AI's to enhance Human development, with the note showing it as something that he became obsessed with after first contact, so he knew it was banned.
Our female human squad mate, Cora Harper
And if you remember, Cerberus has ties to ship building and AI development.

So, yea, Cerberus is alive and well. Though the AI having the ability to directly control the pathfinders is scary, and a potential reason why we're in command, given that Cora was officially supposed to be the second in command.
Oh, yea, no, it says so on her dossier. Officially second in command of the pathfinder team.

[Inarius]

Well, apparently some people can read that tiny text from the trailers and paused it enough to read.


Cerberus is alive and well.
Daddy Ryder was obsessed with using AI's to enhance Human development, with the note showing it as something that he became obsessed with after first contact, so he knew it was banned.
Our female human squad mate, Cora Harper
And if you remember, Cerberus has ties to ship building and AI development.

So, yea, Cerberus is alive and well. Though the AI having the ability to directly control the pathfinders is scary, and a potential reason why we're in command, given that Cora was officially supposed to be the second in command.
Oh, yea, no, it says so on her dossier. Officially second in command of the pathfinder team.


So the Elusive Mans daughter is your squadmate, that could be interesting. Makes sense he'd try to guarantee her safety.

[5ColouredWalker]

So the Elusive Mans daughter is your squadmate, that could be interesting. Makes sense he'd try to guarantee her safety.


Illusive, it's TIM, not TEM, and she could be slightly more distant than daughter, but yes.

Though I could be wrong, I'm betting the kid becomes leader instead of Cora is due to Daddy having coded SAM to make one of the kids leader instead of Cora, and no one else noticed.

[Inarius]

Illusive, it's TIM, not TEM, and she could be slightly more distant than daughter, but yes.

Though I could be wrong, I'm betting the kid becomes leader instead of Cora is due to Daddy having coded SAM to make one of the kids leader instead of Cora, and no one else noticed.


Whoops, right, though I suppose technically he should be The Elusive Man because he does indeed exist heh.

[Anima]

Apparently when crafting you can use a component called 'vintage heat sink' that causes the weapon to behave like a ME1 gun. Pretty interesting.
Found it on Neogaf and here is the link to the developer statement on Bioware Social Network:
http://bsn.boards.net/thread/3649/vintage-heat-sink

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Sounds sweet! I know for my Ryder I'm going to model her after Garrus: Sniper and Assault Rifles with some extra tech stuff thrown in, and the heat sink thing could work well for the Assault Rifle component.

Incidentally, I noticed that my achievements are gone since I reinstalled the game. It's not that big a concern for me, but I'm wondering if I should do the basic classes to "spam" their powers to unlock the extra abilities for my main playthrough or just plough through with the generic Sentinel and forget it?

[Anonymouswizard]

Apparently when crafting you can use a component called 'vintage heat sink' that causes the weapon to behave like a ME1 gun. Pretty interesting.
Found it on Neogaf and here is the link to the developer statement on Bioware Social Network:
http://bsn.boards.net/thread/3649/vintage-heat-sink

Well this is good, I'll be using this as much as I can because with ammo systems I either feel like I've been given so much ammo that I'll never run out or I feel like the game is punishing me for poor aim (which I know is sort of the point, but due to having either powers or four guns ME2/3 always slid into the former camp). Also I feel like I'll just prefer having the couple of seconds to adjust my position as the gun cools down, instead of ME2/3 where I was just waiting in cover for most of the combat (seriously, can we go back to ME1 levels of health and shields? Especially as it sounds like we're going to be more mobile, it'll help with the 'out of cover' bit), and if it's just the half-second reload I might forget to pay attention to where I am.

[5ColouredWalker]

Apparently when crafting you can use a component called 'vintage heat sink' that causes the weapon to behave like a ME1 gun. Pretty interesting.
Found it on Neogaf and here is the link to the developer statement on Bioware Social Network:
http://bsn.boards.net/thread/3649/vintage-heat-sink

*Cackles Madly*
That said, I hope that 'Vintage Heat Sinks' aren't a limited resource... I'm really hoping they go DA2 style with the crafting by way of 'You have found X sources. Crafts at will/until broke.'

