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Post by decafhigh on Apr 26, 2017 21:40:43 GMT
So we've come a long way with gameplay in Mass Effect sequals only to return to back to square one with Andromeda. And limiting what the player can do for strengthening & tightening game play and replay value is something all developers should now by now. But don't. There's a reason superman in comic books doesn't work so well because he's too OP. Same with video games, and same with man.  I wasn't real crazy about the open system either, but more because of how it detracted from the narrative. It would have been one thing if Shepard would have had access to an open class system. Shepard was supposed to be the ultimate bad ass of the galaxy. Ryder is supposed to be a shiny greenhorn with, at best, limited combat experience. Yet Ryder can master any and every biotic, tech, and soldier ability known in the galaxy. Yes, story and gameplay are typically separated by necessity to progress a story or allow a working combat/leveling system, but in this case the two are really fight against each other more so than ignoring each other. Having such a powerful combat proficient character really damages the narrative they are trying to sell the player. |
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Post by Cyonan on Apr 26, 2017 22:03:45 GMT
If we're talking natural environments then honestly, nothing in Mass Effect really looks very alien. Arguably, nothing should strive to be that alien either.
Based on what we know, planets that are in the habitable zone of supporting life generally have biomes that look rather similar to what we have on Earth. That's just a byproduct of a planet being in that zone.
In Mass Effect 1 most planets looked like the same square mile of mountain terrain just with different ground textures. Most of the pictures shown above of ME1 worlds I could reproduce by taking a photograph somewhere on Earth and then applying a Photoshop colour filter to it. The outdoor areas of Noveria as well are just the Rocky Mountains here in Canada during a snowstorm.
To be honest the concept of "sci-finess" is already incredibly vague and honestly not of much use in a discussion about ME:A. Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien, Stargate SG-1, etc. are all very different styles of sci-fi.
The reason why somebody might like Noveria so much is because it gives a very good Aliens vibe, but that doesn't mean Eos isn't also sci-fi. It's just not sci-fi as inspired by the Alien franchise.
Though as I've noted in other threads even if we compare ME:A to just ME1 then ME1 does a number of things better despite ME:A being the 4th game in the series and released 10 years later when our expectations have gotten much higher. Mass Effect 1 also has the advantage of being the first game in the series, meaning it can rely on the fact that we're just being introduced to a lot of the lore for the first time.
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Post by malgus on Apr 26, 2017 22:06:43 GMT
You mean like the recycled interior of ME 1 where every ship that we went onboard that is not the normandy is the same, where every base on planets had the same architecture whatever the base is from religious fanatics, red sand dealer or slaver. Yeah I remember that in the first mass effect which had certainly not that much ennemy variety By the way the class restriction was not something good, not in my opinion. It limited the possibility we could do, right now we can have every combination we want and no limitation, which is awesome because that was something I was waiting since the very first. Being able to combine biotics to mechanical and soldier abilities to make powerful combos. So we've come a long way with gameplay in Mass Effect sequals only to return to back to square one with Andromeda. And limiting what the player can do for strengthening & tightening game play and replay value is something all developers should now by now. But don't. There's a reason superman in comic books doesn't work so well because he's too OP. Same with video games, and same with man. First of all superman has tons of ennemies that are extremly dangerous to him, darkseid is just one of the many. Second of all, No I do not find the envinroment repititive in MEA, all planets feels different, except maybe Eos and eladen who have ressemblance but in their ambiance, one is the first colony of the nexus, the other is a world where survival is estremly tought because of the