Two years from now do you see yourself still playing MP?

My suggestion, do a SP game and then follow it with a New Game Plus- Insanity. That will be much fun. And then do a New Game-Insanity scratch starting at level 1. Really challenging and great fun. I find MP to be a lot less fun than NG insanity SP. 

Well, can you describe what you want from your ideal game in terms less nebulous than "doesn't suck" and "meaningful progression"? I can never wrap my head around what is that the hardcore players want specifically, because in every game I've played they just complain, complain and complain about catering to casuals, and are the first to leave and go after Somme new game and repeat the cycle. I have never seen a player yet who played one game for 10 years in a row. But how does Andromeda carter to casuals if it has a good 5 years grind for an actual casual player and won't let him/her even try a good 70% of the loot so from my PoV it is aimed at hard-core rather than a casual player. I don't understand all the references to angry birds or games on the phone, because I'm not interested in those.

Because casuals are more likely to be hooked to the mindless loot grind then actually well designed gameplay.

If I could sit on my ass for hours at a time and not gain any weight, (went up to 300lbs playing FFXI) I surely would have played it for 10 years. Lost 2 jobs and a girlfriend playing FFXI. There was almost nothing I would have rather done with my freetime. I actually could start back up now, but choose not to in fear of gaining all that weight back.

There is a BIG difference between FFXI and MEA though, and I'm not talking anything along the lines of type of game. That is the difference between hardcore and casual, the amount of life a person invest into the game. You can't possibly invest your life in MEAMP, there is not enough depth, that is how this game and many more are "catering" to casuals. No one (logically and sane) is going to spend 5 years playing andromeda (mp, the story idk I haven't went past eos yet). Thats like spending 5 years mastering tetris. There is no sophistication or anything complex and deep enough in MEAMP. Games like Call of Duty are the same way, but, and theres a but, BUT, call of duty works at its core, and has a fun factor. The quality in the game is also there, guns all shoot, grenades blow things up, radio cars drive straight. There is a page worth of things in MEAMP that I can list that don't work, don't work as intended, work but are completely "uncomfortable" to use (venom... ), or are/were flawed beyond belief.

And the entire loot deal, once again, if your a bronze player, you honestly should not expect, or even care if you have all your manifest done. A gold player (RonnieBlastoff) can get a large manifest at least to a good degree of satisfaction. Check w/e app that is that shows my manifest. I played bronze till what apex 6k? Afterward I went straight to gold and adapted. The manifest bloat is bioware insuring the game sticks around. There is no reason a person with bronze standards should get gold and platinum rewards. Completely unfair to those who put in effort to achieve them.

Andromeda is catering to casuals in many ways. The manifest bloat does not target anyone. A person playing bronze can save up for premium packs like everyone else and get lucky. I said it in another thread though, a bronze player does not need a black widow siphon X.

lol angry birds, I think that was me.

And "everyone" can have that feeling of achievement. I have it (dhan X) and a lot of other players have it as well. The only manifest bloat I can even picture is with URs, and yes ok, there is a long road to maxing every variant of an UR. But realistically should, or do those same individuals expect to max their manifest in a day? a week? a month? (even though you can in a few months, some people already did without cheating) I'm glad there is a road ahead, it shows there is something to at least chase after in this game. At the same time though, I don't expect a handout. I even at about 13-15 hours a week have 90% beat my pre 1.09 loadout goals. There are people who don't have jobs, who don't have kids, who don't have responsibilities that got a whole lot more opportunity than I did to max out. Should I get upset at bioware for making it harder for me? Lol nope, I asked for platinum and welcome the increase.... Maxed out all the rare characters in 2 days... come on sis...


Oh and being realistic. Lets punch in some numbers (btw this is wrong due to character cards not having variants, its actually less..)
21 URs
10+30 Variants
about 400Kish per UR (with help from pity)


21*40*400k= 336M credits you'll need to either max out, or be potentially close to maxing out with current UR pool. Holy shyt that seems like a lot...

336M/125k (platinum game) =2688 games

2688*15~18minutes= 672hours~806.4hours ...... that still seems like a long ass freeking time... but lets go alittle deeper.

(672hours~806.4hours)/365 days= 1.84hpd~2.2hpd..... wow... that doesn't seem that bad now...

So if a person were to play MEAMP at least 2.5 hours a day with lobby time, WC break and general bsing included, they would have a maxed bloated manifest in about a year. (much faster than ME3MP...filthy casuals) You could even simplifiy this and say if a person were to play at least 8 games, or make 1M credits a day, it would take a year. This is with absolutely 0 URs at all. (granted, you probably shouldn't be playing platinum with 0 UR, but there are RARE exceptions....) This can be done by a person with a 10 hour workday, 1 hour commute, a couple toddlers, a gym routine, and even enough time to bullshyt and troll on a forum for that very game....

