Hmm.. To wait for a patch or not

I've finished it, but wish to play through it again with a "non stressed mind".
But there are certain things that bug me to no end in this game, so I'm waiting.

I can't possibly play the game until they fix the eyes. They freak me out too much.

60 hours in, I haven't noticed anything that hampers my enjoyment,
so I'm not waiting...

I'm waiting for Tuesday personally for their current plans and hopefully a banter bug update.

Though I've already done a quick run through and have picked up a rough idea of the rest of the story, so I'm in no rush.

I've already started a NG+. I view Tuesday as an announcement of what their plans are, not that they're releasing anything on that day. There probably will be more waiting on top of that. If stuff comes sooner than later, I have no problem restarting. Also, I'm going by past experiences with previous games. The Black Emporium was in testing stages for months before it was released in DAI. The CC, IF they add changes, might take just as long. Personally I'm hoping they'll announce a DLC. Greedy for more game content.

yeah it is reasonably playable it does habve a tendency to crash though since I disabled SLI to stop the stuttering. I'm going to continue but then I know I'm going to be doing multiple playthrough's of this game anyway. So I don't mind it so much if my first run tends to be a bit skewed as I tend to use itto learn the new systems and primarily enjoy the main story. I've not finished my first playthrough yet but I suspect I'm gettinmg towards the end of my first run. But I'm definitely enjoying it enough to want to do more.

Definitely not waiting, particularly since I'm so far in to the story. Besides, I'm not sure if 4/4 will be a patch. More likely an announcement of a patch.

I'm continuing on.  At the moment, I'm 34 hours in and have had no crashes, and only experienced:

* 1 very minor bug.  An NPC for a quest couldn't be interacted with, so I saved, logged out, logged back in, and could then talk to him.

* 1 very minor graphical glitch.  My Ryder's wrist folded over and did a 360-degree rotation during a cutscene, but the only reason I even saw it was because I was stuck in a zoomed-out FoV due to using the ME:A Cinematic Tools.  If I'd been In normal game view, I would have never even seen it.


I'm playing on PC, and from what I've gathered (from reviews, forum conversations, etc.) it seems like consoles have been hit much harder with bugs, glitches, and such (PS4 in particular).  So I guess a lot of it will depend on which platform you're playing on, and how many problems you're currently experiencing.  If you're encountering a lot of bugs/glitches/etc. that are ruining your enjoyment of the game, then it would probably be best to wait for a patch.

I've played the game for 90 hours so far and i honestly recommend waiting for the first major patch if you haven't begun to play ME:A yet. Things that made me regret playing early:-

1) Character Creator - right from the get-go this thing is so bad and lacking in choices that for the first time ever in the entire series, i gave up trying to make a character and went with the boring default Ryder. If i'd been able to just flick through a few noses then flick through a few mouths and eyes and been able to choose the ones i wanted, then it would have been fine. But no... we're tied to presets that we can only smoosh around ever so slightly.

2) Facial animations - you can't see the emotion in the characters' faces at all. It's like watching mannequins tell a story. I have no clue how Bioware managed to regress from the decent facial animations of the first trilogy to this. 

3) There have been times where i've lost hours of gameplay because i hit a crash bug and couldn't progress further beyond a certain point until i dropped back to a previous save file to evade the bug.

4) I'm playing with an Intel i7 6850K with 32GB of RAM and a GTX 1080Ti @ 1440p resolution and i'm still getting hitching/stuttering in game. It shouldn't happen to a rig with that spec. I'm not having any troubles like that with Battlefield 1 and that game is using the same graphics engine.

5) Attack of the clones - in previous ME games there were tons of different Asari models. In ME:A their faces all got copy pasted from Dr Lexi. That is just lazy and kills the immersion. I also notice quite a few Reyes clones too.


Now all of the above are technical issues which CAN be patched with a good amount of effort and team work. But the things i'm about to list next cannot be fixed in the lifespan of this game, only in the next ME game (if they make another). Things that can't be fixed in ME:A

1) Dialogue and scripting - now i don't know who is to blame here but things aren't running as smoothly as they used to. The way voice actors deliver some of their lines - i can't make out whether its a bad director or just badly written script but the tempo seems all wrong in many cases. Either in tone of voice or taking too long with pauses or too short. The emotion sometimes doesn't come across as it should. Don't get me wrong - there are some lines where the VA's nail it but there are too many discrepancies compared to the original trilogy.

2) The cover system - ME3 nailed this more or less. It worked really well in multiplayer and the guys who designed ME3's multiplayer are the team that headed the creation of ME:A. Again, i am confused as to why they regressed and made it almost non-existent in ME:A. Sometimes i just wanna be certain of what is cover and what isn't. In ME:A its not always certain.

3) The UI - again, ME3 had this pretty much perfect. You'd acquire a weapon and mod it, you'd pick a class and choose a tech tree for your powers to progress down. Simple. With ME:A you can buy a weapon and mod it - that's perfect. You also have the option to research a blue for a weapon instead of buying it. That's fine too. Oh but wait... after you crafted the blue print you have this pointless 3rd step where you have to then 'develop' the weapon you already researched. No... just no. Adding mods to a weapon you already researched should be done in the loadout screen. There is no point at all in having a development stage. 

4) Squadmates - why am i even bringing these guys along when i can't control where and when they launch their powers? 

5) Loyalty Missions for squadmates - how am i supposed to care about these guys when they're so generic? The only characters on the Tempest that stand out in ME:A and feel unique or charismatic so far are Peebee, Vetra and Liam. Gil, Kallo, Suvi, Drak, Cora, Lexi all bore the crap out of me. And the ONLY person on the Nexus that has a hint of personality is Vetra's sister Sid. Where is the flavor that was in ME1, 2 and 3? Every squadmate (apart from Jacob) was unique and interesting. 

I dunno what Bioware Montreal did with their 40 million dollar budget but it sure wasn't used as well as it could have been that's for sure.

I did update my drivers yes as I did that before I started playing.

Im in the game for about 30 ish hours now. Patch so far i find looks good. Has some decent points and fixed a few things i was hoping for. I was debating a fresh start but ill probably just keep plugging and do a New game + or just a new game with a new Ryder when im finished.

I did, for my birthday, treat myself to a new GPU so definitely can say im enjoying the game at its highest settings with good fps rates on 1440p and it looks fantastic.