climate, not just because there is outlaw like on kadara. And the time where we are in interior envinronments outside of main quest are not that long, the "same feeling" is not as strong, especially when you take into account that the architecture is not 100% the same from base to base of the ketts. It also makes sense that their base are build the same way, the romans use to build their camps with the exact same architecture. Because its the same faction so if course it will be similar. But for slaver base, red sand base, fanatics biotics base, they are not the same faction they are completely different and yet their base are exactly the same. For the replay value, if you wish to keep things as they were, you can just take one of the branch. If you wish to just be a soldier in you first playthrought, go for only that branch, the game does not force you to choose from other branch of the skill tree. So it does not strenghten not at all, it offers choice, you can make combination for your power, but if you don't its totally possible. For the picture, they are much more difficult to find because some of them are in very specific weather condition. Much more dificult to find than a screenshot of a game where everybody has access to the envinronment and can completely control. But here are some of them arctickingdom.com/wp-content/gallery/gallery-northern-lights-fly-in-lodge/northern-lights-aurora-borealis-purples-pinks-blues.jpgandyporterimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Northern-lights-at-Washington-Pass.jpgw-dog.net/wallpaper/canyon-night-star-rock-desert/id/13326/www.hawaii-forest.com/wp-content/uploads/twilight-slide2-1040x489.jpgBy the way just a question here, do you think Tatooine, one of the most iconic planet in science fiction suddenly becomes bad just because it has a ressemblance with a region of planet earth? |
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Post by malgus on Apr 26, 2017 22:15:28 GMT
If we're talking natural environments then honestly, nothing in Mass Effect really looks very alien. Arguably, nothing should strive to be that alien either. Based on what we know, planets that are in the habitable zone of supporting life generally have biomes that look rather similar to what we have on Earth. That's just a byproduct of a planet being in that zone. In Mass Effect 1 most planets looked like the same square mile of mountain terrain just with different ground textures. Most of the pictures shown above of ME1 worlds I could reproduce by taking a photograph somewhere on Earth and then applying a Photoshop colour filter to it. The outdoor areas of Noveria as well are just the Rocky Mountains here in Canada during a snowstorm. To be honest the concept of "sci-finess" is already incredibly vague and honestly not of much use in a discussion about ME:A. Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien, Stargate SG-1, etc. are all very different styles of sci-fi. The reason why somebody might like Noveria so much is because it gives a very good Aliens vibe, but that doesn't mean Eos isn't also sci-fi. It's just not sci-fi as inspired by the Alien franchise. 100% agree on that, actually the only planets shown before where maybe the only planet that differs each other, most of the other were with mostly same vegatation and mountains. I would also say that those planets in ME1, we get to stay on them for 15 to 20 minutes for a small side quest, once that was done we got back on the repititive planets that were not just reused but also similar in some parts to landscale we already know on earth. the more "special" planets were an extremly small parts of the first game that most people did not even play because they were not near enough the main planets. |
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Post by Mihura on Apr 26, 2017 22:20:17 GMT
ME2 is still the most boring game I ever played but ME:A does a good job at me not wanting to do more than one PT, even DA:I manage to be fun enough for me to play all the classes and races available after some point. I do find ME:A cast more compelling that any ME game but it is not enough.
Sad to say this but the dialogue is a big problem in ME overall, people did exaggerated about the one liners being a thing exclusive to ME:A, it is not, ME was always a lesser version of DA. More like the mainstream version of a good RPG. Also there are good reasons to hate the game, from screwing over gay players to having a really weak main story. The animations compare to this are nothing.
