The Witcher 3 and Mass Effect Andromeda thread

I literally just beat DA2 for the 4th time. I think it's mostly the way act 3 escalates and the execution of Kirkwall as a playable space that dragged the game down. Every little part of the city is hidden behind yet another loading screen and that is ALL you see for 40 hours. I like the story but the pacing is just not quite good enough and it lacked variety. I understand why they were hell bent of adding a ton of variety in DA:I but the ended up exaggerating it lol.

I would say I probably consider DA2 to be a more interesting story than DA:O but DA:O is clearly a better game. That said they did some amazing stuff with Hawke in terms of his/her parameters and systems. It's basically the same way they shaped Ryder in Andromeda but with more personality because they gave more personal elements to Hawke, the scope of the plot was much smaller and they actually executed the themes like Family better in that game than they did in Andromeda. They could both still use some work though. Both games have the characters reacting too casually when they lose a relative.

granted. But compared to Ryder? Compared to people's perceptions? It just seems like people miss being an over competent super soldier who can kick ass and essentialy do no wrong and can.even bully galactic governments. Whereas Ryder is 'only human' makes mistakes isn't.always confident and is often called out on their bull crap. A character who has to grow and learn rather then just being a bad ass from now till eternity.

That website can't even get CDPR's name right.

"CD Porekt Red have been hiring for a bunch of roles related to the new tech advances, including multiplayer specialist, animation experts, character artists, and environmental artists. You can see them all over on the CDPR site."

And your quote is from that websites writer, not a CDPR source. Nice try though.

Nope. The problems are in the pudding. (derp). Ryder's design is off. His task as a protagonist is even bigger than Shepard's in ME1 but he has a thinner background. He acts casual over much unsafer set of circumstances than what we had in ME1 and design of his character parameters makes sure you can't choose to take it more seriously. It doesn't help that Tom Taylorson's voice direction is bad too. He constantly makes that... quippy, crack as if he's saying something clever even when you're trying to be "logical".

Him growing as a hero who needs to learn to take responsibility never happens. He's just the worst kind of Sue character that goes through a larger-than-life ordeal with a wry smile on his face as he kicks the bad guy's butt. It's the dumbest kind of hero you can make for a space opera. There's a good reason why you have Han Solo as the supporting lead as opposed to the full lead in Star Wars. He's not the hero but we relate more to him because he doesn't take everything too seriously but the weight of the world isn't resting on his shoulders either. Ryder is like Goku from the latter seasons of DBZ. Super annoying because he's too confident and only grows artificially when he just gets better because the plot demands that he does. That's not interesting and more importantly it doesn't speak at all to what it means to be human. Where are those traits in Andromeda's story? Maybe some of it is with Addison or your squad, heck even some of your alien friends probably, but it sure as hell doesn't lie with Ryder. he has no arc, he's just there and he makes sure every opportunity was wasted in the opening plot of this series.

The protagonist must have charisma of some sort, but it is not necessarily the grandeur. In SWTOR, with 8 equi-important stories, Imperial Agent who never really grew in ranks was loved, while the also underachieving Trooper was not. Warrior and Knight, both grandiose were loved, as well as the Ryder-like Smuggler. Bounty Hunter I think was a bit like Geralt, and I think most loved the char, but not the story. I don't think folks cared much for Inquisitor and Jedi Consilor despite both of them reaching the highest positions in the end. But, then again, Inquisitor was all pride and snark, and Con was all humble, and most hated the Con....

It's hard to say what attracts about the protagonist....

No, not confirmed. It is a quote from an article about the game, dated March 22, 2017, that does not quote the source. It gives a background blurb as a young, street savvy male on the make, sort of like Hawke.

I don't think BioWare's writers or designers talk enough internally about how they can treat their protagonist outside of "he must have these 4 tones we've designed". They don't seem to ever sit down and say "the player should be able to express this and this so that the protagonist can grow accordingly with this arc we've written for him".

ME3 is an example of BioWare seriously attempting to create a character-arc for a protagonist that the player can influence. They didn't do too well, but that's probably because Mac wrote the arc. It was also frustrating because of the lack of choices. I definitely think having dialogue wheels makes it hard to lock down a specific path of emotions the player HAVE to go through but maybe the problems lie more in the plot itself. Imagine if the player got to decide whether they were pissed about Thessia's fall or not in ME3. Remember when Solas breaks up with FemQuisitor? Those are moments of real potential for character growth and BioWare just have to discuss more how they can make such moments work with the writing team but instead it feels like every writer is just given a note "Hey, write this part with the Krogans, yo." and then they get to do whatever they want to with Shepard or Ryder for a time making their protagonist arc incohesive and generic to the remainder of the game.

These kinds of games just need better beats that give the player character opportunities to develop and then ensure that every dialogue choice you get to react to it feels varied at least. For example, Shepard can't not join Cerberus but at least we get to choose how he reacts to it. "Hell yeah" or "Hell no!" That informs you of their state of mind and that's where the seeds of potential growth start to show.

I preferred the Consular story to all others, because of the strong healing background of the character. She went from healing the plague, to healing the rifts in diplomacy, to brokering peace. It was the best protagonist I have ever seen in a video-game, with her growth believable and so easy to admire.

My sorc was my main, and I loved him dearly, but his story was rather silly, imo, though I loved it that he flew high in the end from his humble roots.

But, yes, overall, I favoured odd-ball stories, smuggler, BH and Trooper. Though, yes, I could not resist the simple, but just attractive power-stroll of the Warrior. I only did not really like IA and Knight.

Ah, SWTOR was so darn good, the best game ever, you could be practically what you felt like that day.

Well, that older article also quotes the designer saying it's not going be dark and hopeless, it will have a lot of rock-n-roll and hope, while the new article is driving the point home about how it's going to be super-dark. And super-huge.

I like the game described in the older article far more. That's the kind of impression I got when I first read about it. Like, Arcanum, only with modern graphics sort of...

do you dislike personal stories or do you think TW 3 failed to deliver?

Haha. I'm sure he meant Ciri. Unless he is secretly working on a crossover fanfic.