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Post by phazonmario on Mar 17, 2017 6:48:14 GMT
So people who have the Deluxe edition, how's your monkey? idk i didnt poke it many times and it kept appearing half through containers and shit.........
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snook
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oh god how did this get here
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by snook on Mar 17, 2017 6:48:51 GMT
Game plays well, runs pretty decently. Facial animations are bad, but the uncanny valley feel kind of...normalized after an hour or so.
Combat is a lot of fun.
Story is...well, not amazing, but that's what I've come to expect from BioWare - meh story, good characters...which it seems to deliver, so far. It's a by the books BioWare game.
As for writing in general, yeah it's cheesy. But no cheesier than the OT. The series has always been cheesy as hell, even Mass Effect 2, which reviewers and fans still masturbate to to this day as the 'shining pinnacle' of the series or some such rubbish. I've genuinely enjoyed quite a few moments, and it feels much more...involved, I suppose, than DA:I did. Squadmates banter back and forth, and the world feels as alive as it should, I reckon.
Overall? It has problems. But I think some people went into this game expecting to hate it, and as a result, are going to colour their perceptions with that.
But that's just my two cents.
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ravagingfish
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by ravagingfish on Mar 17, 2017 7:05:14 GMT
I finished playing the ten-hour trial this morning. I have a GTX 860, IT-5 CPU, and 16 GB of RAM and played on an Xbox One controller. Windows 8. I was able to complete all available content up to the gate (I had seen the cutscenes on YouTube already, so was able to cover a lot of ground).
Firstly, congratulations to the whole team for shipping what is sure to be a massive game. It goes without saying that a ton of fine craftsmanship went into the final product. To have more of this franchise, I'm very grateful. I probably fit into whatever safe demographic there is for BioWare, because I had a blast playing. Some amazing technology is at work under the hood—I was particularly impressed with the short loading throughout the game, especially when covered by a transition into whatever planet you're descending into. Putting the original Mass Effect 1 vision to work. It's also particularly impressive how well this game plays on PC.
Anyway, given that the core experience of combat, story, and characters is there and fun, I'm just going to give some thoughts I had while playing that might lead to future patches (while skipping any Character Creator or facial animation feedback, as you have heard plenty about that):
THOUGHTS FOR FUTURE PATCHING
The UI definitely works, and I was able to figure my way around it without too much trouble, but more explanation can be given about how to navigate the main menu and the different tabs within. It's a bit confusing because there's the normal main menu "dial" (with saving at the top, the map in the center, and so on), but when you go into any of those menus you are given a separate tab format. This can cause a bit of confusion for the player, I think, because occasionally the menu will choose to open in one of these tabs (whether it is to tell the player to upgrade their skills or to show an update in their journal) instead of the main dial, and the player gets lost, especially since there's no indication that there is a folder above the one they are currently in. In particular, I think the journal should always open to the top of folder, and then allow you to go into each individual folder for quests (or maybe just start at the dial to begin with). Maybe also say at the bottom of the screen that hitting escape will go to the outside folders? I also don't think favorites were explained, or at least not in a way that showed me in the menu how my current profile and powers would then translate into favorites.
Vendor UI also was a tad confusing, maybe because both your inventory and the vendor's are open at the same time, and using the "start" button to confirm a trade was a bit disorienting. Not too big of an issue and I found my way around it.
There's something that could be done with loot, but I don't know what. At the moment, I think players won't know what they're looting when they first play the game. Maybe explaining quickly what items are used for crafting, what is vendor junk, and what are readily usable items could help, possibly in the form of an optional sidequest on the Nexus like the Apex and crafting missions.
Speaking of loot, a storage on the Tempest for items we're not using would be most appreciated. Maybe that is unlocked with colonist perks later on?
There are a lot of hidden systems that could be pointed out in-game. For instance, I would not have known that Ryder could view a planet's viability from their quarters, but according to IGN that is possible. I also was surprised to see a log of Ryder's personality and all of our major choices in the codex without explanation, or that our stats were being tracked. These could be pointed out in a page-by-page tutorial in the menu that people could turn off if they didn't need. For a first-time Mass Effect player, this could be confusing.
I don't particularly understand the lack of quick save or the inability to save during Priority Missions. While loot and thermal clips add a sense of exploration or danger to missions, a lack of saves is just frustrating as a player, because they now need to replicate all of the things they did prior to combat every time they attempt the mission again. It discourages exploration.
There needs to be some kind of tutorial or introduction to the Remnant puzzle. I couldn't tell what buttons would interact with the puzzle aside from 'A,' which the game told me would set the puzzle. So after three attempts at using the puzzle and awakening the Remnant, I found the right and left trigger affected the empty spaces. It was frustrating to be penalized in the form of time-wasting without knowing how the puzzle functioned.
