Mass Effect: Andromeda

Ritorix said:
Maybe four survivors? It's apparently possible to do a 'perfect failure' run, where your only survivors are Thane and Mordin, and we know what happens to them in ME3.
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I think you have to have at least 3 or 4 live at the end of ME2 to proceed to ME3 with that particular save game. You can't kill Liara in ME2 and temporary squadmates like her do not count towards your end game total and whether or not your save game will import into ME3. In ME3, everyone can actually die by the end of it, including Liara. Although, the run on the beam at the end is the only place she can die.
 
the system requirements (Recommended) are pretty low considering they're using the Frostbite engine (1060 is basically the same as a 970 except for the VRAM)...the gameplay videos look nice in terms of overall environment and atmosphere but definitely no graphics showcase (textures, lighting, facial animations etc)...people were guessing it was because they were showing off console footage but I guess that's the way the game will basically look...was going to upgrade my GTX 970 to a 1080 or 1070 but it looks like I don't need to and will wait for Volta or Vega
 
So this time there will no longer be Commander Shepard.

Instead you create your own character, the Pathfinder and play your own hero.
 
Flogger23m said:
With luck, it will run similar to BF1.
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Armenius said:
It's using the same engine and the system requirements are the same as BF1.
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It won't run the same, or at least I doubt it will unless they optimized the shit out of it. BF1 is arguably somewhat prettier, but the levels aren't going to be nearly as large. You are comparing open world vs. a first person shooters multiplayer maps. I don't think they'll run the same at all.
 
My only complaint the animation for the Main Character looks really stiff and fixated I wish he was more fluid looking. I'm sure the game plays great still just something that bothered me with cover based shooters.
 
I wouldn't worry about the animation quality too much until the final product launches. Unfortunately, animation errors are a staple of BioWare games.
 
Dan_D said:
It won't run the same, or at least I doubt it will unless they optimized the shit out of it. BF1 is arguably somewhat prettier, but the levels aren't going to be nearly as large. You are comparing open world vs. a first person shooters multiplayer maps. I don't think they'll run the same at all.
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It will be interesting to see. I'm curious how a Titan X will handle this at 4k.
 
Well, it's sharp- but running around with children is a pretty big departure from running around with military. Probably the difference that stands out the most- changes the atmosphere.
 
Dan_D said:
It won't run the same, or at least I doubt it will unless they optimized the shit out of it. BF1 is arguably somewhat prettier, but the levels aren't going to be nearly as large. You are comparing open world vs. a first person shooters multiplayer maps. I don't think they'll run the same at all.
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open world is still just a map though. like 2 conquest maps stitched together.
 
I don't understand why Andromeda does not have DX12 support...the conspiracy theorist in me thinks that Nvidia paid Bioware/EA to not include it because they know that DX12 performance is weighed heavily towards AMD
 
polonyc2 said:
I hope all keys can used for remapping...I hate when games don't give you the option to rebind keys as you see fit (or it takes a patch or 2 to fix)
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Agreed. I'm a lefty that uses the NUMPAD, and a lot of games lockout those and the surrounding Keys. Had to break out AutoHotKey many a time. Not ideal, but usually gets me through until they pull their heads out their orifices.


bmg said:
I'd have preordered by now, if not for this concern. Hopefully there's no kb/mouse issues.
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Given it has multiplayer, I'm hoping it will at least get as much Dev attention as ME3 did, but who knows. If I had to guess, we will be pulling our hair out, swearing at our monitors and pummeling their Twitter accounts for the first 45 days or so, until they get it patched into 'sufficient' shape.

It's like bartering; you hit them with crap covered junk first, so they are happy with washed off junk.
 
polonyc2 said:
I don't understand why Andromeda does not have DX12 support...the conspiracy theorist in me thinks that Nvidia paid Bioware/EA to not include it because they know that DX12 performance is weighed heavily towards AMD
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The conspiracy theorist in you is an idiot.