I wonder if we'll be able to recycle/find weapons/gear like in ME1, and whether any of it will be looting the corpse. (Ok, it doesn't make sense to strip a Blue Sun of his armor in the field, but you're saying I can't lean down and pick up his gun?)

[Psyren]

Well, apparently some people can read that tiny text from the trailers and paused it enough to read.


Cerberus is alive and well.
Daddy Ryder was obsessed with using AI's to enhance Human development, with the note showing it as something that he became obsessed with after first contact, so he knew it was banned.
Our female human squad mate, Cora Harper
And if you remember, Cerberus has ties to ship building and AI development.

So, yea, Cerberus is alive and well. Though the AI having the ability to directly control the pathfinders is scary, and a potential reason why we're in command, given that Cora was officially supposed to be the second in command.
Oh, yea, no, it says so on her dossier. Officially second in command of the pathfinder team.


Based on that, there's definitely going to be a reason why you're running the show and not her. (One more substantial than her family ties we can hope.)

The AI thing I'm not surprised about:
First because any cutting-edge human endeavor has Cerberus' fingerprints on it. Second because of Daddy Ryder himself; he served during First Contact, he would probably be on the mailing list of the other pro-humanity folks, notably TIM.


Apparently when crafting you can use a component called 'vintage heat sink' that causes the weapon to behave like a ME1 gun. Pretty interesting.
Found it on Neogaf and here is the link to the developer statement on Bioware Social Network:
http://bsn.boards.net/thread/3649/vintage-heat-sink

Excellent, this is a great way to silence the haters. "If you want it so bad, put it back in yourself, and in the process get involved with the new crafting system."

[Inarius]

Sounds sweet! I know for my Ryder I'm going to model her after Garrus: Sniper and Assault Rifles with some extra tech stuff thrown in, and the heat sink thing could work well for the Assault Rifle component.

Incidentally, I noticed that my achievements are gone since I reinstalled the game. It's not that big a concern for me, but I'm wondering if I should do the basic classes to "spam" their powers to unlock the extra abilities for my main playthrough or just plough through with the generic Sentinel and forget it?

The achievements for ME1 were stored computer side as opposed to online, you can however use console commands to award the achievements to you if you don't want to bother spamming class powers to unlock them.

Basically unlock the console and type "UnlockAchievement n" (without the quotation marks) where n is a number from 1-47.

Edit: link to the achievement list if youre looking to just unlock specific ones Linkie (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/PC_Cheats#Achievements)

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Won't that mess up achievements in the future? I know Steam prevents you from getting achievements if you use the Cheat Console in a game.

[Zevox]

Apparently when crafting you can use a component called 'vintage heat sink' that causes the weapon to behave like a ME1 gun. Pretty interesting.
Found it on Neogaf and here is the link to the developer statement on Bioware Social Network:
http://bsn.boards.net/thread/3649/vintage-heat-sink
Well, that's actually pretty cool to hear. Always preferred that myself.


*Cackles Madly*
That said, I hope that 'Vintage Heat Sinks' aren't a limited resource... I'm really hoping they go DA2 style with the crafting by way of 'You have found X sources. Crafts at will/until broke.'
Agreed. My fear would be a crafting system like in DA:I, where you're practically tripping over stuff you need to stop and collect every five feet in order to make use of it. DA2's is so much nicer by contrast.


I wonder if we'll be able to recycle/find weapons/gear like in ME1, and whether any of it will be looting the corpse. (Ok, it doesn't make sense to strip a Blue Sun of his armor in the field, but you're saying I can't lean down and pick up his gun?)
I hope not. The inventory bloat was one of the elements of ME1 I was glad to see gone.

[Inarius]

Won't that mess up achievements in the future? I know Steam prevents you from getting achievements if you use the Cheat Console in a game.

No, it wont mess it up for Mass Effect 1 or 2. I have no idea on 3 because 3 tracked your achievements online as opposed to offline on your computer.


Agreed. My fear would be a crafting system like in DA:I, where you're practically tripping over stuff you need to stop and collect every five feet in order to make use of it. DA2's is so much nicer by contrast.

