Mass Effect: Andromeda

You can't just rely on reviews, everyone's opinions are their own. Reviews do help but I've found myself really enjoying games that got bad reviews. In addition, you have to factor in the unrealistic expectations that came with this game.

As I said, after what happened with Mass Effect 3, the long development cycle for this game and all the hype leading up to it I think it's incredibly hard for the game to live up to expectations no matter how good it really is.
 
The only thing about resolution scaling is it does make the game look a little fuzzy. This effect is compounded by Temporal AA. With FXAA you might as well be running no AA. It's blocky as fuck. Don't use the scaling unless you need to.

What would you recommend as best middle road solution? TAA with no resolution scaling?

I've appreciated some games that have added a sharpening slider since that AA option typically tends to "soften" things a little too much. Once it's dialed in properly it looks sensational.
 
I need to go back and check my settings. I know I have TAA, but I think the resolution scaling was Auto 1080p.
 
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As I said, after what happened with Mass Effect 3, the long development cycle for this game and all the hype leading up to it I think it's incredibly hard for the game to live up to expectations no matter how good it really is.

There is a lot of truth to this statement. I don't envy the development team for Andromeda. Whatever faults the game has I can imagine everyone was under a lot of stress to try and make something that lives up to the name. Even with 3's issues I'd still argue that Mass Effect is one of the best trilogies in gaming history and ME2 is one of the few games I can always go back to, play through and still love it as much as I did on my first experience with it. I wouldn't want to be someone in charge of making a sequel/semi-reboot to those games.
 
I need to go back and check my settings. I know I have TAA, but I think the resolution scaling was Auto 1080p.

That's what it defaults to most of the time. You do not get good image quality with that unless you are actually using a 1080P monitor.
 
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I haven't played a game this much since the original Deus Ex. ME2 is one of the best games I've played, and I enjoyed ME3 as well. There is no perfect game, but I think you'll need to nitpick with Andromeda. The replay value is key, and I have a feeling MEA will give me a nice story coupled with repeated playthroughs. I'm just not willing to drop $60 on a game I barely play, and I've had consistent luck with the ME series.
 
I haven't played a game this much since the original Deus Ex. ME2 is one of the best games I've played, and I enjoyed ME3 as well. There is no perfect game, but I think you'll need to nitpick with Andromeda. The replay value is key, and I have a feeling MEA will give me a nice story coupled with repeated playthroughs. I'm just not willing to drop $60 on a game I barely play, and I've had consistent luck with the ME series.

My experience with the series is why I decided to take a chance with Andromeda despite what any reviewer or anyone else said. Even with the many issues I've brought up in the previous games, I've enjoyed the series more than probably any other single player game series ever. If I end up not liking this one by the end, I'll be more cautious next time. This time I'm giving BioWare the benefit of the doubt. Again, aside from some ugly human faces we've traded one set of animation quirks for another. This game's quality seems no worse than any other in the series thus far.
 
To me it seems like someone was trying to copy Joss Whedon's writing without understanding what makes that style of writing work. The trilogy had a lot of problems with this as well though. There were several groan worthy lines and snarky quips that just feel flat. Jack had a lot of really horrible lines as did Jacob. Over-all 2 and even 3 didn't have too many of those lines, but 1 had a lot of clunkers and just awkwardly written quips between some of the characters.[/spoiler]

Quite right. Whedon's dialogue sits on a razor between endearing and sharp and overly twee and cringe-worthy -- not my cup of tea, but I can respect the very difficult balancing act. There have been quite a few lines in ME:A so far in my 10-12 hours playing that have fallen like a turd in my beer. And not only because the lines are trite or forced, or due to stylistic preference: it's simply awful writing in parts. Although I do recall some verbal clumsiness and awkwardness, I definitely don't remember that from ME1-3.
 
Again, the animation issues are somewhat distracting and even hilariously bad at times. That said, I'm really enjoying the game. I'm enjoying it as much as I have any of the previous games. Unfortunately, its still early to tell how the story will ultimately pan out.

