What Did You Do Today in Andromeda

@domi @jdbuzz So, how annoying is Havarl's vault compared to the one on Eos? It felt like the one on Eos took forever to get through.

Pant, pant. Elaaden is soo hot, so sandy and so dry. water! water! ....

I brought Drack since it's his world and his loyalty mission. He's funny; I can watch him run all around bulldozing down the mobs. And he's really not very well taken to the worm.

My ruminations when Drack kept running one word on me...

Drack : Worm.
Ryder : What worm?
Drack : Worm.
Ryder : Where??!!
Drack : Worm.
Ryder : I don't see any worm?
Drack : Worm.
Ruder : ... oh bother, it's already hot in here, you know.... SHIT!!!!

This is pretty much what I was worried about   Thanks for the info!

I found the vault on Eos annoying because it just kept going on...and on...and on. If every vault is like that, it's going to get really old. I hope each one at least has some new revelations. 

Your last paragraph is interesting to me. I think this game is basically DAI in space, except with combat I suck at. What makes you hate DAI but love this game? (Please don't dismiss me as a "hater." I'm honestly curious.)

The structure.

Andromeda does not have pointless areas. There is a clear order of the quests, and you have the planetary story line on each planet with interesting characters narrating it, and can do some sidequests as you go, rather than come to an area in Inquisition to find it loaded with sidequests and no narration save for one or two not acted out dialogues. The areas in Andromeda are also smaller, easier for me to navigate, and jet pack and sprinting makes locomotion so much faster.

I was always at a loss what to do in Inquisition, and had to keep looking up walkthroughs all the time. In Andromeda, the two times I really had to search the net was for one rune and for that kett research centre.

So, Andromeda narration and exploration balance hits the sweet spot for me, and I actually enjoy a bit of exploring. While in Inquisition I was helpless every time I got into a new area. I hated each of them with a passion, and skipped like five or six, because I could not stand hard lock-outs and the whole: but why? feel of it.

I also understand the storyline and who is who, and what they want no problems in Andromeda, including my protagonist, while in Inquisition I was pretty clueless. Celine and Gaspard did not show up till the end, and gods only know where I missed the elves,and how the dalesmen or whatever tied into it, and why it all was about that other guy anyway, and what Anders had to do with it all. Andromeda is far clearer to me and I like it. And, no, I don't want someone to explain it to me, I want to get it from playing the game, and the only thing I got clear in Inquisition was Tevinter lore because Dorian presented it well.

I also despised the Wartable and Operations mechanics, and the far too large crew with far too many assignments I did not care for (I told Blackwall to get lost simply because I saw in an aborted playthrough that he had all those Warden places to visit).

Fighting and gearing is far, far easier on me in Andromeda, because you only gear one character, and the fighting is a lot like MP, with three abilities off the mouse side-buttons, no studying the skill trees to figure out just which 8 abilities you need, no pausing all the time. Just prime-detonate-cc-shoot. On casual, obviously, but I am thinking of switching to normal, it's so easy. But I don't want to be slowed down by dying.

Finally, there is this embarassing reason. while Liam is not going to win any beauty contests, the two males are fairily good looking, while save for Dorian all men in Inquisition looked like they literally stepped out of nightmares, rather than a maiden's dream.

And, yeah, no Morrigan!

Oh it's nice to upend the chamber pot on the clown at operations.

It's nicer to see Sloane dead.

Best deal. Bar fight! 

Abandoning some side quests since they're not on track. Especially ones like looking for angaran relics since it meant combing a couple of planets looking for some wreckage or the ones looking for datapads on info on the factions movements on Kadara. The zones in MEA is twice and three times that of DAI and looking for needles in haystacks is not up my alley. Nope, not going to waste time on those. At least in DAI, there are trackers on all and it's up to you to decide whether you want to go for them. 

Seriously, if they're trying to make the asari unmemorable, they're bludy succeeding a 100%. I'm doing Cora's mission and .. you know what, Bioware ME team, why don't you just stick talking pillars with flashing lights instead of clones? They'll do just as well, save you a lot of time. (Also cringe worthy booster talk from Cora)

Oh a question for people further ahead of me (please keep spoilers to a minimum): I went with Veold over Havarl following meeting the Angara, and am now tasked with going to Kadara in the main plot chain. Is the main plot going to take me to Havarl eventually? Because I don't want to skip that before the story's done. I'm thinking of taking a detour to explore it and do the scientist mission, but if I end up going there anyway I'd just wait.