I love the galaxy map, and am so appreciative of the intent to improve on the original vision for it (it did not go unnoticed that you use the original Mass Effect 1 sound effect for zooming in on planets!), but there should be a way to cut down on the time it takes to go from one planet to another, if possible. A few of us theorized this was covering a load of some sort? Maybe for the planet to appear outside our window? If not, then an 'X to skip' option would be useful for when it has finished loading. An alternative could be that scanning for anomalies in a given system could also include those on a planet so players don't need to search each planet in a system for resources. I know that kind of ruins the fun of it, but while I might find the travel to be soothing, I fear others won't.
I can't tell—does the scanner tell you when there is something in the area to be scanned? Is there a way to incorporate this into the compass at the top so players aren't perpetually scanning when they don't need to? I am probably speaking on behalf of the completionist community here, but ever since I found scanning would occasionally yield additional dialogue, I have meticulously scanned most of what I have played so far, which is to say only 25% of the time am I scanning when I need to. It's not clear what can be scanned and what can't, so I just do it everywhere. Though I want to be surprised by discoveries of the world, the task is so time-consuming for every area I go to that a hint of when to scan could improve the experience. Efficiency is the key to avoiding frustration in this case.
Speaking of the compass, I don't have any problems with it, but maybe the indication of loot or items in the area could be helpful as well. Maybe a kind of 'ping' or glow from the compass to show something is in the area? Or have an option to increase the size and font for interactable objects?
BUGS
As mentioned earlier in the thread, my character experienced extreme slow down and an inability to use my weapon or powers several times towards the end of the first open world planet. I think it is related to quick-travel, because I only noticed it after I used quick-travel, and it definitely got worse whenever I did. The bug didn't crop up prior to that. It doesn't seem performance related—I had silky smooth FPS even as my character was moving at a snail's pace, and even when I changed my graphics settings to low, the slow down of my character occurred. In addition to the slow down, my Avenger started shooting only one bullet at a time unless I pressed-and-released the trigger for every shot, and my Concussive Shot was on perpetual cooldown. Hard restart fixed all of this, and I just avoided quick-travel—but it'd be great if this was fixed.
Also as mentioned, I received an email from a team member that included every party member I had yet to acquire. I then heard Lexi and Cora talking to Drack multiple times on the Tempest, even though he was not yet recruited.
I also encountered the bug where my scanner wouldn't open. I would press the scan button, it'd open for a moment, then close again. This happened twice at the tail end of my trial. Hard restart fixed it, and I'm not sure what the cause is.
A THANK YOU NOTE AND THOUGHT FOR THE FUTURE
I am thrilled with what I got to play in Andromeda so far. The main thing I was excited by was that I wanted to keep playing, which I wasn't sure I would have in the new galaxy. The ambition of this game to succeed where ME1 couldn't yet is clear to me, and I can't express how wonderful that is to me.
If I were to impart any last thoughts for the future of the franchise, it would be to not forget about the Milky Way. Ending, quirks, and controversies be damned, I think some link must be given to the Milky Way in the Andromeda series if we are ever to going to move Andromeda from the zone of "spin-off" into "continuation of the series." Though Andromeda provides good explanation for why it is so isolated from the Milky Way storyline (aside from some pretty great easter eggs), we can't ignore the context of the real world, which is that the Andromeda concept feels like a way to move away from the original setting out of a fear to touch the original games (Walters understandably said he wasn't touching the ME3 ending with a ten-foot pole a while back). And though the choice makes sense in the immediate aftermath of the controversy, Andromeda doesn't need to feel like running away from the trilogy's faults in future games, nor should it. The way BioWare has set up Andromeda puts the series in a position to address the state of the Milky Way or receive more Milky Way residents in the future, and I hope you do. Not for closure's sake, but because it might give us a chance to see how the galaxy our Shepards fought to save over three games has evolved. I sincerely hope BioWare won't be afraid, down the line, to make new stories that connect to those left back home or even set some stories back in the Milky Way. The IP needs to live on in both realms, I think, or the Andromeda series will continue to self-perpetuate the idea that it lives in the original trilogy's shadow, unable to make the risks it once made out of fear for controversy. All that said, what you have made is a great first step to that.
Thank you for allowing us to write up our thoughts. Congratulations!
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Post by Cyonan on Mar 17, 2017 7:18:59 GMT
I've played about 2 hours of MP and about 2 hours of SP so far, so I'll throw my thoughts out.
The first thing I noticed is that performance isn't that great, and it doesn't seem to be related to graphical settings that closely because my framerate is consistent almost no matter what I set them to. While in most modern games at ultra/1440p I can hold about 50-60 FPS, in ME:A I was seeing closer to 40-45 with dips down into the 30s. If I set it to 1080p it's basically the exact same, and in 4k I get around 15 which isn't terribly surprising(in most other games I can hold maybe 25-30 if I'm lucky). I also tried tweaking a few settings like AA with no significant change in framerate.
In general gameplay, the jetpack is a welcome change to the combat formula with the added mobility. I also found myself switching between left and right handed quite often to make better use of the cover in the area, and the auto cover hasn't been problematic at all for me which is great because that was one of my concerns. As much as I'm dying to upgrade my starter guns(I'm on Insanity, so that Avenger doesn't have much impact =P) the overall flow of combat has felt pretty good so far. It's got new elements, but it does still feel like Mass Effect combat.