I hope not. The inventory bloat was one of the elements of ME1 I was glad to see gone.

DA2s gathering system was almost perfect for me. The only tweak I can think of that might make it more interesting would be using the DAI wartable to gather resources off of nodes you've unlocked. More nodes equals more resources gathered and increased odds for rare resources.

As far as inventory bloat goes, I think I read there's going to be an inventory system sort of like ME1's system. Which to me is a shame if its true because I really liked how ME3 handled gear. Of course if it is ME1 style then hopefully they've at least made the UI a bit easier to navigate and made loot rarer so you're not drowning in it.

[Morty]

I'm pretty sure we've seen Ryder pick up individual materials in one of the gameplay videos. So I wouldn't hold my breath for DA2-style gathering.

The best-case scenario with crafting is that it'd result in an "inventory" like ME3, with the same level of customization but also some unnecessary steps and a lot of chaff. But the rumors of a ME1-style inventory suggest we won't be so lucky.

[Rodin]

I'm pretty sure we've seen Ryder pick up individual materials in one of the gameplay videos. So I wouldn't hold my breath for DA2-style gathering.

The best-case scenario with crafting is that it'd result in an "inventory" like ME3, with the same level of customization but also some unnecessary steps and a lot of chaff. But the rumors of a ME1-style inventory suggest we won't be so lucky.

Goddamnitsomuch.

I tried picking up The Witcher 3 to tide me over until the February releases hit, and the first time I visited a blacksmith instantly got my hackles up. There was not, in fact, a single weapon or armor piece I could buy - their inventory was entirely crafting recipes. I'll admit that I may not have given the game a chance after that - maybe there are stores where you can just buy off-the-shelf stuff. The ridiculousness of a blacksmith that didn't actually do any smithing himself just took my breath away, and I quite playing shortly thereafter (for a variety of other reasons in addition to this).

The ME3 system was fine. A solid set of different weapons you could buy, and different attachments to make them suit your playstyle. All of the benefits, none of the fuss.

Everyone's said they're waiting for reviews because the ending for ME3 sucked, but I'm steadily becoming more concerned that they've screwed the gameplay of Andromeda. I mean, I'll probably wind up picking it up anyway, because Mass Effect, but holy crap am I getting disheartened by the way the gameplay is sounding more and more like INQUISITON...IIIN...SPAAAAACCE!!!

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Do the "75 times" a power needs to be used to get its achievement in ME 1 need to be in a single setup? Part of me's tempted to just make a few "dummy Shepards" and do Eden Prime over and over to unlock some of the more class-exclusive powers that can then be used on subsequent playthroughs.

[SangoProduction]

Apparently when crafting you can use a component called 'vintage heat sink' that causes the weapon to behave like a ME1 gun. Pretty interesting.
Found it on Neogaf and here is the link to the developer statement on Bioware Social Network:
http://bsn.boards.net/thread/3649/vintage-heat-sink

Well damn it. I might actually be sort of excited for the game. NB4 20 billion bugs make the entire game unplayable. Like Arkham Asylum.

[Psyren]

Well damn it. I might actually be sort of excited for the game. NB4 20 billion bugs make the entire game unplayable. Like Arkham Asylum.

Well, buggy isn't necessarily a death knell; Skyrim had tons of them. I hope the longer development time helps though.

[Dienekes]

Well damn it. I might actually be sort of excited for the game. NB4 20 billion bugs make the entire game unplayable. Like Arkham Asylum.

What bugs made AA unplayable? I can't remember anything when I played but some rather humorous clipping issues.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well, buggy isn't necessarily a death knell; Skyrim had tons of them. I hope the longer development time helps though.
At the same time, when a company's got a reputation for buggy games on release, that can negatively impact them, especially in today's DLC-laden environment. Just look at how hard Creative Assembly had to work to overcome its negative press for Total War: Warhammer.

[Rodin]

What bugs made AA unplayable? I can't remember anything when I played but some rather humorous clipping issues.

I think they were maybe referring to Arkham Knight? The PC release for that game was so buggy that the publisher offered refunds to everyone who bought it at release.