Official Mass Effect: Andromeda Discussion (Hype/Speculation/Anticipation)

I completely finished the single player this morning, including the quests that unlock after the main line is complete. Nothing in my journal except one bugged mission completion (the Angaran special forces test). Only had one bugged achievement (didn't get credit for establishing an outpost). I can probably fix the bugged achievement if I ever play again. Since I didn't start paying attention to the achievements until I was past the point of being able to achieve three romances in one playthrough, I wasn't going to be at 1000/1000 anyway once I level up a Strike Team to 20 on the console instead of the app.

For all its issues, I enjoyed the game. The set piece missions were suitably 'big'. I liked just about every crew member (Liam would rank higher if he never rode in the Nomad - he's kind of a jerk to the rest of the team). There are enough loose threads to support further games while still resolving this one.

And this might be a minority opinion, but the ridiculous movie questline had an okay-to-good payoff for the ultimate in fetch quests.

But if I never have to sit through a Kadara door animation again, it will be too soon.

Speaking of the Quarian ark, there is a full blown dedicated NPC interaction in the post-game about it. Not going to spoil anything, but there is more information than what is in the multiplayer update.

 
A few milestones for me for this weekend's play:

* Raised Havarl to 100% viability and received the Terraformer achievement. 

* Went back to Eos and saw the "this is how things are now" bit once landed on the planet and thought it was pretty cool.

* Ran into a large bit of Remnant and had my ass handed to me repeatedly.  Will put that aside for another time. 

* Did some cleanup on minor quests and off to Voeld. 

 
Hopped on and played a few rounds - I haven't played in a while, boy am I rusty (what button melees again lol). Collected my winnings and opened up a few basic packs. Got Krogan Vanguard! Woo. Also I had to reassign a bunch of my dudes & dudets as they were wiped for some reason. That was kinda a pain.
 
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Decided to head back into the single player, was on Kadara when I stopped because the Stanley Cup Playoffs were taking up most of my time. Was pleasantly surprised that you can claim all for the rewards from strike teams now. I had gotten the max at 200/200. Got in a pot of time on Kadara, came back onto the ship and a shit ton of stuff unlocked; main quests, side quests, dialogue, and relationship story lines. Almost feel overwhelmed with all the side quests. Still, I enjoyed playing closed off to the world, headphones, for hours. They've done an amazing job of another galaxy to immerse ourselves in.

Now, I've got a question for you guys. Anyone use the seeking plasma emmiter or continuous electric beam augmentation? I want to use these experimental augmentations on a weapon but I don't want to dilute the awesome weapon, as I seem to love almost every gun in the game lol. I also never want to use the augs that boost when you hover. On Hardcore you more than likely want to stay in cover?! I tried it, it didn't work very well.

I just crafted the Shadow Sniper Rifle and threw in a double slot aug, so now I need to get some more sniper mods lol because the gun has four slots available as well as bonus to strip shields (the other augs from the blueprint).
 
Spybreak9 said:
Now, I've got a question for you guys. Anyone use the seeking plasma emmiter or continuous electric beam augmentation? I want to use these experimental augmentations on a weapon but I don't want to dilute the awesome weapon, as I seem to love almost every gun in the game lol. I also never want to use the augs that boost when you hover. On Hardcore you more than likely want to stay in cover?! I tried it, it didn't work very well.
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I didn't use any of those (mostly stuck with double mod slot and damage/recharge augs). But, feel free to experiment. If you craft a weapon you don't like, you get all of the augments back if you disassemble it instead of sell it. You only lose a percentage of the crafting materials. I never seemed to be low on any materials outside of the first few hours thanks to my strike teams.

I only fiddled with hover while earning the achievement. The aim transition just doesn't click for me during hovering. Not sure why you would stop looking at what you are looking at when you jump.

Also, there's a Cryo Pod that reduces the negatives for the chest armor mods - I hadn't used them most of the game until that unlock due to the somewhat severe drawbacks to most of them.



Multiplayer continues to hold my attention. It took the Turian Agent to open my eyes to penetration damage - love being able to kill enemies through solid objects even with other characters. Probably would have loved modding a Hornet for the single player to focus on this. Maybe next time.
 
Now that I have six Level 20 strike teams, I barely have any failures anymore in the Apex missions. 