One thing I do miss is the ability to give direct orders to squadmates to use specific powers on my target, which allowed for great moments of setting up combos on a target. Between not being able to give those commands and what I imagine is the same damage penalty for squadmates on guns as in ME2 and 3 they don't feel like they have much impact in combat anymore, if any. It feels more like I'm probably just going to bring them along for their commentary rather than for their abilities.
On a minor note, the "shields are down" sound could probably stand to be a bit louder because it's almost unnoticeable in the middle of a firefight.
The character creator feels really bare bones for a 2017 game. I don't tend to get that in-depth with them because I'm pretty awful with them, but I know people really like the huge array of standard sliders.
I haven't gotten to far into the story but I did enjoy the tutorial mission. Without getting into spoilers there is some nice environments and even some optional objectives that resulted in additional dialogue later on. That's nice to see, and I do hope that sort of thing continues in the future. So far I've just hit the Nexus(I'm trying to limit myself to 2 hours a day so I run out of trial time as the game comes out =P).
Also, loot containers are back and I do enjoy the search for loot. It's worth noting while I've gotten a decent amount of what I can only assume are crafting materials, I have also picked up a few weapon mods as well. It's good to see a mixture of loot to find there.
The characters I haven't gotten too much dialogue out of yet but I've liked it so far. I know some people might complain that they have nothing important or interesting to say yet but at least as a start, there's more of a feeling of them being actual people rather than just stationary dialogue dispensers like they could be in previous games. Liam doesn't almost immediately start giving me his life story the moment I say hi like some previous squadmates such as Jacob would do(which might be interesting backstory, but I don't know of many people that actually do that). I of course hope that background stuff comes out throughout the game, though.
Animation quality is a bit all over the map. I like most of the running animations and other body based ones like gunplay, melee, powers, etc. The characters all seem to move in more realistic ways than previous games, and it's improved over Dragon Age Inquisition as well.
The big negative here is of course the much talked about facial animations. I opted to play as Sara for my first playthrough, using a custom face(based on face preset 1) and there have already been a few places where the animation feels off. Specifically it's usually with the mouth animation, especially when Sara is supposed to be smiling. This is something that will be key for most of the dialogue scenes in the game.
With the MP there isn't a huge change to the old ME3 formula other than the addition of the jetpack and some enemy design that feels like you guys knew we were going to try to repeat Firebase White/Geth/Gold and took a few steps to pre-emptively counter that. As I noted above, the combat is good overall and feels like a Mass Effect game with some new elements thrown in there in the jetpack.
Unfortunately, it only plays great when it's not lagging which was almost never for me. Despite the fact that I was hosting, there was stutter and a bit of rubber banding in virtually every MP game that I played. It's a similar stutter to the same that I experienced while playing DA:I MP that happens pretty much whenever I try to move(albeit not as bad this time around, but it's still there). This sort of thing I feel needs to be sorted soon if MP is to have the staying power that ME3 MP did.
All in all I'm hopeful for this being a good game, but my main concern is that it will ultimately get bogged down by technical issues.
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Post by vonuber on Mar 17, 2017 7:48:43 GMT
This whole lack of quick save concerns me a lot - I've got kids, quick save is a life saver in games. Why would they remove this? Like the CC not even being an import of DA:I it's a baffling design decision.
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Sable Rhapsody
N4
Witcher-ing
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
Origin: SableRhapsody
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Post by Sable Rhapsody on Mar 17, 2017 8:10:58 GMT
OK. Now I can do some gameplay feedback. In the interest of full disclosure, I...kinda suck at shooters. Like, I died on the MP tutorial to those stupid cloaking varren things because I *didn't* have a drone to help babysit me. So take this with a grain of salt The jump jets are wonderful, and I'm always disappointed now when Ryder can't jump in casual clothes. The sideways movement is a little dodgy, but I think that just takes some getting used to. I'm not a very good platformer either, yet I've had no issues with the platforming in this game so far. And I am really, really digging the Tech abilities in ME:A, particularly the Engineer profile. I haven't gotten a chance to try out the other trees, but Tech feels like an upgrade from ME3 MP. The assault turret has saved my butt so many times, and it's great that Ryder can pull her weight while having mostly support/indirect damage abilities. My one major critique is cover. I'm sure I'll get used to the auto cover eventually, but right now, I feel like I'm wrestling with the interface for what "is" and "isn't" cover. Like I said, I'll adjust, but it breaks the flow of combat when I'm trying to figure out why I got stuck on a corner. Also, with the environments being more vertical, the radar for detecting enemies doesn't *quite* cut it. I'd like to know whether an enemy is above or below me in addition to which direction it's coming from. It was particularly noticeable during the last part of the tutorial mission; with so many levels, I couldn't tell where to look for those last pesky few Kett.
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Post by vyshekryshi on Mar 17, 2017 8:21:38 GMT
I finished my trial yesterday. I have a good PC, so everything was maxed out and the game was smooth (there were a couple of minor glitches in cutscenes, but that's all). I am looking forward to play more.