A good guess for DX12 not making it could be that the DX12 fork of Frostbyte that made it into BF1 was likely completed after Andromeda had been too far along in development, and that fork (or DX12 support otherwise) possibly couldn't be patched back in due to engine customizations.

Whatever the reason, it's not that big of a deal: this isn't going to be a resource intensive game, and neither were the last three.
 
New 5 min video on exploration,



Some key points from the video
  • You can see your surroundings in real time on the bridge of your ship sort of like Star Trek
  • Over 100 planets to discover
  • Only a handful of those planets can be landed on.
  • Each planet has it's own story
  • You can discover forward stations in the wild which act like camps in DA:I
 
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Hrm... Looking good to me.

Please don't suck
Please don't suck
Please don't suck
 
I'm torn on how the exploration is. On one had it is going back to an under-developed feature of the first game which was thrown out in 2 and 3, so I certainly am looking forward to some exploration again. On the other hand, it looks like a lot of fetch quests, unnecessary amount of upgrades (there must be 100s!), and that damn MSGV style research tree. I hated that in MSGV, in which you had to maintain a roster of people to enhance certain types of research. Looks like that is in ME:A in some form. A lot of fluff, menu flipping and repetitive tasks from the looks of it. But we'll see how it turns out. I do want some exploration back, but I don't want the game to loose a central focus in the process.
 
Flogger23m said:
I'm torn on how the exploration is. On one had it is going back to an under-developed feature of the first game which was thrown out in 2 and 3, so I certainly am looking forward to some exploration again. On the other hand, it looks like a lot of fetch quests, unnecessary amount of upgrades (there must be 100s!), and that damn MSGV style research tree. I hated that in MSGV, in which you had to maintain a roster of people to enhance certain types of research. Looks like that is in ME:A in some form. A lot of fluff, menu flipping and repetitive tasks from the looks of it. But we'll see how it turns out. I do want some exploration back, but I don't want the game to loose a central focus in the process.
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Can't we have both?
A dozen or so 'quality' planets like ME2 and ME3 with good exploration and a solid story... Along with a bunch grindy, filler planets like ME1. It's unreasonable to expect Bioware to fill the galaxy with hundreds of unique planets brimming with content.

As someone who enjoys grinding and story questing, I'd prefer both types of planets, depending on my mood.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
Can't we have both?
A dozen or so 'quality' planets like ME2 and ME3 with good exploration and a solid story... Along with a bunch grindy planets like ME1.

As someone who enjoys grinding and story questing, I'd prefer both types of planets, depending on my mood.
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I don't like grinding and the series was never about that, so it would feel out of place in a Mass Effect title. The RPG aspects always revolved around the conversations and supposed difference it could make, rather than leveling up 100 different things. I like exploration, but would prefer if it was tipped in favor of a strong narrative. You really can't do both. The Witcher 3 (which I have not played) seems to have over come this, but from my understanding, the side content is substantial and not grind based. Even then, I'd prefer a smaller experience. ME always was an action RPG. It is just as much of a shooter as it is an RPG. I'd prefer to play another game similar as I am getting fairly tired of games filled with lots of needless side content. Just makes it harder to get to the parts of the game worth playing.
 
ME1 had planet grinding with the Mako, ME2 had it with the scanner.
ME3 didn't have any.

The point of optional filler content is that you don't HAVE to do it. You can skip grinding in both ME1 and ME2 although it gives you the weaker ending in ME2.
 
game sounds like it's going to be a long one if you do all the side missions and explore a lot...I like that...I think the developers mentioned unique side quests comparable to Witcher 3...not just same old collection/fetch quests

Speaking to PC Gamer magazine, game producer Fabrice Condominas said:

"We are approaching the completionist aspect very differently, because we’ve done and learned a lot from Inquisition. But we’ve also observed what other games have been doing, like The Witcher. And it was very important for us that the quantity of scope doesn’t downgrade the quality of whatever you are doing there"
 
polonyc2 said:
"We are approaching the completionist aspect very differently, because we’ve done and learned a lot from Inquisition. But we’ve also observed what other games have been doing, like The Witcher. And it was very important for us that the quantity of scope doesn’t downgrade the quality of whatever you are doing there"
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/orders a metric fuck tonne of salt online for overnight express delivery to keep on hand until seeing user reviews of ME:A.
 
