Some thoughts on the (bad) enemy design.

Greetings, Wavebend.

I was going to post "inb4 older MEs did this" but you beat me to it.

I don't think I can really take you seriously. You haven't posted a single positive thing about this game unless you were called out for being a troll. Its like that's your defence mechanism. Whatever, its not going to diminish my enjoyment of the game so I might as well attempt to put this into perspective.

Horizon Zero Dawn tends to have creatures that are designed to (usually) operate alone or in groups of a single type (herds of the same 'animal' so to speak). This means that each type needs to be able to fulfil various criteria in order to keep the player engaged in combat.

Dark Souls is a hardcore style game that is almost entirely built on the enemy design. As such, its pretty obvious there's a giant focus on having different enemies capable of different things. Otherwise nobody would really care all that much about the game. Also remember that the game focuses heavily on attack patterns.

Bloodborne is pretty much the same as that ^

Mass Effect Andromeda, like previous installments, does not need a single enemy type to fulfil multiple roles nor is the game entirely propped up by its enemy design (among the fact that it isnt designed as a hardcore melee oriented experience). In fact, the enemy design is done in such a way that you get multiple enemies of the roughly same visual appearance (species or such) but with a focus on a specific type of combat (snipers, grenadiers, assault, support, etc). They do this because the idea is that the enemy will fight you as a group and thus will be stronger as a whole rather than as individuals. (granted there are some exceptions when it comes to the tougher enemy types) This promotes the idea of picking your targets, especially on higher difficulties. That isn't bad design.

Notice how there are different design philosophies at play here? Each game requiring a different approach? Yeah, so you really shouldn't compare games that are obviously different in their approach. If you want to compare, at least try a bit harder to find a game that more closely resembles the Mass Effect experience. (No, Inquisition does not count because it is not a shooter nor does it rely on any kind of cover mechanic)

[Keep in mind that, as the developers have said, difficulty plays into how the AI reacts. We saw the game played on narrative difficulty and on normal difficulty. We haven't seen any of the higher difficulties yet.]

Edit: Got a bit salty, removed profanity. Blah blah blah

A lot of my issues with the enemy design seen so far is the art to be honest. In general a lot of the lack of "wow-factor" here comes from how you can tell the Montreal leads in the art department aren't as strong. I've worked on a game myself in 2016 with 5 guys and one of 'em was an art dude, and his art actually reminds me of some of the concept design seen in Andromeda in that... it looked detailed, but it was lacking some kind of pop or something that instantly made you go "ooh, that looks great!". It wasn't ugly, it just didn't look that inspired. There's something in general with the armors and exteriors I've noticed. It looks kinda generic.

From what we saw of P.B's Loyalty mission -the Remnant do seem one dimensional.

However you forget:
1. They are some sort of programmed intelligence that seem to be blank slates to start with.
2. They seem to only be programmed to attack if we become hostile toward their sanctums.
3. They may attack as you say weakly -UNLESS during battle -something takes overriding control of their programming: Harbinger-Collector General). Thus making the one-sided nature of the Remnant attack more complex -something we were not shown for remember the mission was shown edited and had spoilers removed.
4. If what you say is true of these Remnant -to me that is ok. For you see:
there is no harm no foul.

As much as I hate to agree with the constantly pessimistic semi-troll... he's right. Out of all the trailers, I have not seen a single interesting enemy design, other than maybe (we can't see much) the Archon. The Khett don't look like their design is even finished. If you look at drawings of OT ME aliens in the early concepting stages, the Khett look like that. They're just not especially visually distinctive or interesting. And these Remnant drones... oof. My first thought when watching the video was that they reminded me of the sorts of robots you draw when you're in middle school: lots of patterns and flashy lights and stuff, but overall just shapes mushed together. The Assemblers are walkers like we've seen since Star Wars, The Observers are just floating things with parts sticking out, and the Destroyer looks straight up stupid with its stubby legs and bulbous top.