Things I didn't like: - CC is absolutely bad. There are basically defaults or 9 unattractive presets for each sex. Customization is extremely limited. Pale complexions are practically non-existent. Most presets look much older than 22. The younger ones can also look much older in the actual game. Yet again, it is impossible to make an attractive boy (default male!Shep and male!Ryder are bland and uninteresting to my taste, I have no desire to look at them the whole game). I had a 100% fem!Shep ME trilogy (many playthroughs), though I wanted to try a male!Shep but couldn't create anything acceptable. Matching appearance with Alec Ryder is just not worth it (if this is the reason of such limited CC). It's not dad Ryder I'll be staring at for 100+ hours, I don't care if he looks like my sister/brother Ryder. Genderlock on hair: why? Doll-like weird eyes. Just ask the DAI team for a proper CC and for proper eyes, they have done both much better.
- Some face and body animations are weird. Not game-breaking weird but still. Grumpy cat grimace on Sara Ryder, weird blinking humans in dialogues, twerking while going down the stairs.
- Overlapping dialogues. They get messed, very immersion-breaking.
- Game menus and lists. Menus are overcomplicated, too many subfolders without a quick way to go back. Lists of all kinds keep jumping up when reaching last lines, this is infuriating.
- Nomad controls: have you even checked them with keyboard-and-mouse? WASD works poorly, steering with a mouse is way more convenient and intuitive. You need to fix the control scheme for PC.
- Please, make the space animations skippable, they are getting too much after the second star system.
- Lack of manual save in certain missions is a bad decision.
- Changing colour of clothing works in the wardrobe menu but changes back to default in game.
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Post by iago on Mar 17, 2017 8:25:48 GMT
I've already spent 4 of my 10 hours in Multiplayer and it's a blast, just like the old ME3 MP with more dynamic.
Although I've run into some issues. Once I was in a Match with I think almost unlimited ammo my Widow (which dropped from my DA:I package luckily) had over 100 ammo and my Phalanx 650 ammo. Was a very laggy silver match. Don't know if it was lag-related or a cheat by the host already (although Consumables like missiles had normal ammo). I've also run across several really laggy matches , I don't know if there is some kind of geo-restriction when clicking "Quick Match" but half the time I'm getting thrown into matches were the host seems to be half a continent away (I'm from Europe, so there should not be any problems finding more local hosts). I've also had several "lost connection to EA server" disconnects, mostly in menu although my Internet is fine (stable 50MBit). I had one crash to desktop while playing Multiplayer, which I think is Origin related since I got a message during a match and it immediately crashed to desktop, no error, nothing, just gone.
Several gameplay related issues: - Rather long "landing" or climbing (when I reach a ledge) animations when using the jetpack, it doesn't feel very fluent jumping around with it, I've played Destiny for a very long time and the gameplay there feels way more fluent. - When jumping out of the game-area via jetpack the message "get back to the play-area" is displayed after my character gets reset and stays for a while on-screen, although I'm already in the game again. - Did I miss it or is grabbing someone behind cover no longer possible in ME:A? Tried it several times, didn't work. - The Reload Animations are sometimes really slow and can be disrupted by far to many things, on many occasions did I press reload only to realize it got disrupted somehow. I'm not sure but I think the old reload cancel from ME3 is no longer possible, which is fine, but then the reload animation should not be interrupted by so many things - Reload is also interrupted by lag. I've had some really laggy matches where I could not even reload since it somehow never registered my Reload and so I had to reload 5 times in order to fire again which is pretty frustrating - It's not clear to me, how sticky nades work now, I have a Salarian Infiltrator and after shooting my first sticky nade I don't get another one, even if the first one exploded. Getting to an ammo crate does not refill it. Seems like a waste to invest points in this skill now. - I miss the charging melee of the Krogans (in ME3 when you ran and then did a melee, the Krogans used their arm to melee in a wide arc, now all they do is headbutt) - The radar is rather useless imho since it doesn't show if an enemy is behind me or not. Maybe I'm too spoiled by Destiny, but the radar there is a perfect example of how to have a great overview of what is around you. - Surround Sound via my Logitech G930 somehow is buggy, sounds come from all over the place instead of being clearly localisable (in ME3 I could hear a phantom sneaking up behind me). The sound feels "over saturated" for lack of a better word.
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Old BSN veteran, I guess.
