Mass Effect: Andromeda

[TaintedSquirrel]

Anywhere colonists are living, there could also be pirates.
Eos is colonized by a few groups before you even get there, they are run off by the Kett but pirates aren't trying to colonize or do research, they just want to scavenge. Not necessarily an issue for them.

After activating vaults, there's no reason for pirates to be missing. Your colonists CONSTANTLY remind you how unsafe they are, especially if you pick the science outpost, since you have to run around clearing out Kett to make them feel safe. Pirates could have definitely been added to both Eos and Voeld after the vaults get activated.

There's actually an Exile faction on Eos but they're good guys, you do a few quests for them. They even say "We're not bandits" lol.

The planets don't need to be crawling with Milky Way enemies, but there are zero of them until Kadara. Even just one or two "pirate camps" per planet would have been enough to be interesting.

It actually seems like the game avoids putting Kett and Exiles on any planet simultaneously. You could argue the Exiles might avoid the Kett, but our colonists aren't avoiding them. And the Kett don't have any reason to avoid Exiles, and they're certainly not avoiding the Initiative either. It all just seems arbitrary, like there's a galactic line dividing Exiles and Kett but for some reason the Initiative, Colonists, and Angarans (all the good factions) have no problem mixing in.

The lore would have to be re-worked a little bit, but there's plenty of wiggle room to squeeze in some enemy variety in the first 1/2 of the game.

 

[polonyc2]

so Bioware's announcement is tomorrow regarding their plans to fix the game...too much to hope that they will be announcing an Enhanced Edition with overhauled dialogue, graphics, animation etc (ala Witcher 1 and 2)?

 

[Dan_D]

Anywhere colonists are living, there could also be pirates.
Eos is colonized by a few groups before you even get there, they are run off by the Kett but pirates aren't trying to colonize or do research, they just want to scavenge. Not necessarily an issue for them.

After activating vaults, there's no reason for pirates to be missing. Your colonists CONSTANTLY remind you how unsafe they are, especially if you pick the science outpost, since you have to run around clearing out Kett to make them feel safe. Pirates could have definitely been added to both Eos and Voeld after the vaults get activated.

The planets don't need to be crawling with Milky Way enemies, but there are zero of them until Kadara. Even just one or two "pirate camps" per planet would have been enough to be interesting.

Eos is only colonized by the Initiative. They failed to established a colony two times. This is why sites one and two are deserted. You find a few bodies and that's it. The areas where those sites are have shielding around them to make them viable. Again, the planet doesn't really support life so having them before the vault activation makes no sense. Even if the occasional odd exiles or scavengers survived, its doubtful they'd attack an Initiative team.

After the vaults, sure I can see adding them in small numbers. It's probably an oversight on BioWare's part. Even so, I think more enemy variety would have made this a non-issue.

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

so Bioware's announcement is tomorrow regarding their plans to fix the game...too much to hope that they will be announcing an Enhanced Edition with overhauled dialogue, graphics, animation etc (ala Witcher 1 and 2)?

Yeah sure maybe sometime next year. -_-

 

[jiminator]

It will probably be a minor patch, maybe they will fix some of the more problematic bugs, maybe more facial optiions, maybe some MP rebalancing. I would not expect much more than that.

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

Vanguard gets 125% cooldown reduction on Charge, but it looks like you still have to wait 1 second. 8 second base recharge down to 1 second is an 87.5% reduction.

I just got the 50% recharge mod, re-stacked all of my Tech Recharge and there's still a noticable cooldown.
I was hoping to get an endless 3-skill Tech Primer/Detonator rotation but it's not possible. There's a 3-4 second gap. :/

It's possible with Biotics, though. Pull and Throw have a base 10-second cooldown. Charge is also short, and Annihilation is a free Primer.

 

[Dan_D]

so Bioware's announcement is tomorrow regarding their plans to fix the game...too much to hope that they will be announcing an Enhanced Edition with overhauled dialogue, graphics, animation etc (ala Witcher 1 and 2)?

Don't get your hopes up. That's not realistic, especially not anytime soon. First off, the only issue with the graphics relate to the heads of characters being made ugly on purpose. The dialog won't be affected either. It would be too costly a fix with little to no payoff. Honestly, the dialog being bad is a an overblown issue with the game. It's not really that bad. It is in places, but not in the overall game.

If we are lucky, here is what I expect:
Some of the more egregious animation errors fixed or tweaked to be less bad. (I wouldn't expect a total overhaul of the character animations. Too costly, and time consuming.)
Improved character creator. (Possibly with a couple of new presets.)
There will probably be a laundry list of major bug fixes they'll agree to address.

