Open World Discussion: MEA vs the Rest

For starters, ME:A is not an open-world game... there's just a handful of different zones that are more open than in previous games.

Games like Zelda and TW3, are open-world games - you can run from one side of a map to the other (haven't played the others).


What I don't like about ME:A's environments:

1) Meaningless fetch/scanning quests as far as the eye can see.  A lot of filler, basically.  I'd rather have meaningful side-quests that somehow filter into the main story - what we have now is lazy window-dressing (with a handful of quests that are above-average).  But, we shouldn't have to dig through so much crap to find the good stuff.
2) Parts of worlds that are just open, empty, lifeless areas.  Desert or ice forever.  That's not fun.
3) Load times between planets.
4) Gated areas.  IE - can't go over here, too much radiation.  Can't go over here, it's blocked for a future story element.  Can't go over here - you'll get stuck and will have to reload.
5) Non-interactive environments.  Look at verticality in Zelda as an example of the potential here that Andromeda squanders - while in the Witcher you can use your signs to burn/destroy features of the environments.

Also not sure why the load screens between worlds are a problem. The game provides a great deal of immersion with cut scenes or flight scenes going from one planet to another. Step up from Skyrim or fall out 4's boring load screens just to go inside a building.

The verticality is a huge step up from any other mass Effect game and much better than Witcher 3. It was more impressive than anything IMO. Assassins Creed and Zelda BOTW definitely beat it though but I wouldn't expect that big of a "leap" from ME3s excuse for ladders

If you played the game and can think for yourself then you know that this statement is very much wrong.

LoL

Okay, you're clearly right!  It's the producer of ME:A that is clearly wrong!  You better make sure he gets the memo!

Tomato, Potato

I don't care about status, mate. And I'll argue with Gamble about it. Wish I could tag him in this.

But this goes with the topic as well! Why do you think it's not considered open world. And where do you think it could improve more? I get the verticality and I somewhat agree with the emptiness (but it's a space game)

Those two things - and what previous poster said - the world doesn't feel alive.  When you do meet people, it's mostly placeholder fetch quests.  If there's going to be these big open places, Bioware needs to populate it much better - people/plants/vegetation/terrain, whatever - not endless desert and ice.

Also, the worlds arent all connected - you need to go back to the ship for that.  Games like Zelda/Witcher - they're all connected.  You can run from one end of the map to the other - it's not these enclosed spaces.

It think if Bioware would've halved all the planet's sizes, and removed 50% of the filler quests, finding the good quests wouldn't be such a chore.

I like the ME:A open world, it's nice to explore and you can always find some beautiful points that fit for great screenshot. The map is a bit empty, but I'm used to with the open world emptiness. The map size feels like very overwhelming at first, but it's okay when you are used to it.

Basically, I find ME:A is similar with the previous ME if you didn't really bother with the golden planets' viability and side quests. A main story with several mini stories, which doesn't really need to be explored.


But I don't feel satisfied while exploring the ME:A world somehow, here's the list of my reasons:

1. Loot box
- Issue: Loot box point of interest only gives boring material loot
- How to fix: Make weapons and armors hard to find, hard to make, and more expensive. Put one in each Map POI loot box.

2. Enemy Outpost
- Issue: Raiding an enemy guard point or outpost also doesn't feel rewarding and pointless to do
- How to fix: Sometimes in the outpost, we can destroy/scan things which triggers a sidequest (Additional Task). But the information is very unclear and we don't really know what should we do next with the task. They should elaborate the side quest description and things that should be done next to complete the tasks. Also, the reward is very unrewarding, a small number of credits and experience?

3. Side quests in Map
- Issue: The side quests content is okay, but with poor representation
- How to fix: it can be improved with better scene and story telling so it doesn't feel like a basic MMORPG side quests

4. The map
- Issue: The map reveals almost everything, this made the exploration become 'travel from point A to B and check something there'
- How to fix: let us wonder about things, do not reveal most of things in the map - let us discover them by ourselves

5. World boss
- Issue: The world bosses (Architect?) are uninspiring and not challenging at all (Not insanity yet, only hardcore). All same bosses on all planets.. really?
- How to fix: All the same boss is still okay, but at least change their attack pattern according to the planet they reside. For example, Voeld boss should have some ice attack by using their surroundings.

Unlike ME:A's "exploration", exploration in Zelda: BoTW and Witcher 3 (games i "finished" and remember) is actually rewarding, especially in BoTW.
I still have tons of things to discover in BoTW.
What is there to do ME:A's "open world"? Take nice screenshots, discover yet another crafting material cache, find another generic Kett outpost, scan that mineral...?
Gamble (hate that guy) went out of his way to deny it's an open world game but rather "exploration-based" game....and yet somehow, the game failed at both (imho).

The mechanics of MEA's exploration were fine and was fun for a bit, but I still maintain that this shift towards open world exploration is hurting Bioware games.

The main story in Inquisition was shockingly short compared to the first two games. At least with Andromeda exploration was a main theme of the game so it felt fitting. Didn't make much sense to me to be running around exploring when I had a fade to seal up.

Anyway, the resources and years of development that go into these giant maps could be better spent on what people typically play BW games for in the first place. Strong story, strong characters, strong narrative production values is a lot more palatable to me than driving/walking around for hours looking for someone's lost ____ or finding 15 _____ for _____ and so on.

I imagine the folks at EA saw all these kids going crazy for this Skyrim thing and rang up BW and told them EA needs their own Skyrim so make it open world.

To be honest, while exploring in MEA I often felt like I was playing an MMO and all the other players where playing on a different server.

I like the desolation in some areas of the planets in MEA.

Unlike fantasy rpgs or games where it makes sense to have a high population and points of interest in the world maps, in MEA we have alien worlds which though may have been teeming with life in the past are now largely uninhabited and some of them quite desolate.

I'd rather not be running into quest givers every few minutes while driving around a planet's surface.

What we could have to make things more interesting for exploration/discovery in the next Mass Effect is more ways of interacting with the environment - the mining and scanning is extremely simplified which after a while becomes dull and repetitive much like in ME1, and while it is ok for gameplay reasons I think they could add several more layers to this to give it more depth and substance.

That's also part of the reason i'm looking forward to star citizen 3.0 and beyond - the feeling of being lost on a barren alien world.