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
Origin: CroGamer002
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Post by Croatsky on Mar 17, 2017 9:11:43 GMT
Because silly me wrote this in wrong thread, here's copy/paste. I did not finished trial fully yet, as content I need is still being downloaded. But I got everything done until you get to Tempest. While I have a lot to positive to say, I have to do these negatives impressions first: 1. Character Creator is much more limited then in ME trilogy. While there are new things I greatly appreciate, there were a lot more things lost in CC we had before like other hair, facial hair and eyebrows selections. 2. No manual saving during Priority Missions is just unnerving. I needed to re-do many side things because more then once as I died constantly. Combat takes quite a bit to get used to, removing manual saves is just pointlessly punishing for prologue alone. Let alone future emissions. 3. No quick save option. Why? It really is annoying I need to constantly manual save as I'm always paranoid if my game crashing. After little bit of delay, here are my positives. 1. Facial animations on custom Ryder look great. I was quite shocked to see my custom Ryder be so life like and emotional. 2. In-game cinematics are amazing. I honestly never believed Mass Effect will get to the point of having huge areas just for amazing in-game cinematics that we get to see in prologue. 3. Combat is very good, fluid and challenging. It will take a while for me to get used to new combat system, especially since I started off on Insanity. But so far, I'm really enjoying what we're getting. 4. Dialogue options are lovely. I really like how many options I'm getting to RP my Ryder, despite auto-dialogues being frequent. 5. Sounds and graphics are magnificent. 6. Soundtrack is good, although nothing iconic like in ME trilogy so far. 7. Story and writing is much better then I expected, for a prologue that is. Now that I managed to completely finish the Trial, here are some more things I'd need to add. Con: 1. Nomad controls are very awkward on keyboard. It was clearly made for controllers in mind, so it's bad for us who exclusively play on keyboard and mouse. 2. Every hour game froze when I'm in a cutscene. Although this might be due to me not fully downloading the game before playing. 3. Sometimes Ryder just falls off the places I jump and grab to get on. 4. Squadmate A.I. is way too aggressive and get themselves killed frequently. Pros: 1. Enemy A.I. is very competent and aggressive on Insanity. 2. Initial side quests are pretty good and fun. 3. Being able to shove off Pelessaria is a big plus. 4. Armour and casual outfit customization is great. 5. Tempest Interior is amazing! 6. All crewmates I got to meet initially are raging from pretty good to great. And that's all of my feedback. I did not explore galaxy map at all as I was started to rush to Eos as my time was running out. Big mistake to play it on Insanity on first run. As well no comment on MP, as I pretty much run out of time for Trial.
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Thrombin
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem
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Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem
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Post by Thrombin on Mar 17, 2017 9:24:24 GMT
I don't have a huge critique. I'm being as methodical as possible so I'm talking to everyone and looking for everything. Just exploring the Nexus stuff at the moment. I'm loving the game. Can't get enough of it.
I don't have a problem with the CC. I'm so bad at adjusting faces that I try to do as little as possible. Changing hairstyle and colour, eye colour and eye shadow colour on one of the templates and I ended up with something I really like so I'm sorted!
I did notice a slight dialogue bug. When you first talk to Kandros he tells you that he is authorizing you to send Strike teams. Then you use the console to send strike teams but it says you're not authorized and have to speak with Kandros! Speak with him again and he says he'll authorize you. Go back to the console and then it works. A bit silly!
Edit: One other issue I noticed is that sometimes pressing the menu button (three parallel lines on Xbiox controller) doesn't bring up the menu immediately. I don't know if it's just a lag or if it didn't register the first 3 or 4 button presses but it was a bit disconcerting! This wasn't a combat situation, by the way, just walking around the Nexus.
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Post by Brannegan on Mar 17, 2017 9:38:50 GMT
Another amazing, amazing leap forward I noticed in the game that I want to give feedback on, because this is a feature that has been giving me issues since Skyrim and majorly hinders game enjoyability. I am a person with single sided deafness. This means I cannot hear with one of my ears at all, this being left ear in my case. Since Skyrim, games have adopted the upsetting habit of NPC dialogue coming 90% from the headphone on the side the NPC is on, which forces me to turn my character around to hear it, like an amplified version of what I have to do in real life to hear people on my "wrong" side.
This grew from major annoyance to acctually upsetting with games like DAI, where the camera would zoom in to characters, leave them on the left side of my character and then proceed to deliver most of the speaking audio trough the left speaker. MEA does not do this. While MEA does zoom in on the "wrong" side and doesn't let me turn the camera, the dialog audio is still clearly hearable even in the other speaker. Words cannot express how amazing it is to finally be able to play a game without being constantly reminded of my hearing issues.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for making NPC dialogue hearable in both headphone speakers. You cannot understand how much this improvement means to me.
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Post by mrfarmerfield on Mar 17, 2017 9:39:53 GMT
First of all: the fights (solo as well as multi-player) are great and the story seems quite nice! I wasn't able to play the story a lot because: I played through the intro mission of the game but I didn't like the guy's face so I decided to restart. But whenever I want to start a new game and being checked by the doctor the scenery from the first time on the hyperion and the time getting back there overlap. Even the story is displayed to be done so far while the doc and some other guys still stand next to the the siblings cryo and stuff is flying around the ship as if there's no gravity. Due to this "story overlap" I'm not able to start the intro mission. Pretty unfortunate as I was barely able to use my trail. A lot of time went unused trying to start a new character over and over again. This bug just doesn't go away. (I'm playing on xbox one).
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HowlingSiren
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by HowlingSiren on Mar 17, 2017 9:47:39 GMT
8 hours into Single Player, no MP yet.