What they will not do:
They will not adjust the default female Ryder's appearance back to what it was before the game's release despite being caught making her ugly on purpose.
Do not expect them to touch the menus or the crafting system.
They will not adjust / improve the head models on all the ugly women.

What might do:
They might announce some DLC plans. Either for multiplayer, or single player. They will tease people with this just to show they aren't abandoning the game.
The white assault rifle in the trailer you can't actually get in the game will be added as a freebie to current owners of the game. (BioWare has a history of doing exactly this sort of thing with other games.) Apparently there have been some players making a big deal about this gun being absent from the actual game.

 

[jiminator]

somebody talked about the animations, saying basically for the amount of content involved a program is used to read the scripts and generate facial animations to be used. That may or may not be the case, but in terms of gameplay, that is such a miniscule portion of the game... it makes for funny youtube clips but is way overblown.

 

[Dan_D]

somebody talked about the animations, saying basically for the amount of content involved a program is used to read the scripts and generate facial animations to be used. That may or may not be the case, but in terms of gameplay, that is such a miniscule portion of the game... it makes for funny youtube clips but is way overblown.

There are some huge errors with the facial animations but for the most part the audio is simply out of sync with the lip movements.

 

[M76]

Now, your argument concerning Havarl isn't valid for one reason. It's a planet that I believe is suited to Quarian and Turian life, not Humans, Asari and Krogan. The only exiles you'd see there would be Turians. Turians probably make up the smallest portion of exiles given the Turian culture's predisposition towards service. There could be some pirates or raiders who brought food for them but the heavy Angaran and Remnant presence makes it anything but a soft target. BioWare could have put some enemies there anyway for whatever reason but a ton of them wouldn't make much sense.

Spoiler: havarl and other minor spoilers

The turians you find on havarl are not exiles but from the turian ark, It's as if the exiles don't even exist before you go to kendros, That's what I find very strange. When I first left the nexus I expected to bump into small bands of exile smugglers and looters and such all around helios. I imagined they scattered all around the system after fleeing, and not all of them end up at the same place.

It's not a major issue but smells wrong.

 

[tybert7]

I am backed up with life so I just barely finished the first planet eos (at least the first section/mystery), not really understanding all the hate on the game.

Some of the animations are scary, but that does not detract from anything. Though if you want to see something demonic, go to the cryo wing as there is a guy that just got out as a random npc that is bent forward, and his head swivels too far from side to side making him look like he's about to turn into the exorcist girl.

 

[M76]

Don't get your hopes up. That's not realistic, especially not anytime soon. First off, the only issue with the graphics relate to the heads of characters being made ugly on purpose. The dialog won't be affected either. It would be too costly a fix with little to no payoff. Honestly, the dialog being bad is a an overblown issue with the game. It's not really that bad. It is in places, but not in the overall game.

If we are lucky, here is what I expect:
Some of the more egregious animation errors fixed or tweaked to be less bad. (I wouldn't expect a total overhaul of the character animations. Too costly, and time consuming.)
Improved character creator. (Possibly with a couple of new presets.)
There will probably be a laundry list of major bug fixes they'll agree to address.

What they will not do:
They will not adjust the default female Ryder's appearance back to what it was before the game's release despite being caught making her ugly on purpose.
Do not expect them to touch the menus or the crafting system.
They will not adjust / improve the head models on all the ugly women.

What might do:
They might announce some DLC plans. Either for multiplayer, or single player. They will tease people with this just to show they aren't abandoning the game.
The white assault rifle in the trailer you can't actually get in the game will be added as a freebie to current owners of the game. (BioWare has a history of doing exactly this sort of thing with other games.) Apparently there have been some players making a big deal about this gun being absent from the actual game.

What's the worst is that in the previous games the Asari was sold as beatuful. And now all asari in the game have the exact same mediocre face. It's inexcusable. Except for peebee who I wouldn't say has a prettier face just different.

And looking at NPCs about 98% of them are just plain ugly. And not just the women. I'm just as if not more disturbed by the ugly ass males in the game.

 

[Dan_D]

Spoiler: havarl and other minor spoilers

The turians you find on havarl are not exiles but from the turian ark, It's as if the exiles don't even exist before you go to kendros, That's what I find very strange. When I first left the nexus I expected to bump into small bands of exile smugglers and looters and such all around helios. I imagined they scattered all around the system after fleeing, and not all of them end up at the same place.

It's not a major issue but smells wrong.