Each one of five teams has one of the +40 Lvl 4 items, with the last one has the +20 Enhanced Human Intelligence.  Funny how the last team is a bunch of non-human salarians. ;)  I pick the team for the job, so they usually have the +40 bonus for the type of mission it's +40 for and if it's not one of those times, the one with the +20 EHI does the job.  Most of the time, they have +50-55 Bonus Effectiveness. 

I had one team a couple of days ago have +75 Bonus Effectiveness, since they hit their +40 item bonus, as well as +35 from their five positive traits against the mission traits, without having any negative traits at all.   

 
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Yeah I get a lot of that and my Game Design education talks about those pitfalls in depth. Devs love to work on their product, producers love to ask or demand more from them - Peter Molyneux saying why don't we get this to work and why isn't this in the game - and a term is coined called feature creep. If things aren't locked down, a game can snowball into a PITA. Sounds like that was the main issue with Andromeda, other than using a FPS engine for a RPG game. The slightest thing that annoys me though is that it was released when it was released. Every critic had played really excellent games and then played Andromeda. Each game like, Zelda: Breath of the Wild & Horizons: Zero Dawn were big open world exploring, questing, puzzle induced, combat ready games. Then Mass Effect: Andromeda joins the mix and I literally heard it from so many critics and gamers, "I'm just burnt out on open world right now." Maybe they should have strived for that 95-100 metacritic score huh.

 
Here we go, another +75 Bonus Effectiveness for a strike team on a mission:

Mission - Obtain Dead-Drop Data (Bronze)

Mission Traits - Kett, Nightime Mission, Poor Weather Conditions

Team - Has All Weather Gear IV (+40), Kett Specialist (+10), Nighttime Operator (+10), Tactician (+5), Skirmisher (+5) and Tough (+5)

Good stuff.

 
blueweltall said:
Mass Effect Loot Crate are being prepared to ship out now. Forgot I order it.
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Will be waiting to receive it like

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Just did the first part of Voeld last night, damn good stuff, shame it took that long to get to it.

Some comments:

*Mission length was about right, though I do dislike the "You can't manual save" missions like that one, the vault and others.

* Combat sections were well-spaced, enough of it to be good and not too ass-kicking on Hardcore.

* The cut-scenes with the Cardinal were bad-ass.  The bits with exultation were creepy, as was the kett base. A nod back to the ME trilogy with the angara being turned into the kett like the Reapers turned the Council species into their troops.

* Combat with the Cardinal at the end was some controller-tossing moments on Hardcore, though it was until I got it figured out and worked the problem.  In retrospect, good stuff though the level design made it harder than it should have been. 

* The "do you keep the base or destroy the base" decision was a huge nod back to ME2 and the destroy/keep the Collector base quandary.  I kept it, though we'll see if I regret my decision. As was the Moshae's shield regeneration bubble walk, just like the biotic shield walk on the Collector base. 

* I just about cheered when they tossed us a "Renegade-like" moment with the QTE to kill the Cardinal after she freed the angara.  That was unexpected and awesome.

* I didn't proceed past the initial rescue the Moshae mission, though it explains "how the heck am I going to do the rest of this stuff when there's no way to use the Nomad" when I made it through the angara base and dropped the first waypoint.

All in all, I think I truly have the "DA: I" feeling from ME: A, where the major set-pieces are awesome and most of the stuff in-between is ranging from very good to "yeah, I guess I'll make do with that".   The conversations with the squadmates and NPCs afterward were pretty good and upped their ratings in my book for how well they rank compared to other characters. 

 
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Heads up:
From June 10 to June 15 at 9AM PDT, face one of the most dangerous enemies, the Remnant, in the limited-time APEX multiplayer mission, Deeper into the Ruins.
Emerge victorious and be rewarded with the new APEX Elite Pack.*
At double the standard pack size with 10 total items, the APEX Elite Pack includes a guaranteed Ultra-rare and Rare item, so you earn more weapons and items to power your progression!

Oooo
 
Spybreak9 said:
Heads up:
From June 10 to June 15 at 9AM PDT, face one of the most dangerous enemies, the Remnant, in the limited-time APEX multiplayer mission, Deeper into the Ruins.
Emerge victorious and be rewarded with the new APEX Elite Pack.*
At double the standard pack size with 10 total items, the APEX Elite Pack includes a guaranteed Ultra-rare and Rare item, so you earn more weapons and items to power your progression!