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Post by Terminator Force on Apr 26, 2017 22:45:51 GMT
So we've come a long way with gameplay in Mass Effect sequals only to return to back to square one with Andromeda. And limiting what the player can do for strengthening & tightening game play and replay value is something all developers should now by now. But don't. There's a reason superman in comic books doesn't work so well because he's too OP. Same with video games, and same with man. First of all superman has tons of ennemies that are extremly dangerous to him, darkseid is just one of the many. Second of all, No I do not find the envinroment repititive in MEA, all planets feels different, except maybe Eos and eladen who have ressemblance but in their ambiance, one is the first colony of the nexus, the other is a world where survival is estremly tought because of the climate, not just because there is outlaw like on kadara. And since the moment where we are in interior envinronments is not that long, the "same feeling" is not as strong, especially when you take into account that the architecture is not 100% the same from base to base of the ketts. For the replay value, if you wish to keep things as they were, you can just take one of the branch. If you wish to just be a soldier in you first playthrought, go for only that branch, the game does not force you to choose from other branch of the skill tree. So it does not strenghten not at all, it offers choice, you can make combination for your power, but if you don't its totally possible. For the picture, they are much more difficult to find because some of them are in very specific weather condition. Much more dificult to find than a screenshot of a game where everybody has access to the envinronment and can completely control. But here are some of them arctickingdom.com/wp-content/gallery/gallery-northern-lights-fly-in-lodge/northern-lights-aurora-borealis-purples-pinks-blues.jpgandyporterimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Northern-lights-at-Washington-Pass.jpgw-dog.net/wallpaper/canyon-night-star-rock-desert/id/13326/www.hawaii-forest.com/wp-content/uploads/twilight-slide2-1040x489.jpgBy the way just a question here, do you think Tatooine, one of the most iconic planet in science fiction suddenly becomes bad just because it has a ressemblance with a region of planet earth? Look, you can't give players too much abilities and power and expect an incompetent Western development team like BioWare to be able to balance it in time or at all. You make things too complex, well the more complex it is to balance. Second, in an open world environment games there is way too much work to fine tune every battle between player interaction with enemies and environment VS something more simplified and stripped down to corridors only of ME2 and 3. Yet Superman is much harder to write for then Batman because of how powerful he is. Clicking in yet with you? Tatooine was fine. |
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Post by KaiserShep on Apr 26, 2017 22:49:36 GMT
Tatooine sucked. The sand was coarse and got in everything. Nothing but blue milk and bantha steaks.
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Post by Terminator Force on Apr 26, 2017 22:55:17 GMT
If we're talking natural environments then honestly, nothing in Mass Effect really looks very alien. Arguably, nothing should strive to be that alien either. Based on what we know, planets that are in the habitable zone of supporting life generally have biomes that look rather similar to what we have on Earth. That's just a byproduct of a planet being in that zone. In Mass Effect 1 most planets looked like the same square mile of mountain terrain just with different ground textures. Most of the pictures shown above of ME1 worlds I could reproduce by taking a photograph somewhere on Earth and then applying a Photoshop colour filter to it. The outdoor areas of Noveria as well are just the Rocky Mountains here in Canada during a snowstorm. To be honest the concept of "sci-finess" is already incredibly vague and honestly not of much use in a discussion about ME:A. Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien, Stargate SG-1, etc. are all very different styles of sci-fi. The reason why somebody might like Noveria so much is because it gives a very good Aliens vibe, but that doesn't mean Eos isn't also sci-fi. It's just not sci-fi as inspired by the Alien franchise. Though as I've noted in other threads even if we compare ME:A to just ME1 then ME1 does a number of things better despite ME:A being the 4th game in the series and released 10 years later when our expectations have gotten much higher. Mass Effect 1 also has the advantage of being the first game in the series, meaning it can rely on the fact that we're just being introduced to a lot of the lore for the first time. We're also comparing sci-fi feels between Andromeda and past Mass Effect games. Which one convinced you more of being on another planet? |
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Post by malgus on Apr 26, 2017 23:01:09 GMT