The good: - It feels like Mass Effect (even though they committed the cardinal sin of not including the Galaxy Map music). The gameplay is familiar, as is the combat, powers and the weapons. Feels both new and nostalgic. - Jetpack is fun and useful, particularly for getting out of a rough combat situation. - Playing on hardcore, and the combat is quite challenging, particularly as you can't easily track the enemies because the radar is more realistic, in that you have to spin to see where they are. They have a lot of mobility so come at you from all sides. - Environments look great. I have no complaints there (made it to the second planet, so saw starting planet, Nexus, Tempest and planet 2). I don't mind the planet scanning, because it does look beautiful, but yes, it is very slow. - Story and characters are interesting so far. No laugh out loud moments as I enjoyed in DAO or Witcher 3, but there are a lot of comments and dialogue. Gone are the 30 minute silences of DAI. There is a lot of exposition in the beginning, on the Nexus and Tempest, but that's to be expected as you meet all the NPCs. Nothing groundbreaking so far, but I really enjoy the premise of establishing colonies and exploring planets. - Side quests are OK so far. Not of the Witcher 3 quality, but a definite step up from DAI. They definitely went for less is more this time around. - VA is good - really enjoy all of them. - Maps are large, but not overwhelmingly so. No being stuck in the Hinterlands for hours here. I am a completionist, and did not think the first 2 planets were becoming tedious as I was exploring.
The bad: - Can't control squaddie powers?! Very disappointing, as you can't set up combos. Not sure what they were thinking with that. Primers are also not clearly marked, meaning I wouldn't even know when to detonate anything (but that could be because combat is a lot more hectic due to AI mobility, so my squaddies could be priming something behind me and I wouldn't know). RIP biotic booms, you will be missed. Also makes combat quite unfocused, with everyone shooting at something different. - CC/eyes: enough has been said, it's bad, particularly the eyes. Hair is a lot better though, lol. - Dying in combat resets you minutes before said combat triggers. Meaning you get to scan, activate consoles, read datapads, etc. all over again. Lack of quicksave hurts. - Warnings that your shields are down or the Nomad is about to explode are not noticeable enough. - Music. Nothing memorable at all so far. - Journal/menus: just fiddly and not intuitive.
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danaduchy
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Post by danaduchy on Mar 17, 2017 9:49:00 GMT
Thoughts on Andromeda so far:
pros - smooth combat - runs pretty well, stable 60fps@1080p (i7-4970k, GTX1070) - a lot of dialogue during the missions - Nomad is good, but I hope I can make him a bit more ‘jumpy‘, got stuck in some rocks that weren’t even that big - love the jetpack - it’s fun to see companions moving around the Tempest and chatting, love the emails - exploration is great so far
cons - galaxy map feels way too slow, 15 minutes just to explore an empty system and pick up a few resources - I wish dialogue didn’t cut off so often - DoF too strong, it’s good for screenshots, but looks weird in cutscenes - no manual save in some missions - animations/eyes in general (I’m hoping for a good retexture mod) - not a big fan of scanning - wish we could tweak appearance of default Ryders a bit
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Post by quietus on Mar 17, 2017 9:53:09 GMT
I loaded the game with no expectations. I have no prior experience with the Mass Effect franchise. The animations and story felt disjointed to me. I did not like how the human animations looked at all. The eyes especially. I found it distracting at times and pulled me out of the story. Most of the worst offenders came from just arriving on the Nexus. It was more noticeable there, where I found earlier moments did not strike me as bad. The story I found a little cliche at first, but then as you started learning more I found myself getting pulled in. I was on the fence about buying this game honestly. Seeing some of the earlier dialogue and animations gives me pause. I also felt the combat, while good, had a few rough spots. The cover mechanic at times felt obtuse. I feel like it didn't really stick against the wall at times and so wasn't sure if I was getting the cover benefit. I know an icon shows up on the screen, but I seem to miss it at times in the midst of heated action. I have a little over two hours of trial left and plan on using it with the controller instead of the keyboard and mouse. Not sure if that will help with a few issues I have with the combat, which are minor compared to the dialogue animations.
Now what I liked. I liked the sense of the world you're being put in. I like that I learn about the past from these other races and why they're here. I saw on youtube that this part was put in for gamers like me that did not know the backstory. Thank you for that, it really helped. I thought the VO dialogue was good. I know some people have issues with it and yeah there's a few VOs that I think didn't quite hit the delivery and I would have redone, but I liked a bit of it. Seriously though I think that first meeting on Nexus is probably one of the roughest spots. But the thing I loved the most was running into "Secret Project." That side quest got me from probably not going to buy to okay I actually might pre-order this thing. I'm just worried that the game might actually not be finished.
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katiemsmith12341
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by katiemsmith12341 on Mar 17, 2017 9:59:51 GMT
I really enjoyed my 4 hours into the game using low to medium settings with textures set on high, really impressed with how good the game looks on low settings.
I love the amount of dialog choices in the game,and am really liking the feel of the story so far.