Jaal makes a move on Cora…while we are in the NotMako, I mean the No(t)Mad. So not cool, bro. Remember that you really don’t want to piss off your sniper because your back will be so often in his sights during combat… Take for example how many times I am scoping carefully a target and just as I am about to pull the trigger I get a big zoomed view of Cora’s butt as she has charged the same enemy. Accidents happen, just sayin…

Ok, buddy Jaal, here is one more life saving tip - Never hit on another man’s woman, especially if you sit in a vehicle driven by that another man and there is a bottomless pit nearby. Just ask Vetra how crazy your driver is. I found out that Cora laughs with joy when I do really big jumps in the air on the H-047c planet, so of course I am driving recklessly trying to impress. We missed a chasm once by huge chance and by a timely scream of warning from Vetra. However soon after I blast from a hill and completely fail my spot check. We are like a couple of meters from the edge, driving with probably 140 km/h or more. I panic and completely out of the blue I do all the right things. I manage to hit the boost and the jump which is nowhere near enough but gets us most of the way across. We hit the far wall about maybe 10 meters below the edge and Vetra starts her screams of doom and death as we start to drop down. Apparently we are in range of a new drop point, so SAM casually informs me of it, like anyone cares. I change to 6 wheels and the Nomad sticks like a glue to the wall for a few precious seconds in which I manage to put the vehicle from a horizontal side to vertical up position and engage the booster. We rocket up and barely have enough momentum to climb up the edge, then furiously smash head on into the newly landed forward station, which almost sends us back into the abyss. I imagine my Ryder just turned to the girls with a “totally meant to do all that” grin.

Next up we are defending a shuttle with a woman giving birth inside. Of course I found the best sniping spot. And it’s on top of said shuttle. We clear all enemies, everyone happy and highfiving each other. The shuttle pilot casually informs us he is leaving. I bid him farewell and seconds later I realize I am being abducted as the shuttle I am still on top of actually takes off and goes up to the skies. Jumped down from quite the height and soft landed with the jetpack. I wonder what would have happened if I stayed on the shuttle. Either screen of death or game crash I bet.

I just landed on Voeld yesterday afternoon and kicked the kett out of their mountain fortress.

Twice, because the game quit me to desktop in the middle of the mission on my first attempt.

Blew out all my Heleus research points to make Heleus Defender Armor (III) which looks really spiffy.

Somewhere at the ass end of the galaxy, my Apex teams are coming in peace.

Romance? I think I flirted with Cora. Once.

For me these differences are enough to go from permanently frustrated player dying by a thousand paper cuts and only pushing forward in hopes of another dialogue with Dorian to a player that genuinely enjoys the exploration.

Also, I actually enjoyed the scanning of planets and resource gathering in all ME games. I did not mind picking nodes up in Inquisition either. It's the crafting part that by some reason I hate with a passion. In MMOs, if viable, I preferred selling the mats, buying what I needed from the guys that crafted it.

I also love the new extra scanner in Andromeda to find things more than I did the search in Inquisition. It's by far more fun. I am a geologist by trade, so resource gathering is both funny and well, endearing, to me and reminds me of the old school romantic field geology with expeditions, and looking for outcrops, mapping by hand etc on rough trails, lol. And a bit like Seven of Nine in her astrometrics lab... so, yeah, I am enjoying scanning.

And, oh, yeah, I like the moderately long dungeon crawls, so in Inquisition all the quests felt anticlimactic once you get to the location which was really a very small room with one fight, and that without an interesting boss in it.

So, yeah, Andromeda so far is exactly the kind of a game I like playing save for the lover type and having to craft.

Finished my playthrough.

Level 55. 89% completion. 91 hours

I killed two architects. Don't know if the one with the krogan colony can be fought. Fighting them isn't bad.

I used Drack and Cora for a lot of the game.


I started a new game plus. Everything carry's over. I will go get the tempest shortly. This playthrough I will be a vanguard. My previous playthrough I was a soldier.

Well, go figure. I like Voeld too. I like an ice world. That's the first.

I saved Angara's favorite homegirl, Moshae, and immediately annoyed her by not blowing up the rest of my friendly cats. Cause Ryder ❤️ Jaal. And I found out kett' littl' secret! Loving Angarans more and more, and starting to get first feels for Jaal. He's a keeper. The final battle convinced me to stick to casual for the first PT, cause I really do not want to craft and deal with profiles and stuff. But I gotta unlock a Sentinel next level profile, because that's basically what I am playing, but my highest is Kinetic Warrior.

Such a cute cutscene on the bridge, the pilot all excited to go back to Eos, awwww...

But I turned the ship around to do the planetary story on Voeld. I know the vault won't turn it into a pretty waterworld full of fish and beaches, but a girl can self-delude, right?

Bringing Cora along instead of PB, because of the Asari Ark signals all over the place. Gotta try Vetra one of this quests too. I couldn't resist flirting with her, but I still get bonding options with Jaal, so all good. Probably gotta avoid flirting though from now on to build the relationship with Jaal up.

And, yeah, starting to feel I would not mind playing a funny M!Ryder. Just wish they'd let me use the same two customizations I did for Tishujen and her brother. They both look pretty good.