Look, you can't give players too much abilities and power and expect an incompetent Western development team like BioWare to be able to balance it in time or at all. You make things too complex, well the more complex it is to balance. Second, in an open world environment games there is way too much work to fine tune every battle between player interaction with enemies and environment VS something more simplified and stripped down to corridors only of ME2 and 3. Yet Superman is much harder to write for then Batman because of how powerful he is. Clicking in yet with you? Tatooine was fine. 1.And how it is not balanced? go ahead with one explanation about how unablanced it is. And your second point is not clear at all, AT ALL. Where do you go with that, it was never the point in the first place, this was never a conversation about open world vs closed world, it was about how the previous planet "apprently" felt more "alien" or "sci fi" 2. Harder does not mean the results is less good, all star superman is a very good comic while all star batman by frank miller is a load of shit. By the way the fact that ryder is powerful in gameplay does not mean he is strong in story parts, its again an exemple of gameplay and story segragation. the level system is just there to give you an incentive to the side quests, but ryder does not become that strong in story. the same way he can survive numerous bullets in gameplay because its just the gameplay but that would not be the case in sotry mission. In watch dogs aiden pierce can take tons of bullets during mission for gameplay purpose, he could not have that in a cutscene. 3. Well it is based on an actual part of tunisia, you can't find more "earth like" than that : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tataouine |
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Post by Terminator Force on Apr 26, 2017 23:08:00 GMT
Look, you can't give players too much abilities and power and expect an incompetent Western development team like BioWare to be able to balance it in time or at all. You make things too complex, well the more complex it is to balance. Second, in an open world environment games there is way too much work to fine tune every battle between player interaction with enemies and environment VS something more simplified and stripped down to corridors only of ME2 and 3. Yet Superman is much harder to write for then Batman because of how powerful he is. Clicking in yet with you? Tatooine was fine. 1.And how it is not balanced? go ahead with one explanation about how unablanced it is. And your second point is not clear at all, AT ALL. Where do you go with that, it was never the point in the first place, this was never a conversation about open world vs closed world, it was about how the previous planet "apprently" felt more "alien" or "sci fi" 2. Harder does not mean the results is less good, all star superman is a very good comic while all star batman by frank miller is a load of shit. By the way the fact that ryder is powerful in gameplay does not mean he is strong in story parts, its again an exemple of gameplay and story segragation. the level system is just there to give you an incentive to the side quests, but ryder does not become that strong in story. the same way he can survive numerous bullets in gameplay because its just the gameplay but that would not be the case in sotry mission. In watch dogs aiden pierce can take tons of bullets during mission for gameplay purpose, he could not have that in a cutscene. 3. Well it is based on an actual part of tunisia, you can't find more "earth like" than that : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TataouineIf you can't understand that something more complex is harder to balance and tweak to be fun or whatever too, then I'm done here. But I will toss you a bone; The Difficulty of Writing Superman |
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Post by Terminator Force on Apr 26, 2017 23:15:06 GMT
In regards to Tatooine, all one has to ask is which one looks more sci-fi between these two pics;   ^ Hey look, it's Eos! |
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Post by malgus on Apr 26, 2017 23:16:45 GMT
1.And how it is not balanced? go ahead with one explanation about how unablanced it is. And your second point is not clear at all, AT ALL. Where do you go with that, it was never the point in the first place, this was never a conversation about open world vs closed world, it was about how the previous planet "apprently" felt more "alien" or "sci fi" 2. Harder does not mean the results is less good, all star superman is a very good comic while all star batman by frank miller is a load of shit. By the way the fact that ryder is powerful in gameplay does not mean he is strong in story parts, its again an exemple of gameplay and story segragation. the level system is just there to give you an incentive to the side quests, but ryder does not become that strong in story. the same way he can survive numerous bullets in gameplay because its just the gameplay but that would not be the case in sotry mission. In watch dogs aiden pierce can take tons of bullets during mission for gameplay purpose, he could not have that in a cutscene. 3. Well it is based on an actual part of tunisia, you can't find more "earth like" than that : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TataouineIf you can't understand that something more complex is harder to balance and tweak to be fun or whatever too, then I'm done here. But I will toss you a bone; The Difficulty of Writing SupermanYou just said its harder to balance, not why MEA is unabalanced. Tell me why you think it is, you provides no arguments and just said "its hard to do". Yes and? Why suddenly MEA failed because its "hard", you don't support your statement, you just say that it is hard to do something like that. All right if MEA failed in that aspects, go ahead tell me how there is no balance. By the way I Never said that superman was easy to write, just that it can be done well like in all star superman. And its not because its harder that it should never be done. So what now that anything that is harder to do, nobody should do it? You don't bring a counter arguments to the fact that the power of ryder is purely there for gameplay and its not related to the story, ryder is not all powerfull in cut scenes, its just there to offer more possibility. |