Oooo
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I really like the one-off map they use for this event (it has been used a few times).

Kinda bummed my ultra rare was an N7 Crusader instead of a character, but my rare was a character. Guess that balances out.

The real winner of the pack are the XP boosts I pulled. Not sure if all consumables are the same, but 5 200% boosts are pretty sweet.

 
^ For that article - Things happen, nothing is a guarantee. It's surprising how many executives and companies don't know this. It's not very uncommon to see a dev studio get disassembled after a product but yeah I could see it since it was a planned series being something very off putting.

FYI, my game just got a 2GB update in my download queue.

 
So in theory 4K assets do exist for this game, as it was released for the PS4 Pro right? Do you think they'll come out with a 4K patch for this game on One X this fall?! I was looking forward to that in the beginning of the year, before you know everything happened with this game.

 
Weekend APEX mission & new map:

CHASING ROEKAAR INTELLIGENCE

New Map

FIREBASE ICEBREAKER
large.img.jpg


Outlaws built this facility to crack thick ice fields and obtain cheap fuel and ingredients for rare narcotics. Enemy factions want that factory up and running—the kett want its fuel, the outlaws want the profits, and more Remnant are reaching the surface through the cracked ice. The militia wants this facility shut down for good.
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https://www.masseffect.com/apex-missions/apex-mission-brief-10?Campaign=na-Jun_17_2017-Email_2-0&Platform=SFMC&utm_campaign=Jun_17_2017-Email_2-0&utm_medium=email&Title=Jun_17_2017-Email_2-0&Country=US&Team=gem&utm_source=SFMC




 
Been having a blast on Voeld.  It's very scenic, unlike Havarl which was scenic though very cluttered.  The mountains, ice and snow make for some peaceful scenery. 

The "run back to the Nomad when your life support is super low" is a little annoying, though it does make sense for a planet that's more than -50C in numerous places.   One thing that i'm seeming to not understand is the Backup Life Support consumables, my assumption was if you use one of those, your life support should head back up again, though when I do that, nothing seems to happen. 

 
^ I think it's a duration thing, like when you use it, it's enabled providing longer endurance in the hazardous condition. Yeah I haven't really use those lately, got the upgrade for the shield on the Nomad which is good in those situations.

 
Mine's on the way.   Just checked tracking and it's in the hands of the post office, so maybe tomorrow. 

In other news, this made me a sad panda:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2017/07/01/mass-effect-andromeda-deserves-its-quarian-ark-dlc/#5159e4e81369

http://kotaku.com/sources-mass-effect-andromeda-will-not-get-single-pla-1796548159 (referenced article in the Forbes article)

Last's night's activities involved
the kett power base and the Invictor
Took longer than I planned since it had that lovely "you can't manual save since it's combat and there's only a couple of autosave spots" issue that I've had with a few of the other parts of the game.  Good tactical mission, even if frustrating due to the save situation. 

 
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I got my loot crate today, sorry no pics:

Hoodie

Variant Mass Effect Discovery Comic #1

2x Cereal Bowls

2x Glass Cups

ME:A Patch

ME:A Coin

2x ME:A Metal Pin

Diecast Nomad (1/64 scale.. I think)
 

 
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New teaser for Platinum difficulty and a returning race from the Milky Way. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTPHVLR101s

 
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Just went through
Remove The Heart on Voeld
Was a great, tactical-oriented mission where like the similar one on Eos. Much more vertical this time around and required more tactics due to the things that need to be done to proceed through this mission. I also dropped a settlement there since I made it up past 40% and that's been some interesting items and characters.

Took Drack + Jaal on this mission and the party banter dialogue was awesome. I've been switching up team members to see which ones ones work well together, as I did Peebe + Vetra on Eos. Also some fantastic dialogue. I'm very impressed with the party banter in ME: A, I think that's the best of the bunch out of all the ME games, especially since they go back in future conversations and reference past conversations, which happened much less in the other ME games.

I still run into glitches and other issues, like I had to go back to a past autosave where I couldn't get a door open to proceed to the end of the mission. I also had the Nomad stuck inside of a structure when the habitat appeared on the map right on where the Nomad was. HAd to jump to a forward station and back again to fix that since the Nomad was inside the structure.

I should have screen-capped it before fixing it. :dunce:

 
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The fact that there are single player patch notes seems like an optimistic sign if you are inclined to lean that way about single player DLC.
 
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