Mass Effect: Andromeda

PanzeR- said:
Played all mass effects twicce except the 3rd one, actually liked the 3rd mostly due to one of the dlc toon, yall think i will enjoy andromeda?
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What makes you think you wouldn't? The game hasn't changed much, only the characters and the story is new, but it still feels like Mass Effect for the most part. The gameplay/combat might even be better.

But if you waited this long maybe you should wait another one or two months until they iron out all the kinks in it. Not that the game is not enjoyable as it is, but it'll only get better.
 
something about this image looks vaguely familiar...

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M76 said:
Star Wars: Neanderthal.

This is actually worse. Makes me uncomfortable when I look at it. Sara Ryder was just goofy.
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People should start getting used to the fact that we are at a point where we can make faces look pretty realistic, but that they are going to fall into that uncanny valley effect. They will always be unsettling until we can actually duplicate human facial expressions and movements in a more convincing way then we can now. I think the picture above actually looks pretty good until she moves or speaks. Her lip syncing is way off like it is in Mass Effect. The animation is certainly better, but its not synced properly.
 
The facial features are too big IMO. They need to learn how to properly model a realistic face.
 
At first I thought it was the engine, but I found the faces in Battlefield 1 to be quite well done.

Not really sure what to think other than maybe it's a very hard engine to work with and the other teams might not be getting adequate internal support?
 
Dan_D said:
People should start getting used to the fact that we are at a point where we can make faces look pretty realistic, but that they are going to fall into that uncanny valley effect. They will always be unsettling until we can actually duplicate human facial expressions and movements in a more convincing way then we can now. I think the picture above actually looks pretty good until she moves or speaks. Her lip syncing is way off like it is in Mass Effect. The animation is certainly better, but its not synced properly.
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It has nothing to do with that. We could create a realistic face for years, or even decades, it only wouldn't move real time in a game.
The problem here is that they didn't want to create a good looking face. Instead they created an abomination. It's just plain wrong.

It's like someone went wild with a character generator, and moved the sliders around until everything was out of proportion. Well unless they were specifically aiming for that classic neanderthal look.

Actually that's one of the reasons I'm no longer interested in games without a proper character creator.
 
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Ran into my first Architect over the weekend. I now think I won't complete the single player campaign because of it. One of the worst boss fights designed, ever.
 
Armenius said:
Ran into my first Architect over the weekend. I now think I won't complete the single player campaign because of it. One of the worst boss fights designed, ever.
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I've seen much worse. The Reaper fight on Rannoch in ME3 is even more lame than the Architect fights. Dodge, dodge, laze target and fire three times. That's it. The Architects are fairly easy once you get the hang of it. Choosing the right weapons also helps. If you've got the right guns you only need two windows on each leg to take it out. The one on Voeld is the worst because of the environment you are in. You have to stick to the buildings to be near the heaters. That can cause some problems.
 
Dan_D said:
I've seen much worse. The Reaper fight on Rannoch in ME3 is even more lame than the Architect fights. Dodge, dodge, laze target and fire three times. That's it. The Architects are fairly easy once you get the hang of it. Choosing the right weapons also helps. If you've got the right guns you only need two windows on each leg to take it out. The one on Voeld is the worst because of the environment you are in. You have to stick to the buildings to be near the heaters. That can cause some problems.
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Yeah I didn't find it that hard, just tedious (only attempted the Voeld one). I skipped it for now and chalked it up to being too low level and with wimpy guns/skills.
 
Yeah, it's not hard, just tedious. I'm playing on Insanity and was chasing the fucker around for nearly an hour when I finally said "fuck this." It was actually at the end of a five hour long session, the end of which feeling like I had accomplished nothing. At least the Reaper fight was over with in a couple minutes.
 
Dan_D said:
I've seen much worse. The Reaper fight on Rannoch in ME3 is even more lame than the Architect fights. Dodge, dodge, laze target and fire three times. That's it. The Architects are fairly easy once you get the hang of it. Choosing the right weapons also helps. If you've got the right guns you only need two windows on each leg to take it out. The one on Voeld is the worst because of the environment you are in. You have to stick to the buildings to be near the heaters. That can cause some problems.
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The major difference is that the Reaper was a 1 off and you aren't fighting so much as you are targeting the fucking thing. You have to fight a Architect on every damn planet, and they're all exactly the same.