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Post by malgus on Apr 26, 2017 23:21:04 GMT
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Post by Cyonan on Apr 26, 2017 23:26:26 GMT
We're also comparing sci-fi feels between Andromeda and past Mass Effect games. Which one convinced you more of being on another planet? Honestly, Mass Effect 1 shoots itself in the foot on this one by having so many planets that all look virtually the same other than the ground texture. The result of going onto planets in Mass Effect 1 is that I think "Well I'm clearly driving around in procedurally generated landscapes" rather than feeling like I'm exploring alien planets. So in that regard even if it doesn't do it amazingly well, I have to hand it to Andromeda on this one because even the two desert biome planets actually look kind of different in the actual terrain. It's part of why I say that "sci-fi feels" is a pretty useless term in a discussion, because what you want out of sci-fi atmosphere is different from what other people want. Even Tatooine which you say is fine, is just your standard Earth desert with two suns. Would Eos feel more alien to you if they gave it a second sun or put a blue filter over the star? I've gotten that you seem to like things inspired by the Alien movies, but I'm not sure what kind of "sci-fi feels" you're specifically going for here. |
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Post by Terminator Force on Apr 26, 2017 23:29:00 GMT
If you can't understand that something more complex is harder to balance and tweak to be fun or whatever too, then I'm done here. But I will toss you a bone; The Difficulty of Writing SupermanYou just said its harder to balance, not why MEA is unabalanced. Tell me why you think it is, you provides no arguments and just said "its hard to do". Yes and? Why suddenly MEA failed because its "hard", you don't support your statement, you just say that it is hard to do something like that. All right if MEA failed in that aspects, go ahead tell me how there is no balance. By the way I Never said that superman was easy to write, just that it can be done well like in all star superman. And its not because its harder that it should never be done. So what now that anything that is harder to do, nobody should do it? You don't bring a counter arguments to the fact that the power of ryder is purely there for gameplay and its not related to the story, ryder is not all powerfull in cut scenes, its just there to offer more possibility. All BioWare did for MEA was copy paste forts with the same enemies and positions throughout 5 massive planets, while giving you unlimited powers like the Emperor Sith himself, and you want me to explain why MEA is unbalanced and why it isn't good/fun gameplay? Surely you jest. The unbalanced multiplayer everyone is crying about everyday on these forums is more balanced and fun to play then single player. And about superman, whatever. He still proves my point I'm trying to make. |
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Post by Terminator Force on Apr 26, 2017 23:30:42 GMT
Did you grab that first pic from a cartoon? |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2017 23:31:33 GMT
If we're talking natural environments then honestly, nothing in Mass Effect really looks very alien. Arguably, nothing should strive to be that alien either. Based on what we know, planets that are in the habitable zone of supporting life generally have biomes that look rather similar to what we have on Earth. That's just a byproduct of a planet being in that zone. In Mass Effect 1 most planets looked like the same square mile of mountain terrain just with different ground textures. Most of the pictures shown above of ME1 worlds I could reproduce by taking a photograph somewhere on Earth and then applying a Photoshop colour filter to it. The outdoor areas of Noveria as well are just the Rocky Mountains here in Canada during a snowstorm. To be honest the concept of "sci-finess" is already incredibly vague and honestly not of much use in a discussion about ME:A. Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien, Stargate SG-1, etc. are all very different styles of sci-fi. The reason why somebody might like Noveria so much is because it gives a very good Aliens vibe, but that doesn't mean Eos isn't also sci-fi. It's just not sci-fi as inspired by the Alien franchise. Though as I've noted in other threads even if we compare ME:A to just ME1 then ME1 does a number of things better despite ME:A being the 4th game in the series and released 10 years later when our expectations have gotten much higher. Mass Effect 1 also has the advantage of being the first game in the series, meaning it can rely on the fact that we're just being introduced to a lot of the lore for the first time.MEA was meant to make you feel like an alien, but what made it hard for me was despite meeting new aliens, I was surrounded by MW ones that I had gotten used to and felt like our numbers outmatched the Angara (and some already knew of humans and MW aliens because of Kadara). If it was just humans traveling to Andromeda it might have felt different for me. Habitat 7 gave me that feeling of being in a strange place, but once I got to the Nexus and saw all the MW aliens, I didn't feel alone in a strange new world. |
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Post by Terminator Force on Apr 26, 2017 23:37:09 GMT