I agree, the Jet pack is awesome.
The character creator felt very lacking to me, I feel like that is an area where things can improve, the hair colors are...blocky? they seem to be very overpowering, and the eyes...oh my the eyes... I feel like they could do with being more...life like?
The animation I did not notice too much while playing, I could get along just fine with that, although I noticed a few times when characters started to talk like Pingu. Whats with walking down/up stairs? anyone get that? really long outwards strides hahaha!
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Dragon slayer
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Shattered Steel, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by Dragon slayer on Mar 17, 2017 10:28:52 GMT
The only thing i can say that bad so far is the cc
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fredvdp
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by fredvdp on Mar 17, 2017 11:23:12 GMT
Some more nitpicks after a few hours of playtime: - Scroll wheel in menus should move the view up and down. It shouldn't change the selection. That's what the left mouse button is for. It also shouldn't jump back to the top when I reach the bottom. That may be useful when using a controller, but annoying as hell with a mouse. The game definitely feels like a port even if it isn't one.
- Audio levels in the rear channels are too low. It's currently much quieter than the front channels.
- I would much prefer it if the ability bar was in the top left corner like in the trilogy. It's a more comfortable position for quickly glancing at the cooldown status.
- I have a bunch of stuff in my inventory and no idea what it all is. Is scrap vendor trash or can I use it to craft items? This should be explained early on.
One really big issue: - I figured bad performance would be limited to Habitat 7 due to all the special effects, but it's on the Nexus as well. On an R9 390 I shouldn't have to lower my settings to the absolute lowest to maintain a smooth framerate. This is Arkham Knight levels of bad. Note: I upgraded my GPU driver to the Andromeda hotfix.
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Post by wolfsite on Mar 17, 2017 11:46:18 GMT
Ran into some bugs in combat that could be a huge issue later on.
1. Enemies Falling/getting stuck in the environment - This has happened a few times were I would be fighting some foes and then they would just fall through the ground, can still hear them yelling and fighting but can't attack them anymore (which is more annoying if they were the enemies that were gonna drop loot). Another example is a drop ship coming down and enemies jumping out but then falling right into the ground turning what could have been an intense fire fight into a mild issue to not worry about. Squad mates thow continued to attack enemies stuck even though no damage could be done. This can be a serious issue later in the game if you need to defeat all enemies to advance the plot and fast travel/save reloading isn't an option.
2. Hits not detecting - Almost every instance I have had were an enemy would take cover but still have a head or limb fully exposed the shot would not register. I will be lining up a Sniper Rifle to a fully exposed head but the game would act like the enemy is fully behind cover when they are not, I have even stealth-ed and went to flank the enemy at a better angle but the shot would still not register simply because they are near a form of cover even though the enemy is still exposed
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Post by cynosure on Mar 17, 2017 11:49:07 GMT
Would love a custom face model for Gil and Suvi its a bit worrisome that the only people on the tempest without custom faces are the gay and lesbian romance option.
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FireAndBlood
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by FireAndBlood on Mar 17, 2017 12:08:23 GMT
So how often have you guys ran into bugs like duck walking Ryder and dead enemies stuck in T poses?
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Post by NRieh on Mar 17, 2017 12:11:19 GMT
So true! I wanted to tweak my twin borther, but they all seemed more like uncles to me! Took long enough to find the matching one and make him look younger.
Controls are decent once you get used to them (I've tried both KM and xb360 wired gamepad). Explorations feels better with the controller, while shooting makes more sense with K+M. For now I'm playing with K+M. Menus are not too intuitive.
One thing I HATE about the controls -why do I need to HOLD the 'talk\use\interact' button? The duration of that circle animation is relatively short, but it should not even be there. No matter how short it is, it became annoying since the prologue. Should be instant, especially for the K+M (where holding the buttons is very uncommon, and short taping is not enough). I understand the need for some kind of 'channeling' with the revive or (may be) hacking, but it's there for opening loot and talking.
Another controversary thing - scanning. It seems like there're going to be lots of that. I like the idea, but I don't like how it works. The UI is too awkward for KM, and I've experienced some texture glitches when turning on the 'scanning hud'. I'm afraid I won't be enjoying it that much(if at all). Not the gamebreaker, as long as it remains optional.
Combat. Veeeery slow start. Tech-specialist with the single 'overload' button and a gun. Was kinda underwhelming after the multiple imported ME1\2\3 PTs, but even fresh ME1 Shep had more buttons and utilities to play with. I know it's going to get better now, with those profiles, more skills to come & less CD downtime, but it was not too fun.
Quick\manual saves. Give me my f5 back, ok?
CC. Ever heard about Okkam's razor? Right. It's never a good idea to complicate things. DAI CC had some usability\UI issues, but it worked rather well. You've sacrificed the freedom and flexibility of CC for the 'genetics' (and your choice to work with the face-scans also had something to do about it). Guess swhat? My dadRyder looked NOTHING like my custom model (playing as a custom preset 9 sister, Scott is a custom preset 6 (I think...or was it 4?..). I was literally terrified. Either the siblings were adopted or mommyRyder got really bored while dadRyder had been busy mastering his N7. Was it so hard to give us the 3rd customization option (same as for the sibling)?