Spoiler: Havarl Mission

I never said anything about the Turians on Havarl. There is no planet Kendros either. Not that I'm aware of. You may be thinking of Kadara. In any case, not finding exiles isn't terribly suprising if you think about it. Many of them would stick together. They would split into a few groups of course but they rose up and were cast out together. Some of them found their way to other planets but they were dropped on Kadara with no infrastructure of their own. They took over the Angaran port. The ones that left would have had to pay their way off the planet or stowed away. Even if they had some shuttles to work with they probably wouldn't have been cutting across the entire galaxy in one. I agree you could find a handful of them here and there, but they should primarily be concentrated on Kadara because that's where they were all sent. Humans should be a rare sight in the galaxy. For enemy variety, they should have created more species than the Remnant, Kett and Angara.

 

[Dan_D]

What's the worst is that in the previous games the Asari was sold as beatuful. And now all asari in the game have the exact same mediocre face. It's inexcusable. Except for peebee who I wouldn't say has a prettier face just different.

And looking at NPCs about 98% of them are just plain ugly. And not just the women. I'm just as if not more disturbed by the ugly ass males in the game.

I'll agree 100% on that. Why in the fuck are there only two Asari faces? PeeBee's and everyone else. Even Lexi has the same face as every other Asari in Andromeda.

 

[zamardii12]

I'll agree 100% on that. Why in the fuck are there only two Asari faces? PeeBee's and everyone else. Even Lexi has the same face as every other Asari in Andromeda.

Are you sure about that? I agree there were similarities but Lexi actually looks like an Asari Natalie Dormer. And that Asari that later becomes the Asari Pathfinder looked different too.

Sarissa:

Peebee:

Lexi:

 

[Dan_D]

I am backed up with life so I just barely finished the first planet eos (at least the first section/mystery), not really understanding all the hate on the game.

Some of the animations are scary, but that does not detract from anything. Though if you want to see something demonic, go to the cryo wing as there is a guy that just got out as a random npc that is bent forward, and his head swivels too far from side to side making him look like he's about to turn into the exorcist girl.

I haven't experienced that bug but there are a few more animation errors. Many of the ones that were turned into Internet memes are actually fixed. Those were part of the trial version which seems to be an earlier build of the game. I like the game a lot. I really do but it does have a lot of problems. The animations I think are an overblown issue but an issue regardless. I have bigger issues with quest markers appearing before the quests are activated, false pickup locations, quest markers that don't go away, quest lines that don't properly terminate, etc.

 

[Dan_D]

Are you sure about that? I agree there were similarities but Lexi actually looks like an Asari Natalie Dormer. And that Asari that later becomes the Asari Pathfinder looked different too.

There may be a handful of them but most have the same face as Lexi.

 

[zamardii12]

There may be a handful of them but most have the same face as Lexi.

Strange I never noticed that. All of them looked a little different to me, but I honestly am not one to microscopically dissect a game either. A lot of people seem to be looking for stuff to complain about at this point with the game. Not saying you necessarily are, but there is vastly more the game did right than bad in my opinion.

 

[Armenius]

Are you sure about that? I agree there were similarities but Lexi actually looks like an Asari Natalie Dormer. And that Asari that later becomes the Asari Pathfinder looked different too.

Sarissa:

Peebee:

Lexi:

Are you kidding me? Both Sarissa and Lexi look exactly the same.

 

[Dan_D]

Strange I never noticed that. All of them looked a little different to me, but I honestly am not one to microscopically dissect a game either. A lot of people seem to be looking for stuff to complain about at this point with the game. Not saying you necessarily are, but there is vastly more the game did right than bad in my opinion.

It was obvious to me. Lighting and face paint on some Asari can make a huge difference. This makes the issue less obvious at times masking the problem somewhat but when you really look at them you'll see they all have pretty much the same face. Sarissa (The Asari Pathfinder) may have a different face. I was fairly certain her possible replacement doesn't. She's the same as Lexi but with different face paint and skin tones. Mass Effect 2 was keen on pointing out that humans have far more varied genetics than the other species so human's can offer more variety. That said, the other games had a few models and the trick of using face paints and makeup to give further diversity along side skin tons was a good move. It hid the fact that most of the aliens had two or three models at most. Had the Asari model in this game been a little less distinct it wouldn't be as big a deal. She's got kind of chubby cheeks. There is nothing to offset that either since Asari don't have protruding ears like humans do.

This is just something I've noticed in the game. All of the games or any game for that matter does some cheap shit to reduce the number of assets that need to be made for the game. The trick is not doing this with assets that the player will interact with a lot. I may not have noticed if it weren't for Lexi being on the ship. On the plus side, she's got more personality than either Dr. Michel or Dr. Chakwas from the trilogy. For those of you that are in the earlier hours of the game her personality won't show for sometime but it's there.

 

[Dan_D]

Are you kidding me? Both Sarissa and Lexi look exactly the same.

Thank you, I started to doubt my memory for a second. I was certain that her face was everywhere.