We're also comparing sci-fi feels between Andromeda and past Mass Effect games. Which one convinced you more of being on another planet? Honestly, Mass Effect 1 shoots itself in the foot on this one by having so many planets that all look virtually the same other than the ground texture. The result of going onto planets in Mass Effect 1 is that I think "Well I'm clearly driving around in procedurally generated landscapes" rather than feeling like I'm exploring alien planets. So in that regard even if it doesn't do it amazingly well, I have to hand it to Andromeda on this one because even the two desert biome planets actually look kind of different in the actual terrain. It's part of why I say that "sci-fi feels" is a pretty useless term in a discussion, because what you want out of sci-fi atmosphere is different from what other people want. Even Tatooine which you say is fine, is just your standard Earth desert with two suns. Would Eos feel more alien to you if they gave it a second sun or put a blue filter over the star? I've gotten that you seem to like things inspired by the Alien movies, but I'm not sure what kind of "sci-fi feels" you're specifically going for here. Well, I respect your opinion, Cyonan. But... I don't have to like it.  ... Hey, Cyonan. Remember in that first ME DLC when you finally win that off world trailer home, and you look out the window and seeing the MAKO out there all beautiful, awe and all. Did it feel like another trailer park home on Earth, or somewhere... out there. |
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Post by dmc1001 on Apr 26, 2017 23:44:48 GMT
Planetary design? Planet design was probably one of ME1's greatest design weaknesses. Most planets were virtually identical to one another. Anyone thinking that it's somehow superior to what we got now is hitting the red sand hard. Not just planetary design (though some of the settings with different colored suns in the skies were outstanding) but especially reusing the same interior maps repeatedly. Every mine you enter is the same mine, but in some cases they'll lock doors so you can't go into certain rooms. However, those doors are open in other mines. Same thing with buildings. Inside, they're all the same. Every starship you find has an identical layout (except the Normandy). I love the hell out of ME1 but there was a lot of repetition where maps were concerned. |
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Post by malgus on Apr 26, 2017 23:59:01 GMT
You just said its harder to balance, not why MEA is unabalanced. Tell me why you think it is, you provides no arguments and just said "its hard to do". Yes and? Why suddenly MEA failed because its "hard", you don't support your statement, you just say that it is hard to do something like that. All right if MEA failed in that aspects, go ahead tell me how there is no balance. By the way I Never said that superman was easy to write, just that it can be done well like in all star superman. And its not because its harder that it should never be done. So what now that anything that is harder to do, nobody should do it? You don't bring a counter arguments to the fact that the power of ryder is purely there for gameplay and its not related to the story, ryder is not all powerfull in cut scenes, its just there to offer more possibility. All BioWare did for MEA was copy paste forts with the same enemies and positions throughout 5 massive planets, while giving you unlimited powers like the Emperor Sith himself, and you want me to explain why MEA is unbalanced and why it isn't good/fun gameplay? Surely you jest. The unbalanced multiplayer everyone is crying about everyday on these forums is more balanced and fun to play then single player. And about superman, whatever. He still proves my point I'm trying to make. 1. It makes sense that their base are build the same way, the romans use to build their camps with the exact same architecture when they made them witch specific precision. Because its the same faction so if course it will be similar. I don't see why the ketts would modify their architecture for one building or another. Civilisation don't modify their achitecture for whatever reasons, especially when the places they build have the same function aka maintaining a millitary presents. And What the fuck does it have to do with unbalanced gameplay or combat. 2. Your explanation are kind of generic, you just say "oh you are powerfull". When you remember that you have only have access to only 3 powers at a time, it does not matter if you unlocked everything no matter your level because you can only use 3 at a time. So I am waiting for the part were you bring arguments, your only able to say "you are powerful as the sith emperor because you have acces to tons of power", this is not an arguments its just a statements that rely on absolutely nothing. Its not based on actual gameplay, write something about it. And no the multiplayer is not more fun than the single player, maybe you think that way I don't, again no arguments there, that is just saying "this is bad", with NOTHING to back it up. 3. Superman don't prove your point, he is harder to write yes. So what? What you basically say is "superman proves my point", ok ill say "the sky is blue, this proves my point", it makes just as much sense because you doN,t support your statements. the power of superman are not a gameplay mechanics its part of his character IN THE STORY, while for Ryder its only a gameplay mechanics, he is not powerful in cut scenes. You are comparing apple to oranges |
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Post by KaiserShep on Apr 27, 2017 0:10:52 GMT
I'm not sure what good the Superman thing does, since all BioWare protagonists are supermen/women that can mow through enemies lickety-split. They're only vulnerable in cutscenes, some more than others.