Thanks again Dan. Seems to me then that the reviewers have been all too focused on doing a comprehensive technical review, rather than simply sitting down and just enjoying the game.

If you play the game to review it then you are necessarily going to find the faults, it's your job after all. I guess it must be then difficult to ignore these faults when you've explicitly pointed them out in a published review.


I'll be merely playing, not reviewing... :cool:
 
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Quite right. Whedon's dialogue sits on a razor between endearing and sharp and overly twee and cringe-worthy -- not my cup of tea, but I can respect the very difficult balancing act. There have been quite a few lines in ME:A so far in my 10-12 hours playing that have fallen like a turd in my beer. And not only because the lines are trite or forced, or due to stylistic preference: it's simply awful writing in parts. Although I do recall some verbal clumsiness and awkwardness, I definitely don't remember that from ME1-3.

Whedon's style of dialog is hit and miss. I think the dialog was fantastic in Firefly. Not so much anywhere else. So far I've played MEA for about 12 hours with a couple spent on multiplayer. Some of the dialog is really good and some of it is fucking terrible. Some of it just doesn't make sense or comes across in a bad way. This is especially true of the romance options. The only one that sounds natural at all so far is PB. She genuinely sounds flirty. Everyone else has lines that have the wrong tone associated with them or say something that makes no real sense given the context.

I may have to look up who the voice director was. The voice director is hugely important in these projects. Also, having experienced voice actors is another key. Voice actors who know they need context to deliver the lines instead of fucker's who basically read off a page and call it good. The voice director needs to make sure they don't get away with that shit. A good voice director knows what they need and gets the voice actor to give it to them. There is a huge scope of voice work to deal with but no one, and I mean no one knows how to do this better than BioWare. At one point, Star Wars: The Old Republic was the largest voice work project of all time. BioWare handled it masterfully. While some characters aren't quite as good as the average NPC, the bulk of the voice acting is very good. Previous Mass Effect games had a few bad performances or line deliveries here and there but got more right than wrong. It's fucking sad that they've missed the mark in so many places with regards to voice work in this game. Some characters are genuinely well done so far while others are just painful to talk to. I think the problem is the highs and lows are what's hard to deal with. I can handle all bad or all good. The roller coaster ride is what hurts so much. I think it makes the bad shit stand out more.

That said, the main squad mates are generally pretty good. Lexi and the Scottish chick are pretty awful, but they can't leave the ship or haven't been able to so far. Vetra is good, Liam is excellent, PB is very good with a couple of lines that could have been delivered better here and there. Cora is really bad at times. Her facial animations are really hard to watch too. I look at her rocking body most of the time. It's too painful to look at anything else with her.
 
Whedon's style of dialog is hit and miss. I think the dialog was fantastic in Firefly. Not so much anywhere else. So far I've played MEA for about 12 hours with a couple spent on multiplayer. Some of the dialog is really good and some of it is fucking terrible. Some of it just doesn't make sense or comes across in a bad way. This is especially true of the romance options. The only one that sounds natural at all so far is PB. She genuinely sounds flirty. Everyone else has lines that have the wrong tone associated with them or say something that makes no real sense given the context.

I may have to look up who the voice director was. The voice director is hugely important in these projects. Also, having experienced voice actors is another key. Voice actors who know they need context to deliver the lines instead of fucker's who basically read off a page and call it good. The voice director needs to make sure they don't get away with that shit. A good voice director knows what they need and gets the voice actor to give it to them. There is a huge scope of voice work to deal with but no one, and I mean no one knows how to do this better than BioWare. At one point, Star Wars: The Old Republic was the largest voice work project of all time. BioWare handled it masterfully. While some characters aren't quite as good as the average NPC, the bulk of the voice acting is very good. Previous Mass Effect games had a few bad performances or line deliveries here and there but got more right than wrong. It's fucking sad that they've missed the mark in so many places with regards to voice work in this game. Some characters are genuinely well done so far while others are just painful to talk to. I think the problem is the highs and lows are what's hard to deal with. I can handle all bad or all good. The roller coaster ride is what hurts so much. I think it makes the bad shit stand out more.