The fight reminded me of the one huge robot boss from Wolfenstein: The New Order, but worse.
 
st4rk said:
Yeah I didn't find it that hard, just tedious (only attempted the Voeld one). I skipped it for now and chalked it up to being too low level and with wimpy guns/skills.
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The best weapons I've found for dealing with the Architects:
N7 Valkyrie w/Turbocharge (Spec this in the combat tree. Pair with Pathfinder Armor or Maverick Deadeye for bonuses. Wise to pair this with any stability bonuses/mods to tame the gun.)
M76 Revenant w/Turbocharge (You should use the Pathfinder armor for it's accuracy bonuses with this one)
N7 Piranha Shotgun (requires close range, close the distance with Biotic Charge)
M-98 Widow w/BioConverter Augment and Kinetic Coil (Use w/Tactical cloak and Maverick Deadeye set due to bonuses. You also have to spec health regeneration in the Tech tree.)

There are plenty of other serviceable weapons for the encounter, but those are what I've found work best. You can take down a leg in only two phases.
 
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Dan_D said:
I've seen much worse. The Reaper fight on Rannoch in ME3 is even more lame than the Architect fights. Dodge, dodge, laze target and fire three times. That's it. The Architects are fairly easy once you get the hang of it. Choosing the right weapons also helps. If you've got the right guns you only need two windows on each leg to take it out. The one on Voeld is the worst because of the environment you are in. You have to stick to the buildings to be near the heaters. That can cause some problems.
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The Voeld one is the only one I've done, and I beat it first try. Maybe it was because I wasn't too high a level at the time? It wasn't going well for a few minutes, then I figured out the fight mechanics and it was smooth sailing from then on. There's enough buildings with heaters to run into periodically that the fight wasn't bad. I mostly fought outside, with quick trips into the buildings for heat and ammo, but figuring out a good spot in a building to fight from might be better.

I'm not sure why anyone would quit playing over the Architect fights, I haven't finished the game yet, but so far they seem optional. If you're getting too frustrated with something though, it makes sense to take a little break, then back into the fight.

I'll be different and recommend the N7 Valiant sniper rifle. Yes it doesn't hit as hard as a couple of others, but it hits pretty darn hard, has a big magazine (clip) size, and you can carry a lot of ammo for it. It handles pretty much like a semiauto assault rifle. You can shoot as fast as you can pull the trigger shot after shot, fast reload and you're back in the fight. I've been thinking of making one with the thermal clip augment so I don't have to worry about hunting ammo at all (but I don't think I've ever run out of ammo with it anyway). The thermal clip augment refills a "clip" pretty quickly, so it seems like a good option for Architect fights, unload 9 rounds, hammer with whatever skills/combo you prefer, move if needed, probably have full ammo again by then. Use Shotgun/Pistol/AR as preferred to clean up adds, etc. The Sidewinder pistol is another under appreciated weapon...shoot as fast as you can pull the trigger, good ammo loadout, accurate and hard hitting. I put a thermal clip augment on my Sidewinder pistol, just so I have one weapon with infinite ammo. N7 Piranha Shotgun is a beast also, augment as you prefer...the tracking plasma augment is nice if your target isn't moving much, not great for targets that keep moving around. I'm guessing it might be decent for Architects, but haven't tried it. You don't have to be in close with the tracking plasma augment if your target is mostly stationary.
 
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The architects are tedious, but they are also easy once you get the rhythm down. Recommend paying close attention to detonating combos as well as keeping a souped up automatic rifle or scoped rifle available.
 
The quest leading up to the Architect on Eos did not give me any indication I was gonna fight a boss. It was hard and took a long time but since I was playing at normal, the difficulty of the boss fight was a nice challenge for me.
 
SighTurtle said:
The quest leading up to the Architect on Eos did not give me any indication I was gonna fight a boss. It was hard and took a long time but since I was playing at normal, the difficulty of the boss fight was a nice challenge for me.
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I didn't have the quest when I came across the Architect on Voeld, so one of these days I need to go back and do the fight again. I'm playing on Normal also.
 
PanzeR- said:
Played all mass effects twicce except the 3rd one, actually liked the 3rd mostly due to one of the dlc toon, yall think i will enjoy andromeda?
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It's a solid ME game just very buggy, unpolished, and spotty writing in certain places.
The main story and loyalty missions were all up to snuff though.

bmg said:
I didn't have the quest when I came across the Architect on Voeld, so one of these days I need to go back and do the fight again. I'm playing on Normal also.
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If you kill the Voeld architect before getting the quest, it breaks. You can't complete it. So hopefully you didn't kill it...
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
It's a solid ME game just very buggy, unpolished, and spotty writing in certain places.
The main story and loyalty missions were all up to snuff though.


