Desperate need for new content

Would even take the Vorcha Ark if they can bring back Mark Meer. lol.

Not exactly sure what you're saying, but Dark Souls 2 has like a 9 gig patch, mostly it's 3 DLC. All players download at the store is DLC access. This way players can still play with players that have DLC content.

Once the major issues have beem corrected, I'll agree.

So they fixed headshots in MEA?

what about the headshots? I haven't played MEAMP in ages

Fanboyism? Here is a short list of some of the shortcomings (on PC) in comparison;

See enemy movement. (Rollerblading/teleporting/melee dodging)

See some weapons only working for host. (Snipers/Dhan/etc)

See some skills only working for host. (Turrets/etc)

See crappy sound. (biotic explosion for example), and crappy dialog of both player characters and enemies.

See stupefying lack of heavy/medium/light melee. (Just one ME3 character has mere melee than the entire cast, combined, in MEA)

See lack of speed. (i.e. Drell/Fury, or just about anything with Adrenaline III)

See more lack of speed. (Days long reloading animations that just about anything will cancel, causing even more delay by starting it over from the beginning)

See lack of diversity and the small size of maps. (This his could be changed with DLC to be fair, it stands for now)

See appalling weapon charge mechanics. (Venom for instance)

See terrible ability to play from outside N. America. (Both ME3 and DAI MP's are better; not great, but better)

See utterly exasperating GUI's for selecting anything (weapons/mods/consumables/etc)


That's just 10 off the cuff.

They are opinion only, and obviously others feel differently; but that's good, if everyone thought the same, it would be terrible.

Finally, if there were a poll, anyone care to venture a guess who would win between ME3MP, DAIMP, or MEAMP?

(I know which horse I'd back)

are headshots bugged off-host in ME3MP?

If you can aim and anticipate the enemies position, yeah. Though 'off-host' is a pretty vague thing. The host can be anyone from my brother next room to a random dude in Australia (there is no region-lock/filtering whatsoever in that game's matchmaking).

Therefore at times you can come across hosts as bizarre as this one. Strangely this level of rubber-banding is mostly observable on PC at 60 frames or more. Consoles having their frames capped at 30 reduce the lag impact overall for some reason. Curiously, even enemy AI and accuracy is dumbed down at 30 frames.

No. This game was flaws - pretty bad ones if you ask me - yet I see the whole headshotting issue (despite being quite bad indeed) as exaggerated and overused argument against the game as a whole.

And how exactly does PC has less lag on ME3? Cutting down the frames on PC is actually a known way to reduce lag (and dumb down enemy AI as well).

Something new would be nice. Ye, generally I feel like we are getting less and less content with game releases now. Games are becoming more and more deceptive through their marketing campaigns. And the margins demanded by publishers are also getting higher. After all they are running a business, so in the future this issues aren't getting better. Plus there's no real standard in the industry of how much games should be priced. The $60 dollars AAA price point has become a lot more water down with great marketing campaign, as if we are paying more toward advertising and marketing than the cost to develop games now. It is like "Beats by Dre." situation. They don't make the best headphones, you are paying for the fame of the brand, and the cost for their great marketing strategy.

I'm inclined to agree that new content is desperately needed, but I don't think new content is enough to salvage this game in my eyes.

First off, according to the APEX HQ app, I have exactly 112 hours logged in multiplayer matches. My manifest completion is hovering at 77% after adjusting for the most recent content additions, according to one of the manifest trackers that was linked on here ages ago. My APEX rating is pretty low relative to my play time, sitting at just over 10,700. In other words, I've put more than a fair amount of time into the game. Purely from a perspective of time spent, I have gotten more than my money's worth out of the game, and that's without getting into my Singleplayer runs in an attempt to get all the achievements.

But it sure doesn't feel like it.

I'm not even sure where the best place to start is. I will say that I like the core combat, the addition of the jetpacks has provided interesting movement mechanics, and I appreciate the fact that a large number of powers now function correctly when you are playing off-host. But, in my opinion, the jetpacks have proved to be a mixed blessing. The fact that the jetpacks were so integral to the design of the combat and levels that every single kit has to have them (or something analogous in the form of the biotic boosts) has removed some of the variety that was present in ME3, where different races had different dodge mechanics and some characters couldn't dodge at all. As a result, strictly in terms of movement, each kit feels the same. From Humans to Angarans, to Asari to Krogans, they all move around the maps in the same way.

Speaking of similarities in the way characters play, it feels like Bioware has removed some of the more niche or interesting abilities in favor of placing greater emphasis on the core powers of each archetype (Biotic/Combat/Tech). Gone are abilities like Stasis or Warp, which admittedly were not niche, rather were excellent utility powers for Gold/Platinum. As a result, you see more basic powers like Lance and/or Pull on almost every single Biotic, furthering the sensation of same-ness. That's not to say there aren't some stand-out Biotics in Andromeda, but the Biotic kits that are especially noteworthy are few and far between.

The same argument could be made for Tech powers, although not as convincingly as I feel like Tech kits are better on average than Biotic kits. The proliferation of abilities like Overload, Energy Drain, and Incinerate on Tech users in MEA at least feels more refreshing, especially considering that there are fewer pure Tech kits and more hybrids between Tech and Combat. Which makes sense, especially with Bioware doing away with the traditional class archetypes, but this decision has led to kits feeling more and more similar to play in my opinion.

One thing that really perplexes me is why grenades have been relegated to strictly Combat powers. Lift and Cluster grenades were great additions to the pool of available powers in ME3, and it saddens me to see them gone. There were also Tech-based grenades, but those were introduced in expacs so I don't think the comparison there is completely fair.

And all of this is just about the classes available in Andromeda right now. This doesn't even touch on how I feel about enemies (in short: underwhelming in terms of design), map design, changes to the gear/consumable ecosystems, or progression. I'll keep it short here and close out by saying that if Bioware's plan for more content is to drop another round of S guns on us once every few weeks and trickle out kits that are just rehashes of existing powers (see Angara Exemplar), I'm definitely passing.

Jetpacks are so integral indeed that it is not sensible to take them out. I wish we were getting a beefy oversized dodge-less krogan at some point, but given map design, that is just not sensible.
Now while the jet pack/dodge mechanics are largely unoriginal among characters, their individual features were implemented in different, more cosmetic ways like unique skins and voice acting. Each character now is at least visually different. No more coming across a Quarian Male in game whom you have no idea which class it is until they cast one out of three skills that they don't share.

As for niche skills, this game has its own: Invasion, Shield Boost, Stealth Grid and Barricade.

As kits being similar to play, I disagree with some exceptions (Asari Sentinel and Huntress being the most notorious ones, somewhat followed by the Salarian Infiltrator). Most kits do feel unique in this game. Take for instance the pure Biotic ones: Human Adept, Human Vanguard, Assdept, Gladiator, Kineticist and the Duelist. How similar are they to play?
I do agree that, as a whole, some kits feel more similar to play in between them than I would like to. Yet, comparing to its predecessor, this game's list on that would be still be quite shorter.

As for the Angara Exemplar, he has the most unique passives in game and I personally feel that he is one of the most original to play kits. Even if one only takes into account his 3 powers which are not unique, well, if anything he has a (mostly) original skin and a unique voice. The same can't be said about a dozen or so 100% copy-and-paste kits added with Retaliation alone in ME3.

The rest, I do mostly agree with what you said. I am not happy with the maps, enemy factions, the absurdly silly S guns and there is much more on top of that: lack of community challenges, lack of proper DLCs, rampant cheating going unchecked, poor netcoding, so on and so forth. This game is pretty flawed, and these real, pressing issues that ought to be criticized.