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Post by Terminator Force on Apr 27, 2017 0:17:53 GMT
All BioWare did for MEA was copy paste forts with the same enemies and positions throughout 5 massive planets, while giving you unlimited powers like the Emperor Sith himself, and you want me to explain why MEA is unbalanced and why it isn't good/fun gameplay? Surely you jest. The unbalanced multiplayer everyone is crying about everyday on these forums is more balanced and fun to play then single player. And about superman, whatever. He still proves my point I'm trying to make. 1. It makes sense that their base are build the same way, the romans use to build their camps with the exact same architecture when they made them witch specific precision. Because its the same faction so if course it will be similar. I don't see why the ketts would modify their architecture for one building or another. Civilisation don't modify their achitecture for whatever reasons, especially when the places they build have the same function aka maintaining a millitary presents. And What the fuck does it have to do with unbalanced gameplay or combat. 2. Your explanation are kind of generic, you just say "oh you are powerfull". When you remember that you have only have access to only 3 powers at a time, it does not matter if you unlocked everything no matter your level because you can only use 3 at a time. So I am waiting for the part were you bring arguments, your only able to say "you are powerful as the sith emperor because you have acces to tons of power", this is not an arguments its just a statements that rely on absolutely nothing. Its not based on actual gameplay, write something about it instead of generic sayings. And no the multiplayer is not more fun than the single player, maybe you think that way I don't, again no arguments there that is just saying "this is bad", with NOTHING to back it up. 3. Superman don't prove your point, he is harder to write yes. So what? What you basically say is "superman proves my point", ok ill say "the sky is blue, this proves my point", it makes just as much sense because you doN,t support your statements. the power of superman are not a gameplay mechanics its part of his character IN THE STORY, while for Ryder its only a gameplay mechanics, he is not powerful in cut scenes. You are comparing apple to oranges 1 - I'm talking gameplay, not story or lore 3 - here let me break it down a shade further. .. Ah who am I kidding, I'm repeating myself now. When you give too much control and powers to your game players, it makes it harder to balance a video game. How is this not processing? 2 - Andromeda has more powers then past Mass Effect games that you can also free to pick and choose from. And now you also have the jetpack jumps too. Even BioWare themselves in their multiplayer stream said the game is much harder to balance now because of the verticality the jetpack introduced. |
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Post by Cyonan on Apr 27, 2017 0:23:15 GMT
Honestly, Mass Effect 1 shoots itself in the foot on this one by having so many planets that all look virtually the same other than the ground texture. The result of going onto planets in Mass Effect 1 is that I think "Well I'm clearly driving around in procedurally generated landscapes" rather than feeling like I'm exploring alien planets. So in that regard even if it doesn't do it amazingly well, I have to hand it to Andromeda on this one because even the two desert biome planets actually look kind of different in the actual terrain. It's part of why I say that "sci-fi feels" is a pretty useless term in a discussion, because what you want out of sci-fi atmosphere is different from what other people want. Even Tatooine which you say is fine, is just your standard Earth desert with two suns. Would Eos feel more alien to you if they gave it a second sun or put a blue filter over the star? I've gotten that you seem to like things inspired by the Alien movies, but I'm not sure what kind of "sci-fi feels" you're specifically going for here. Well, I respect your opinion, Cyonan. But... I don't have to like it. ... Hey, Cyonan. Remember in that first ME DLC when you finally win that off world trailer home, and you look out the window and seeing the MAKO out there all beautiful, awe and all. Did it feel like another trailer park home on Earth, or somewhere... out there. I guess it just has to do with how my mind works. If a game does a sloppy job covering up that it's just a bunch of code running in the background, it's extremely easy for me to notice that. Procedural Generation is notoriously bad for this because the technology progresses pretty slowly. For what it's worth, I think that Mass Effect 1 is better in virtually every regard except the planet thing(even then, ME:A is only barely ahead of it) and combat in ME1 was clunky and terrible. The environments of Mass Effect 1 still looked amazing and it all felt very futuristic and sci-fi to me, but the planets because of the procedural generation just fell short for me. Assuming you mean the apartment from the Pinnacle Station DLC, it pretty much falls under the same thing. It's all very impressive and the hand crafted stuff looks very futuristic, but the landscape feels like any other planet. It wouldn't even be a negative for the game if they hadn't overused the procedural generation to the extent they did. As I noted in my first post, alien planets that are in the life supporting zone generally shouldn't really look that alien. Though personally I prefer a bit more science in my sci-fi than the average person, which is probably why I prefer Star Trek to Star Wars. |