That said, the main squad mates are generally pretty good. Lexi and the Scottish chick are pretty awful, but they can't leave the ship or haven't been able to so far. Vetra is good, Liam is excellent, PB is very good with a couple of lines that could have been delivered better here and there. Cora is really bad at times. Her facial animations are really hard to watch too. I look at her rocking body most of the time. It's too painful to look at anything else with her.

In terms of Whedon: Firefly's dialog worked so well because the show was so short and every single actor involved was amazing. Buffy and Angel worked to varying degrees, but both series also lasted several seasons and both had plenty of time to have several lines just fall apart. Dollhouse was just a mess. Both Avenger's movies are hit or miss (especially Age of Ultron) depending on the lines and the actors. Downey Jr and Evans pretty much make everything work while Hemsworth struggles with some lines he was given. Honestly I think Whedon's writing shines best in comics. His run on X-Men was incredible with a lot of good lines and banter between the characters. Same with his work on Runaways and the little of the Buffy comic I read before coming to the conclusion that I just wasn't interested in the continued adventures of the character or her world.
 
Of course Europeans are still second class citizens. At least it's down to 2-3 days compared to 6 months 10 years ago. :mad:
 
There are some folks on GAF claiming that running native 4K scaled to 0.70 is a good way to pull 60fps with better than 1080p visuals. Wish I wasn't at work - want to play around with this.
 
There are some folks on GAF claiming that running native 4K scaled to 0.70 is a good way to pull 60fps with better than 1080p visuals. Wish I wasn't at work - want to play around with this.

I don't need to do this. The game runs smooth as butter as is.
 
Are the latest Nvidia drivers good and worthwhile? I saw some mixed feedback including earlier in this thread where someone was saying they were having crashes that they hadn't before.



https://www.forbes.com/sites/insert...i-started-mass-effect-andromeda/#6086e78b5e68

Good, mostly spoiler free tips.

I had issues but that's just due to my overclocking. I set my GPU's back to stock clocks and it's been fine since. The drivers have worked very well so far. The performance improvement is massive over the last version.
 
Of course Europeans are still second class citizens. At least it's down to 2-3 days compared to 6 months 10 years ago. :mad:

European law protects citizens from the inhumanity of being beta testers, so we just have to wait a few days. ;)
 
Are the latest Nvidia drivers good and worthwhile? I saw some mixed feedback including earlier in this thread where someone was saying they were having crashes that they hadn't before.



https://www.forbes.com/sites/insert...i-started-mass-effect-andromeda/#6086e78b5e68

Good, mostly spoiler free tips.


I installed the new drivers right before firing up MEA last night and they worked fine for me. I did not see any changes, but I really did not have an issue with the older drivers. I get a steady 60fps with a few dips to 54-55, that I noticed anyway.

I am running the game at 1080p with a 1070 so take that with a grain of salt.

The only odd performance issue I repeatedly run into is when scanning, and clicking on a highlighted/scan-able object I get odd lag, right before the text box with the description pops up. This is repeatable and happens every time, I'm pretty sure it is not graphics related though.
 
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I installed the new drivers right before firing up MEA last night and they worked fine for me. I did not see any changes, but I really did not have an issue with the older drivers. I get a steady 60fps with a few dips to 54-55, that I noticed anyway.

I am running the game at 1080p with a 1070 so take that with a grain of salt.

The only odd performance issue I repeatedly run into is when scanning, and clicking on a highlighted/scan-able object I get odd lag, right before the text box with the description pops up. This is repeatable and happens every time, I'm pretty sure it is not graphics related though.

I will say that I do get some lag occasionally in menus. This was worse before the update, but it still happens. The game runs perfectly fine though. I'm not sure what that's about.
 
Updated GPU drivers... the game still gives me a dialog box when I fire it up like I haven't even though I did and did it perfectly. I'm saying ok and going past it.

Anything to deal with there?
 
Updated GPU drivers... the game still gives me a dialog box when I fire it up like I haven't even though I did and did it perfectly. I'm saying ok and going past it.

Anything to deal with there?