Should say that I loved the female PC VA & writing. Did not expect that. It's the first time I see the PC is arguably even more 'alive' than the NPCs around her. IT's not that I consider them all lacklustre, but most of the previous games had more characterising first appearances. Probably that's the plan, to slow down building any kind of relations, and the characters are going to evolve and get more details and features as the game runs further.
All in all - I'm still cautious and my scepticism had not been washed away just yet. It's better than I expected, but (probably) not as good and exciting as I hoped it to be.
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Post by Revan Reborn on Mar 17, 2017 12:14:21 GMT
Just spent my 10 hours of the Mass Effect Andromeda Trial on Origin and I had a blast. I'll provide my feedback below (I strictly participated in the single player):
Pros: -Combat and traversal (with the jump jet) is incredibly fun and addictive. -It feels good to explore as you are rewarded and you really do have a sense of being on alien worlds. -The amount of customization for armor, clothing, and weapons is jaw-dropping and will keep me busy for a long time. -The new scanning feature is immersive, informative, and adds an exciting way of interacting with the environment. -The load screens the game does have are incredibly fast and brief. -The story is very exciting and fast-paced from the start and doesn't seem to slow down with something always happening. -The graphics and visuals are absolutely stunning, especially for environments.
Cons: -Could not manually save during the prologue, which made it a bit difficult if you died and had to replay through sequences you already witnessed (was playing on Insanity). -Companions have proven to be somewhat unreliable and tend to take unnecessary risks leading to inconvenient deaths (at least on Insanity). -On occasion, Ryder will grab a ledge and climb up after using the jump jet, but still falls down. -CC was rather limited for presets and we could only adjust those presets so much. -The MEA soundtrack is rather forgettable so far, unfortunately. A huge departure from the iconic music each of the previous games had.
In the end, I'm craving for more Mass Effect Andromeda! I can already tell from my initial investment that the digital deluxe purchase was more than worth the money. I've been waiting for this game for five years and I can't wait to jump back in on the 21st! Thanks BioWare! Hundreds of hours of my life are about to go down the drain!
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Post by Blackheart on Mar 17, 2017 12:18:06 GMT
Ok, 5 hours in, so I'm just gonna quickly point out the best and worst I experienced.
Starting with good:
- I really like combat, it's what I always wanted from Mass effect to be more fluid and to have better control of my character. But, I have to point out that enemies can act ridiculous sometimes, like shooting through rocks, getting stuck in rocks, which makes them invulnerable, having problem with cover etc..
- I like Tempest, looks nice and seeing through windows into space is great addition.
- I like banter, but it has it's problems too
- voice acting is great for the most part
Now bad things...
- ANIMATIONS. Yeah. It makes me sad, when I talk to a person that has great voice acting, but their facial expressions ruin the whole thing. The biggest problems are humans. I played as default Scott, but from videos I've seen, Sara is absolutely insane. I would really like to play female Ryder eventually, because she has also great voice (btw I love Scotts voice acting) and of course different dialogues, but if she stays as it is, I won't be able to bring myself to do it. She looks absolutely ridiculous in a lot of scenes. Also, what the god damn frack is with Cora walking animations? She walks like a duck. It's even worse then Shepard running in ME3.
- Character creator. Yeah, what others said already, so no need to repeat.
- Banter get overlapped a lot which annoys me, because it breaks immersion and also I want to hear everything.
- Haven't heard anything memorable with soundtrack. Trilogy had absolutely amazing music, all three games. It's really a shame because we all know important is music for epic factor in scenes, combat and such.
- Voice acting is for the most part great, like I said, but some characters are bad. Krogan female just sounds wrong to me. And that salarian on nexus is pretty bad. It's like he changes his tone and delivery in the middle of same scene. But salarian pilot is great!
That's all for now, I skipped a lot of optional things like mining, exploring galaxy map, so no comment on that. I'll go check that stuff now.
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Post by Verfallen on Mar 17, 2017 12:32:33 GMT
Only a few hours into the game, and most of it I'm liking. Exploration, dialogue, combat are all good. Haven't played far enough into it to say anything definitive beyond that. Did notice some stutters in the odd scene transition and similar dialogue glitches, but nothing game-breaking.
So far my only major complaints are the Character Creator, which as has been said is woefully limited and somewhat baffling in the options we've been given as opposed to the ones removed. I can't have stubble or a bald option (for male Ryder, need I add?) but there's twenty different ways to make an idiot in clown makeup who's been permanently disfigured by falling asleep on a waffle iron? Here's hoping they'll do more than 'look into the issue' because it's quite disappointing in its current state.
And again as others have said, I hate there being no quicksave and no save at all during critical missions. I don't always have the time to go to the next checkpoint before exiting the game, and I resent having to replay/lose play on sections of the game because someone thought it would be exciting to remove the save option. It's not exciting; it's just aggravating.
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