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

Every Asari in the game has an identical face except Peebee.

 

[Dan_D]

Every Asari in the game has an identical face except Peebee.

That's what I thought. It was something that bothered me very early on. I've tuned it out a little bit now that I'm so far into the game. It still bothers me from time to time. It was really obvious when I boarded the Asari Ark and you'd get two or three of them talking to each other.

 

[NoOther]

That's what I thought. It was something that bothered me very early on. I've tuned it out a little bit now that I'm so far into the game. It still bothers me from time to time. It was really obvious when I boarded the Asari Ark and you'd get two or three of them talking to each other.

It's obvious, Bioware is racist against Asari. We need to start a campaign. #AsariGate

 

[Armenius]

It's obvious, Bioware is racist against Asari. We need to start a campaign. #AsariGate

#AsariLivesMatter

 

[GOD'SlittleSERVANT]

#AsariLivesMatter

God, please no.

 

[tybert7]

It's obvious, Bioware is racist against Asari. We need to start a campaign. #AsariGate

This is similar to something my grandmother said after seeing Aretha Franklin on tv. She often comments on her awful clothing choice for her size, and one time after seeing her on tv she quipped that whoever does her wardrobe must hate women. For who would allow any woman to go out in public looking so bad unless they were trying to humiliate all of them?!?

 

[Mad Maxx]

My two favorite Asari...

 

[jiminator]

holy shit, vangod IV @ level 1 is superior to krogan engineer III @ level 20

wow

 

[CrimsonKnight13]

Maybe all of the Asari are no-so-pretty clones except for Peebee... (Bioware probably just cloned the same model 1000x instead of creating a diverse pool of good looking blue ladies).

 

[jiminator]

Realistically, all the humanoid face concepts are stupid. Of all the animals in this world, how many have humanoid faces? 0? So the chance of encountering an alien species with humanoid faces is pretty much also 0. Not to mention that they are all bipedal with two arms. Original ME had more variety, but every alien race would be vastly different from each other.

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

Is there an exorcist on the Nexus?

 

[M76]

Are you kidding me? Both Sarissa and Lexi look exactly the same.

Yes, the only difference is the expression and the texture.

 

[M76]

Every Asari in the game has an identical face except Peebee.

To be fair I think every alien in the game has the same face, including angara, salarian, krogan, turian, except for squad.

 

[Syphon Filter]

Apparently there is a game breaking bug that resets all viability levels to zero AND completed missions start reappearing.

A very big huge qualifier to the above. I have ran into a game breaking bug that pretty much resets part of the game with no rhyme nor reason, breaking a lot of quests and things that rely on planer viability:



A search on EA answers shows it is cross platform, happens at different times for different people and there is no fix. It has literally screwed my game over - the only recourse (if they don't magically patch it somehow) could be to start the entire game again, with no guarantee it won't happen again.

This is really piss poor.

Thread here (towards bottom of page): http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=108&t=1519634&i=180

 

[Armenius]

Maybe all of the Asari are no-so-pretty clones except for Peebee... (Bioware probably just cloned the same model 1000x instead of creating a diverse pool of good looking blue ladies).

Which is sad because every significant alien you encountered in the original trilogy had unique faces.

Realistically, all the humanoid face concepts are stupid. Of all the animals in this world, how many have humanoid faces? 0? So the chance of encountering an alien species with humanoid faces is pretty much also 0. Not to mention that they are all bipedal with two arms. Original ME had more variety, but every alien race would be vastly different from each other.

You're basing that assumption on life as we know it on Earth.

 

[Q-BZ]

Anyone know when this Bioware press conference/statement/whatever is supposed to happen?

Realistically, I hope they come out and announce that they have suspended activity on any and all other projects, DLCs, IPS, etc. to concentrate solely on this game.

I hope they are very specific, don't give a bunch of PR nonsense, and just cut to it.

I would prefer personally to see them approach patching in smaller, incremental doses because with a game this big with this many complicated plates spinning in the air it would be very easy to fix one problem and create three new ones.

Easy does it.

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

Expecting them to drop everything to work on ME:A isn't realistic, though.

 

[Q-BZ]

Expecting them to drop everything to work on ME:A isn't realistic, though.

Too bad, because that's what they need to do.

 

[jiminator]

You're basing that assumption on life as we know it on Earth.

life is as we know it on earth, there is no reason to assume it would be remotely similar in any type of alien setting. our heads did not evolve because they are inherently superior to other types of heads. Random shit happened -> head. That being said, there are advantages to having two eyes, perhaps mouth and teeth together. But there are many possible configurations in which this would work, just look at the variety represented in various species. None look like sexy blue humans.