If you kill the Voeld architect before getting the quest, it breaks. You can't complete it. So hopefully you didn't kill it...
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Dang, I did kill it. I'll have to go back to Voeld today and see if it is indeed bugged now. In fact it's funny, yesterday I happened to scan Voeld again and found the dead Architect in orbit around Voeld. Guess that's a spoiler, but minor...
 
All of the architects orbit their planet after you kill them. You get some Heleus research, I think.
The voeld quest will get stuck on "Go to the scientists' last known location" and it's just an empty marker in a snowy field.
 
Armenius said:
Ran into my first Architect over the weekend. I now think I won't complete the single player campaign because of it. One of the worst boss fights designed, ever.
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I actually liked it. It's a proper old fashioned boss fight. On normal it was pretty easy. In fact the whole game was pretty easy on normal, I died maybe twice trough my entire 60 hours because I was too careless.
Now I started on insanity and it's much different. I must hug the covers at all time which unfortunately does bring out my problem with the cover system even more. But it's more realistic this way, I can't run around like rambo.

But here's the good news you don't have to kill any architects to finish the game. They're all parts of side assignments.
 
bmg said:
The Voeld one is the only one I've done, and I beat it first try. Maybe it was because I wasn't too high a level at the time? It wasn't going well for a few minutes, then I figured out the fight mechanics and it was smooth sailing from then on. There's enough buildings with heaters to run into periodically that the fight wasn't bad. I mostly fought outside, with quick trips into the buildings for heat and ammo, but figuring out a good spot in a building to fight from might be better.

I'm not sure why anyone would quit playing over the Architect fights, I haven't finished the game yet, but so far they seem optional. If you're getting too frustrated with something though, it makes sense to take a little break, then back into the fight.

I'll be different and recommend the N7 Valiant sniper rifle. Yes it doesn't hit as hard as a couple of others, but it hits pretty darn hard, has a big magazine (clip) size, and you can carry a lot of ammo for it. It handles pretty much like a semiauto assault rifle. You can shoot as fast as you can pull the trigger shot after shot, fast reload and you're back in the fight. I've been thinking of making one with the thermal clip augment so I don't have to worry about hunting ammo at all (but I don't think I've ever run out of ammo with it anyway). The thermal clip augment refills a "clip" pretty quickly, so it seems like a good option for Architect fights, unload 9 rounds, hammer with whatever skills/combo you prefer, move if needed, probably have full ammo again by then. Use Shotgun/Pistol/AR as preferred to clean up adds, etc. The Sidewinder pistol is another under appreciated weapon...shoot as fast as you can pull the trigger, good ammo loadout, accurate and hard hitting. I put a thermal clip augment on my Sidewinder pistol, just so I have one weapon with infinite ammo. N7 Piranha Shotgun is a beast also, augment as you prefer...the tracking plasma augment is nice if your target isn't moving much, not great for targets that keep moving around. I'm guessing it might be decent for Architects, but haven't tried it. You don't have to be in close with the tracking plasma augment if your target is mostly stationary.
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I can't stand the N7 Valiant. I researched it, crafted them and tried different combinations of augments with them and I just don't like it. My time to kill enemies is about as fast with assault rifles like the Mattock and Valkyrie. I've seen tons of people recommend then and I can understand some of their reasons, but frankly it recoils too much for the relatively low damage. I have no use for a sniper rifle that's generally incapable of killing low level enemies with a headshot. The capacity is nice, but there are options for getting around such limitations on harder hitting guns like the Widow, Black Widow and Isharay. The bio-converter augment automatically fills the thermal clip giving you an instant top off with no reload time. Tech powers can be evolved in the tech tree to regenerate the lost health and cover for it. With quick scoping, the recoil of the higher powered rifles is a non-issue.

The Valiant is basically the middle of the road sniper rifle. It's better than the Viper, and can arguably outclass the full auto sniper rifles which are basically assault rifles with a free scope mod. In Mass Effect 3 it was well known that you could out DPS a Black Widow with a Valiant. I don't know if that's the case or not, but I don't really care. The Valiant does play more like a harder hitting, semi-automatic assault rifle than a sniper rifle. A sniper rifle that's fun to use (in my opinion) can give you a "one shot, one kill" experience. The Valiant simply doesn't deliver on this.
 