I can't say. I haven't seen that.
 
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So I got to play about 2-3 hours last night. I did get Eos finished (still need to explore more).....Interesting story so far. I did finally find a character I really liked KROGANS!

Now this new Nvidia driver does act a lil funky. I was getting strange drops in FPS at certain parts which I didnt with the Trial.....Very strange, usually stayed at 60fps.

So far the story does kind of remind me of ME1-2, in the sense you find ancient technology from a prior alien colony. I mean its cool but it is almost like beating a dead horse. All in all I am having a good time playing it.

Also just as a reminder to people if you ordered the deluxe version make sure you download the added bonus's. They do not just unlock when you start playing.
 
So I got to play about 2-3 hours last night. I did get Eos finished (still need to explore more).....Interesting story so far. I did finally find a character I really liked KROGANS!

Now this new Nvidia driver does act a lil funky. I was getting strange drops in FPS at certain parts which I didnt with the Trial.....Very strange, usually stayed at 60fps.

So far the story does kind of remind me of ME1-2, in the sense you find ancient technology from a prior alien colony. I mean its cool but it is almost like beating a dead horse. All in all I am having a good time playing it.

Also just as a reminder to people if you ordered the deluxe version make sure you download the added bonus's. They do not just unlock when you start playing.

I figured that out the deal with the bonus content last night. As for the same theme of finding the ancient technology, it was something that happened in the back drop of the story beyond the occasional Prothean or Reaper site. For the most part we weren't all that involved with discovering alien technology or sites. The way its presented in this game is definitely new but I agree (and said as much earlier) that the concept has been a part of the series before. To some degree, it's a staple of human discovery. We research older, lost civilizations on our own planet. As a space fairing race I'd think you'd do the same thing. The difference being that on Earth, all the cultures have been less advanced. In space you could easily run into the remnants of more advanced civilizations than your own.

As for frame rate drops, I'm not seeing that. Then again, my rig could very well be powerful enough that small drops go unnoticed even at 4K. With the Battlefield 1 SLI profile during the trial I had some of those issues. Without the SLI profile it was almost unplayable in places.
 
RockPaperShotgun sure had a pretty critical list of things they didn't like about the game (not just the visual glitches), but even that hasn't turned me off wanting to play and form my own opinion.

I logged hundreds and hundreds of hours in ME1-2 (not so much in 3) and modded and tweaked and played the hell out of those games, so I know what I want to feel and experience in an ME game in general terms.

Trying to go in with reasonable expectations and not ride the hype train, but I'm itching to play the damn thing finally!! :)

Hopefully tonight!!
 
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So, UI quirk:

HOW THE FUCKING HELL do I change powers? You have a 'favorites' section, but I cannot for the life of me get say Incinerate listed instead of Push.

Answer: you do it on the screen where you upgrade the powers by pressing [V]. Make changes here, then apply them to one of your four profiles.
 
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Does anyone have a problem where your back-light keyboard lights turn off when the Andromeda starts.
Is there a way to turn them back on?
The game is turning it off for effect i think, but i think there is a bug.

I do not know if it matters what brand, but i have a Logitech G710+

Thanks
 
RockPaperShotgun sure had a pretty critical list of things they didn't like about the game (not just the visual glitches), but even that hasn't turned me off wanting to play and form my own opinion.

I logged hundreds and hundreds of hours in ME1-2 (not so much in 3) and modded and tweaked and played the hell out of those games, so I know what I want to feel and experience in an ME game in general terms.

Trying to go in with reasonable expectations and not ride the hype train, but I'm itching to play the damn thing finally!! :)

Hopefully tonight!!