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polonyc2 said:
minor gripe but it would have been amazing if I could land on all those planets to explore...
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The problem with that is they would have to use procedural generation or it would have taken forever to develop, plus the planets would have started to feel generic and cookie cutter after a while (ie: No Mans Sky). As it is, they hand crafted each of the landable planets so that they would each be unique and meaningful. Personally I'll take quality in reasonable quantity over quantity alone.
 
Frraksurred said:
The problem with that is they would have to use procedural generation or it would have taken forever to develop, plus the planets wohld have started to feel generic and cookie cutter after a while (ie: No Mans Sky). As it is, they hand crafted each of the landable planets so that they would each be unique and meaningful. Personally I'll take quality in reasonable quantity over quantity alone.
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you're right but when they say over a 100 planets to discover and only a handful can be landed on, that sounds like a really small number...all of them didn't have to be explorable but 'handful' out of lets say 120 is disappointing
 
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polonyc2 said:
you're right but when they say over a 100 planets to discover and only a handful can be landed on, that sounds like a really small number...all of them didn't have to be explorable but 'handful' out of lets say 120 is diappointing
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Agreed, 12 out of 120 is 10%. I think 20% would be more appropriate, or even 15%, but if there is expansive stories and missions on each one, that much may have dragged it on too long. No way to know until we play it, which I'm looking forward to doing. It will have a lot to live up to after playing Horizon Zero Dawn, but BioWare's capable.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
ME1 had planet grinding with the Mako, ME2 had it with the scanner.
ME3 didn't have any.

The point of optional filler content is that you don't HAVE to do it. You can skip grinding in both ME1 and ME2 although it gives you the weaker ending in ME2.
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There wasn't really any grinding in any of the Mass Effect games. The scanning for resources in ME2 (with the few side missions) got old but it never took too long. You likely would not have spent more than 1 hour through a single play through grabbing resources from planets, in a ~30 hour game. The problem with most open world games is you often do need to do a lot of fetch quests. Take out X number of camps, find Y number of this to unlock the next story mission. Hurts the flow of a strong narrative experience, and it feels like a very gamey mechanics. That and you have to study a map to find the actual content, and not one of the 50 "Steal the Money Bags" side missions in a game like Watch Dogs 2. Or accidentally stumbling into one of those, having the game automatically reset your waypoint and sick enemies on you forcing you into the mission. And lets not forget, these games typically require you to play many of these cut/paste missions to unlock the fun gear. You don't have to, but then you'd be missing out on lots of good content quick is locked behind a wall of crap to do checklists.

I would hope side content is like ME2's character loyalty missions, fairly meaningless to the overall story but at least they were well done unique experiences. Ideally side content will all focus on the actual story to make it worth doing, maybe impact the ending somehow. But I'll take ME2 loyalty type missions.

I will also echo what some others said about the diolgue. Watched some of the trailers and the diolgue does seem a lot more cheesy and less mature. That trailer in which the female Ryder exchanges some words with a rival (?) sounds like an argument between high school girls. It just stands out. Workable to move a minimal story line along for a game like Just Cause, but for Mass Effect I'd hope for more.
 
polonyc2 said:
you're right but when they say over a 100 planets to discover and only a handful can be landed on, that sounds like a really small number...all of them didn't have to be explorable but 'handful' out of lets say 120 is disappointing
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If handful means as many as there are areas in DA:I that's good enough.

Also I'm guessing they'll be adding more worlds as dlcs. No that came out bad. What I meant is that their DLCs must add new worlds as well to be worthwhile and not just re-use areas already in the game.
 
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