Now a year... is a pretty long time, but that depends on if your willing, or even have time, to max your manifest, because as you can see, its not going to happen today. (unless you blow about $3.4K of real money on this, then all you'd have to wait for is the time it takes to buy all those packs.... :srs: )

Depth, A core that has something worth playing over and over again. I'm (imo) or I was, a hardcore Street Fighter/ capcom vs series player. I've also been a pretty intense MMO player. I invested alot of my time, emotion, and probably finances in some of these types of games over YEARS. Now a casual player, will play those same games, and not really care anything about the game, and leave the game in 15 minutes.

Years of dedication and effort vs 15 minutes. Passion vs fickleness. It doesn't matter what game it is, if you can dig into it, if there is a bible worth of story and spells and drama...you will find hardcore gamers.

I haven't played this game in over three weeks. So to answer your question... no.

To a small degree absolutely! The simple fact that not everyone can easily play or hop right into and be a pro in an hour, can describe some hardcore games. It may sound harsh, but everyone can not be "welcomed" to play everything. I hate saying it because I honestly believe everyone "should be," and that anyone can achieve anything, but at the same time everyones road to that achievement is not the same. One persons effort should never out-weight another. Casual catering either removes the need for any effort at all, or using FFXIV for example, completely voids one persons say, 3 months worth of effort (hardcore player) so that a person who just joined the game TODAY can basically receive the same rewards as that hardcore player, for free. That watering down of someones time, emotion, and energy is completely bullshyt...

I can only imagine someone going to school for 8 years to get a doctor degree, and me going Neo from the Matrix, instantly downloading all that knowledge, technique and experience from a disk... and then reaping the same rewards! "lol sorry doc, sucks for you!"


Now the grindfest and repetitive crap is not hardcore at all. Many people get that confused, but the grindfest was the solution for casuals to become "hardcore" by doing something easy, yet repetitive and time consuming, to achieve a high level of rewards, rather than doing something challenging for that same level of rewards. This just carried over between games because it was simple and gave game devs a way to gain both a hardcore audience, without alienating casual players in the same game. ( for the $$$) Sad thing is that this method as been taken to the extremes with so many games, hardcore players no longer are even welcomed.

Well, they can't really create those really pricey games that only 10% of folks can successfully play & as far as games that last multiple years, the times have changed and players themselves no longer have either time or patience to carry newcomers, so yeah, they bring new toys for as long as they can for the vets, and give the old stuff "for free" to the newcomers. But that's not specific to ME, because everyone has to get the same toys following the same path & better players who can play platinum are in practical terms the only ones that will get access to anything they want from the loot pool. I am sorry you do not find games (or you do and chose to hang around here by the reasons of your own) but neither do I, as a casual player, find the games I want to play (short SP games with your own char & good story and exotic settings) so I have to compromise & try MP - and all for the same reason of games being a huge investment that they won't put up for a niche audience. What can you do, money has to be made.

I put almost 1k hours into ME3. I'm not sure if I'll make it to 40 this time.

I really wanted to give the game a chance, even after 1.09. At least until support officially ends so I could play all maps/kits. I liked several aspects of the game (I'm looking at you, Ponytail, Human Vanguard, Asari Sentinel and Kineticist).

In order to play this game for an extended period and receive at least a certain satisfaction, there are many requirements. Earning mission funds on a regular basis in order to unlock stuff exclusively hidden behind MF. So several games every day are a must. Assigning strike teams to missions also is a must. The stuff hidden behind ingame credits also needs to be earned. So several additional games every day, preferable platinum.

Let's see if I really want to do this anymore. The overall loot pool has been poluted beyond recognition, and the MF exclusive weapon mods are mostly useless because horribly "balanced". Platinum pug's are horrible, and 100k packs contains crappy lvl 1 and lvl 2 boosters that are suboptimal for platinum. I could play with friends, but this get's boring very fast. No regionlock in ME3 allowed for far more variety in both FL contacts and random players.

On top of that they've pretty much confirmed that the sound glitch won't be patched. Do I want to play a game when it's sure that the sound will completely stop working every few games? With absolutely no fault from my side (wrong drivers, setup etc.)? Not that it was a known issue with the frostbite engine to begin with (Battlefield 4 has the same problem)...

I really see no point in wasting my time with assigning strike teams, searching for at least decent platinum pug's, unlocking inferior loot or playing a muted game anymore.

#officially retired

MEAMP is a good game to drop in daily for a few rounds in the morning while drinking coffee.
You do those daily challenges, unlock 1-2 premium packs and log off.

A "slight edge" kind of way to progress with your manifest, but doing so you can eventually unlock everything in ~ 1 year without feeling fed up with MEAMP.