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Post by Cyonan on Apr 27, 2017 0:30:03 GMT
If we're talking natural environments then honestly, nothing in Mass Effect really looks very alien. Arguably, nothing should strive to be that alien either. Based on what we know, planets that are in the habitable zone of supporting life generally have biomes that look rather similar to what we have on Earth. That's just a byproduct of a planet being in that zone. In Mass Effect 1 most planets looked like the same square mile of mountain terrain just with different ground textures. Most of the pictures shown above of ME1 worlds I could reproduce by taking a photograph somewhere on Earth and then applying a Photoshop colour filter to it. The outdoor areas of Noveria as well are just the Rocky Mountains here in Canada during a snowstorm. To be honest the concept of "sci-finess" is already incredibly vague and honestly not of much use in a discussion about ME:A. Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien, Stargate SG-1, etc. are all very different styles of sci-fi. The reason why somebody might like Noveria so much is because it gives a very good Aliens vibe, but that doesn't mean Eos isn't also sci-fi. It's just not sci-fi as inspired by the Alien franchise. Though as I've noted in other threads even if we compare ME:A to just ME1 then ME1 does a number of things better despite ME:A being the 4th game in the series and released 10 years later when our expectations have gotten much higher. Mass Effect 1 also has the advantage of being the first game in the series, meaning it can rely on the fact that we're just being introduced to a lot of the lore for the first time.MEA was meant to make you feel like an alien, but what made it hard for me was despite meeting new aliens, I was surrounded by MW ones that I had gotten used to and felt like our numbers outmatched the Angara (and some already knew of humans and MW aliens because of Kadara). If it was just humans traveling to Andromeda it might have felt different for me. Habitat 7 gave me that feeling of being in a strange place, but once I got to the Nexus and saw all the MW aliens, I didn't feel alone in a strange new world. This is an area where it does fall flat on its face, though in my opinion largely through interaction with the natives. With Andromeda we got 3 new species: Remnant, Kett, and Angara. The Remnant and Kett exist basically entirely to be nameless baddies and so they're not really that relevant to us feeling alien any more than the Collectors were. The Angara had great promise for a sort of "Darmok" moment from The Next Generation where Picard has to deal with a species which the universal translator cannot figure out because their speech is so unique in its style. Instead however, our universal translators figure out the language evidently in like 30 seconds and then we go through the old "We don't trust you" and then about 5 missions later "We were wrong to not trust you. You are our friends now!". I'm not even sure how that whole scene worked if the Angara and MW species already knew about each other from Kadara. Plus as you note, the game spends a hell of a lot of time surrounding us with Milky Way aliens that we already knew from the original trilogy. |
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Post by sdzald on Apr 27, 2017 0:30:49 GMT
Well even though MET was not open world and graphics are 10 years out of date, when I was on a planet in ME1 in the mako and I looked up at the sky I KNEW I wasn't on earth. The sky was always filled with marvelous views of ringed planets, colorful planets, different color and multiple suns. Just the sky alone made me feel like I was out there in the great outer space.
In MEA most places felt like an Earth environment, I could be in a South West desert, the Amazon rain forest, the Antarctic region. Considering not only am I in a different solar system but a differant galaxy and I never 'felt' like I was.
You fan boys can jump in all you want and point out all the stuff in MEA that makes me wrong but that is NOT going to change how the games made me feel. It is MY perception and frankly that is all that matters to me.
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