I reeeaaally don't want to be coming down this hard on the enemy design, I don't want to come off like another grouchy sourpuss. I want to like this game, and the combat looks pretty f'ing fun to me, but there is just nothing good that can be said about these enemy designs we've seen. Bland, bland, bland. Nothing with that 'pop' that makes an design become iconic. This and the (unless they've somehow made astronomical improvements since the preview build) bad cutscene/facial animations won't stop me from enjoying the game if the gameplay is fun and the story and characters are engaging, but it will definitely shave a couple points off. There comes a point when you have to stop saying "It's fine because that's not developer's focus" and admit when some aspects of a game just aren't well done. It's okay, we can still like it if it isn't perfect.

EDIT: Should have read the OP's post more carefully, I thought he was talking about visual design. I'm withholding judgment on enemy AI personally, but this post still stands. Maybe it will expand the conversation to other aspects of design.

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Dutch, lets say it together!"

*Shameless pandering to Horizon Zero Dawn*

*Obligatory "DAI in space" comment*

Well, that was surely worth my time...

Fair point

So you're gonna defend the fact that most enemies only have a single move in their moveset. I can tell you've never played DAIMP on Heartbreaker mode. But you'll argue that it doesn't apply, which is a fair point. There's always The Division which does alright so I'll use that.

- One of the points I've made in OP was that with great mobility/dodging/hovering (hence more gameplay choices), you definitely have room to ramp up the enemy design by giving each enemy a bigger moveset. To give you an understanding of this, say you have a bunch of mooks (like the Breacher from the 17-minute footage), and they casually fire their laser / try to come close to you once in a while. In past games, you'd have been limited by your movement speed, more balanced with how much you have control over the enemies and vice versa. Just like the slow movement speed in DAI while in combat. Now you can fly around them / dodge them / kite them to infinity like an overpowered space ninja. Does it really make sense to leave them with one, single move? Not really. Essentially, more control to the player = more control to the enemy. They work in synergy.

- Most enemies only have one weakpoint. The Division comes to my mind. There, most enemies have two weakpoints, or more. Besides, it's not like that game did it perfectly either.

- Third point, enemy AI. In the 17-minutes footage, you shoot an enemy and it doesn't react. You use suppressive fire on an enemy, it still doesn't react. You flank it? It doesn't react. Hell, you'd probably even throw a grenade and it wouldn't react. Conclusion: The AI doesn't care i.e. it's complete garbage (at least at this difficulty). But I've already made that point in an earlier thread, so my intent wasn't to bring it back again. If you look at The Division, you throw a grenade? The enemy will roll away. You use suppressive fire? The enemy will stick to cover. You shoot an enemy in the open? It will get into cover ASAP. You flank an enemy? It will start to sprint away / back off as soon as you gain line of sight.

- Enemy cooperation. This is something I've started seeing in DAIMP on Heartbreaker mode. It also exists in The Division on Legendary mode. The concept is simple. You have two different enemy types. One applies a Frozen status, the other reacts to it by detonating it (Shattered). On Legendary mode in The Division, if a support healer drops a support station (AoE over-time heal), most enemies will prioritize to stick around the support station, stuff like that.

If the AI ramps up with the difficulty, then that's cool, but to be honest quite unlikely. Without further evidence I stand by my point.

It all sounds very exploitable imo.

I think a better comparison would be games like Gears of War and Binary Domain seeing Mass Effect has more in common with those in terms of enemy encounters than Horizon.

I like my enemies to have personality -- but I must be given a chance to DISCOVER that personality first. Long walks on the beach, coffee dates, things like that. Once I get to know them intimately, then I can incinerate their asses after I zap their brains out.

I don't understand all this hype on that console exclusive -just another sub-par money grabbing rip-off.
ME:A does not even have a bow and arrow combat system anyway so of course its combat and mechanics would play differently.