I pretty much agree. I'm personally not a great fan of the classic harder hitting, slower rate of fire snipers...but that's a function of differing ways people like to play. I found no assault rifles in ME:A I really liked (and I think I've tried them all). I quite liked the Pathfinder Pioneer, but it only goes to Rank 5 and you can't get any of your augments back from it. Normally an AR would be my primary weapon, but I just don't like the choices, at least above Rank 5. The N7 Valiant is a moderate damage, high rate of fire sniper that I use more like a high damage, scoped, semi-auto AR. My usual loadout is Sidewinder pistol, N7 Piranha Shotgun, and N7 Valiant, with my preferred set of augments and mods. I like to craft my armor and weapons. I wish I could find another bio-converter augment...I've only got my researched one.
 
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Regarding faces, I think it has a bit to do with the limitations of Frostbite. BF4, although mainly an MP game, also had a campaign with close up shots of faces and they looked horrible compared to Crysis 3. I think it stems from that area of the engine being under developed. Every game engine seems to have its downsides. Frostbite looks fairly amazing and runs fairly well, but the facial animation features must not be up to par.
 
bmg said:
I pretty much agree. I'm personally not a great fan of the classic harder hitting, slower rate of fire snipers...but that's a function of differing ways people like to play. I found no assault rifles in ME:A I really liked (and I think I've tried them all). I quite liked the Pathfinder Pioneer, but it only goes to Rank 5 and you can't get any of your augments back from it. Normally an AR would be my primary weapon, but I just don't like the choices, at least above Rank 5. The N7 Valiant is a moderate damage, high rate of fire sniper that I use more like a high damage, scoped, semi-auto AR. My usual loadout is Sidewinder pistol, N7 Piranha Shotgun, and N7 Valiant, with my preferred set of augments and mods. I like to craft my armor and weapons. I wish I could find another bio-converter augment...I've only got my researched one.
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The Sidewinder is a fun pistol although I favor harder hitting pistols like the Talon. The Talon's performance against armor is unmatched by any of the other pistols. Its limited range is really its biggest downfall. The Piranha is good despite its relatively low damage. The fire rate and fast reloading makes up for it. Also, the spread is good and your hit rates at close range are going to be excellent. It is strangely decent at armor penetration on some enemies. Good against Remnant armor, but not wildlife. I often favor the hard hitting Dhan, but I switch out to the Piranha for some situations.

My loadout is typically:
N7 Valkyrie (Great against virtually everything, best combined with turbocharge and stability mods. Used at medium to long range.)
Black Widow w/20% Damage boost on full health & shields)
N7 Hurricane (Beastly against armor, great for close quarters encounters.)
Dhan (Probably the hardest hitting weapon in the game. Good for close range in all situations or medium range with enemies fixed in partial cover.)

Alternatiely,

M76 Revenant w/Vintage heat sink
Black Widow
Talon Pistol (Hardest hitting pistol, excellent against armor.)
Dhan or Piranha (Depends on if I know what I'm dealing with on mission or not. If I don't, it's the Dhan, if I do and it makes sense, the Piranha.)

You can also use the Disciple Shotgun. It's probably the most balanced across the spectrum.

I always keep a fast firing SMG with a hard hitting semi-auto rifle or a fast firing assault rifle with a hard hitting and slower pistol. I go back and fourth between the M-98 Widow and the Black Widow. My M-98 uses the bio-converter and hits like a truck. It's not far off a stock Isharay X. (Yes, I prefer Milky Way weapons.)
 
NickJames said:
The facial features are too big IMO. They need to learn how to properly model a realistic face.
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I agree. One of the first things they did to the Ryders was decrease the size of their facial features and it made a big difference.
 
The entire body has weird proportions. Characters hands are way too large, like cavemen. Sometimes it's like they didn't know what to do with them so they bend them slightly at the wrist and they point out away from their hips... It looked so damn weird.

wtf was bioware doing.
 
I got 20 hours into a 2nd playthru and I think skipping cutscenes and pushing through the main story breaks a lot more quests. Getting way more hanging objectives (where nothing happens) and also about half of my Nomad upgrades are either missing or disappeared off the Research terminal lol.
 