RPS's reviewer(s)? may have had unrealistic expectations about the game or they may have biases against it. I'm a fan of the Mass Effect series, yet I was extremely critical of ME3's ending. I'm hoping to tell you guys the good and the bad as I go through Andromeda. That said, if you had me playing sports games I'd review them all negatively because I hate fucking sports games. My own biases there are too strong for me to overcome them and be remotely objective. On the flip side of things, there are some products I'm not overly fond of for reasons that may or may not seem valid. I don't mention those in most cases because they aren't relevant. There are biases we can overcome and biases we can't. Just as I couldn't fake liking a sports game, the RPS reviewer or reviewers may have had something against MEA. Either they are bitter about ME3, or refuse to see the game for what it is because of the hype train or they can have any number of issues with it that aren't even about the game. BioWare's behavior as a company, them belonging to EA etc. all can have an impact on someone's view of the game. People assume the game is shit because of some wonky animations and don't realize that it still has a lot to offer.
 
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Does anyone have a problem where your back-light keyboard lights turn off when the Andromeda starts.
Is there a way to turn them back on?
The game is turning it off for effect i think, but i think there is a bug.

I do not know if it matters what brand, but i have a Logitech G710+

Thanks

Mine go black for a second, then the AI logo pops up.

looks like this

https://gfycat.com/OldfashionedCoolEgret

I have a G910 though.

Do you gave Logitech Gaming software installed and up to date? I read somewhere that G710 were just going black. Have you gotten into the game at all to see if the lights come back on?

Mine drops to the AI lights for menues and cut scenes.
 
Getting ready to leave ship for the first time in prologue. Got the sidearm, was aiming it messing around...tried to fire it and couldn't for logical reasons. Then the game freezes and some gnarly DirectX error box that I couldn't read all of. It was essentially a game crash.


Don't try and fire a gun when you can't is the moral of that story I guess. ;) Anyone else see stuff like that happen?
 
Getting ready to leave ship for the first time in prologue. Got the sidearm, was aiming it messing around...tried to fire it and couldn't for logical reasons. Then the game freezes and some gnarly DirectX error box that I couldn't read all of. It was essentially a game crash.


Don't try and fire a gun when you can't is the moral of that story I guess. ;) Anyone else see stuff like that happen?

I'm not sure that the crash was related to your attempt to fire when you can't. The game clearly locked that out to prevent you from actually doing it. The input probably was unrecognized and thus being the cause of the crash / lockup is unlikely.
 
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Anyone have a decent oc with the new drivers? Getting ctds? I did. Rolled back to .78 but have not been able to play since. Game ran fine in trial version with .78s.
 
Anyone have a decent oc with the new drivers? Getting ctds? I did. Rolled back to .78 but have not been able to play since. Game ran fine in trial version with .78s.

Mass Effect Andromeda is the only game I've played with the new drivers so I can't say. I can tell you that my previously stable OC of +150MHz Core / +350MHz Memory doesn't fly with Andromeda. There is a good chance that this is due to the drivers more than Andromeda. I don't know. For all I know, Andromeda simply pushes the cards harder than the other games I've been playing lately do. The only taxing game I've played is Ghost Recon Wildlands. I didn't have any problems with it though.
 
I'm AfZ_Ryom on Origin. Dan_D and others, toss me some invites so we can MP sometime!
 
Apparently my little workaround didn't work:

When and how can you finally do a manual save in this? I'm getting a little disconcerted here.

I'm at the point where you start taking off to rescue the father

This seems like an awful long time to not have a manual save option.
 
The manual saves get locked out for certain periods of time within the story missions. It sucks but you are stuck to the damn checkpoint system during those critical times.
 
I finally got a moment to fire it up, go to settings, set the resolution to match my LCD, go to graphics and select Ultra, because, why wouldn't I?

Apply the settings and the PC instantly shuts off.

That's a new one to me. All the other games I've played on this machine, and I've done those exact same steps, but on ME:A.... instant power off. Only way PC will power back up is to flip the switch on the power supply off, then back on.

Try again, same result.

Tried other games just now, FFXIV, GTA5, SoM, DA:I... all work flawlessly doing basically the same steps. Using the release NV drivers they just put out. All patched up otherwise. :confused:

Going to have to debug this one later when I have more time. :p
 
^^ That troubles me and I hope you get help ASAP.






Finally was able to manual save.

I'm really impressed with everything so far.

Voice acting: I really thought at times it was Nolan North on Male Ryder's voice but it isn't.
 
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