Dan_D said:
My loadout is typically:
N7 Valkyrie (Great against virtually everything, best combined with turbocharge and stability mods. Used at medium to long range.)
Black Widow w/20% Damage boost on full health & shields)
N7 Hurricane (Beastly against armor, great for close quarters encounters.)
Dhan (Probably the hardest hitting weapon in the game. Good for close range in all situations or medium range with enemies fixed in partial cover.)

Alternatiely,

M76 Revenant w/Vintage heat sink
Black Widow
Talon Pistol (Hardest hitting pistol, excellent against armor.)
Dhan or Piranha (Depends on if I know what I'm dealing with on mission or not. If I don't, it's the Dhan, if I do and it makes sense, the Piranha.)

You can also use the Disciple Shotgun. It's probably the most balanced across the spectrum.

I always keep a fast firing SMG with a hard hitting semi-auto rifle or a fast firing assault rifle with a hard hitting and slower pistol. I go back and fourth between the M-98 Widow and the Black Widow. My M-98 uses the bio-converter and hits like a truck. It's not far off a stock Isharay X. (Yes, I prefer Milky Way weapons.)
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I'll have to make a N7 Hurricane to try out, I haven't done much with the smg's. Any augments you particularly like on it? I also prefer Milky Way weapons, which is nice since I always have lots of research points available.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
I got 20 hours into a 2nd playthru and I think skipping cutscenes and pushing through the main story breaks a lot more quests. Getting way more hanging objectives (where nothing happens) and also about half of my Nomad upgrades are either missing or disappeared off the Research terminal lol.
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I just learned the hard way that even leaving the mission area before some quests are finished can break them irreparably. I encountered this almost at the start on Eos with the secret project quest, where you release the fiend, and a dozen kett show up also. I couldn't find an ammo cache that I could get to, so I went up on the ridge where there is a second building with an ammo cache to replenish. Then when I returned the kett were gone. But the quest was still stuck on "defeat the kett" and I couldn't do anything, had to reload a save from before arriving there.
 
I resorted to using a trainer to give my Nomad unlimited boost, screw it. :/
I'm more worried about the long-term bugs you don't discover until it's too late. Then you're stuck with broken stuff forever. At least if the bugs happen immediately, you can load a recent save and fix it.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
I resorted to using a trainer to give my Nomad unlimited boost, screw it. :/
I'm more worried about the long-term bugs you don't discover until it's too late. Then you're stuck with broken stuff forever. At least if the bugs happen immediately, you can load a recent save and fix it.
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No shame in using a trainer to enhance your enjoyment. I like to use trainers after beating a game honestly several times. It's cool to boost skills/talent/experience to ultra levels and see what new dialog and/or mission options become available.
 
I picked this up last night, looks pretty good with 4K HDR streaming to my Nvidia Shield TV.

I don't think surround sound is working, though. Does this game have authentic surround sound? Or does it just take the typical 2-channel and split it into more? I don't hear any difference, and my receiver doesn't interpret anything differently, when I swap between Surround and Stereo in the settings.
 
Commander Shepard said:
No shame in using a trainer to enhance your enjoyment. I like to use trainers after beating a game honestly several times. It's cool to boost skills/talent/experience to ultra levels and see what new dialog and/or mission options become available.
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I kinda had to, the Nomad boost upgrade vanished off my research terminal. No way I'm driving around with basic boost.
 
Commander Shepard said:
No shame in using a trainer to enhance your enjoyment. I like to use trainers after beating a game honestly several times.

It's cool to boost skills/talent/experience to ultra levels and see what new dialog and/or mission options become available.
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This intrigued me. I didn't realize this could be the case.

Were these significant?

I finished my first playthrough around level 60 so I'm not sure if I were 90 it would make that much of a difference.
 
Q-BZ said:
This intrigued me. I didn't realize this could be the case.

Were these significant?
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I'd say moderately significant, mostly in dialog. Sometimes, having absurdly high levels of your character lets you do things that open some cool options. I haven't beaten MEA, so haven't tried a trainer, yet.
 
I don't know what you are talking about? How do levels have anything to do with choices in andromeda? paragon/virtue system is gone, now your choices lead to other choices. There are no levels there.
 
So been busy a lot with work. Had a 12 days in a row shift in there. Finally got 4 planets to 100%. Now I think its time to advance the story line some. So how many planets is there to make habitable?
 
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