Creston wrote on Jul 5, 2018, 11:07:

eRe4s3r wrote on Jul 4, 2018, 16:44:
Compare that to Mass Effect Andromeda where I bet you can't even NAME one character even after playing it twice.

Ryder

Haha, I win! Pay up!

You get 3 imaginary curry chicken cookies! And you deserve them, lmao ;p

eRe4s3r wrote on Jul 4, 2018, 16:44:
Compare that to Mass Effect Andromeda where I bet you can't even NAME one character even after playing it twice.

Ryder

Haha, I win! Pay up!

VaranDragon wrote on Jul 4, 2018, 09:11:
Bioware was releasing mediocre games for quite a while before Mass Effect Andromeda was released.

Could that have maybe had an effect on its sales? Who's to say, speaking for myself I didn't buy it and Im not buying another Bioware game unless it's the bees knees.

But the mass Effect trilogy was the bees knees, nothing made by anyone even comes close (well, with ending mod). It was one of the first RPG's after Gothic 2 and Witcher 3 /Baldurs Gate and Torment, where you had real pay off at the end, where you learned to hate or love characters properly. Compare that to Mass Effect Andromeda where I bet you can't even NAME one character even after playing it twice. Like I honestly can't even remember what the big bad guy was called...

It's why I will always say that Andromeda had the worst writing of any Bioware game, like so fundamentally worse that it transcended from story writing to random noise.

Bioware was releasing mediocre games for quite a while before Mass Effect Andromeda was released.

Could that have maybe had an effect on its sales? Who's to say, speaking for myself I didn't buy it and Im not buying another Bioware game unless it's the bees knees.

Frijoles wrote on Jul 4, 2018, 02:21:

Slashman wrote on Jul 3, 2018, 15:02:

Frijoles wrote on Jul 3, 2018, 12:51:
Article was crap. TLDR: Was it flawed? Sure. And it released against other games that did things better.

That's exactly what the article said. How does that make it crap?

That's what I mean. It said nothing, really. They took a dev post that said nearly nothing and turned it in to an article. No follow-up questions, no digging for a bit more. Just "here's what a dev said, let us rephrase it." So yeah, article was crap. Dev post was fine.

OK I get your meaning now. As I said earlier, it is likely that there were no follow-up questions because publishers put a tight leash on things like that.

Slashman wrote on Jul 3, 2018, 15:02:

Frijoles wrote on Jul 3, 2018, 12:51:
Article was crap. TLDR: Was it flawed? Sure. And it released against other games that did things better.

That's exactly what the article said. How does that make it crap?

That's what I mean. It said nothing, really. They took a dev post that said nearly nothing and turned it in to an article. No follow-up questions, no digging for a bit more. Just "here's what a dev said, let us rephrase it." So yeah, article was crap. Dev post was fine.

After Nier:Automata especially it just showed how pitiful the writing for Mass Effect Andromeda was. Here you have 1 game with a tiny budget breaking new grounds in how we might think about live and death, AI and what it means to be alive.. and then you have another game with butt ugly characters and no story to speak of aside from a bad guy who does bad things for LITERALLY no reason. As in, his stated reason is in DIRECT opposition to what he is doing.

Gotta admit though Nier released 17th March 2017, Andromeda released 21st March 2017

There is the tiny problem that literally every big game on every platform releasing was just FLAT OUT a better game than Andromeda, and that's what sunk it. The animations? No, not really, they were wonky as fuck but whatever, the story brought it down totally though. That and the god awful writing.

The Pyro wrote on Jul 3, 2018, 13:57:
I wish the interviewee had talked about specific issues and why they didn't fix them. Thee game's budget was supposedly more than double ME3's - surely you can't blame all the problems on resources?

Several issues likely prevent that. Publishers have very tight NDAs. Usually they won't even let developers say as much as what was in the article. Even if it was gross mismanagement on the part of the publisher which put too much strain on the developer, it is highly unlikely that the developer would ever be able to tell the whole/part of the tale.

Even though I have been largely disappointed by the more recent Bioware offerings, I always remember that they work for a publisher and that publisher's prime and only goal is to make money.

The Pyro wrote on Jul 3, 2018, 13:57:
I wish the interviewee had talked about specific issues and why they didn't fix them. Thee game's budget was supposedly more than double ME3's - surely you can't blame all the problems on resources?

Yeah it wasn't very illuminating.

But a high budget doesn't tell you much. It's how you spend it. You can blow your budget quick in the beginning if you don't plan well, which seems to have played a part here. It sounds like they spent a lot of time getting the systems working in the new engine, and going down rabbit trails developing code that ended up not being used. And only hiring writers toward the end of the project. A ship without a rudder.

Games like ME:A are technically very challenging, and it's not a surprise that there is at least one high profile whiff every year or two.

SlimRam wrote on Jul 3, 2018, 16:32:
I'm a ridiculously rabid Mass Effect fanboi and having played through it fully twice now, I can say honestly: It's DEFINITELY the weakest game in the series.

For me the combat was incredibly enjoyable, enough to overlook a lot of the other flaws, but I would have to agree it isn't nearly as good as the previous games. And that's despite the fact that I have far more hours in Andromeda than the other games combined.

Jagacademy wrote on Jul 3, 2018, 16:51:

SlimRam wrote on Jul 3, 2018, 16:32:
The first time I played it was unmodified; then I HAD to play it a second time about 6 months later when I found out there was a first-person mod for it!

Interesting. Question though, can you change the FoV? Their video looked consolish.

I honestly can't remember, sorry. There is a program that you have to use to install/load different mods into the game before you run the game but it's not that big a hassle. I can't remember the name of it though but it's on the Nexus page where all the mods for the game are. There's lots of different, cool mods there for just about everything.

SlimRam wrote on Jul 3, 2018, 16:32:
The first time I played it was unmodified; then I HAD to play it a second time about 6 months later when I found out there was a first-person mod for it!

Interesting. Question though, can you change the FoV? Their video looked consolish.

El Pit wrote on Jul 3, 2018, 12:38:
And I still haven't played it yet - but bought it a year ago or so when it was very cheap. I still can't believe it is really that bad unless it has multi-colored endings.

I'm a ridiculously rabid Mass Effect fanboi and having played through it fully twice now, I can say honestly: It's DEFINITELY the weakest game in the series.

I tend to try to do EVERY mission in the game and try to talk to EVERY NPC so each play thru easily clocks in at well over 100+ hours, so it's a massive time consumer. Is all that time well spent; no, not really. As another mentioned, it can be boring and tedious at times DEFINITELY. Also the fact that you can't play as a good person, then as a bad person kinda sucks too.

The first time I played it was unmodified; then I HAD to play it a second time about 6 months later when I found out there was a first-person mod for it! Made the game combat WAY MORE intense and fun. IMO the combat is one of the best things about the game.

Here is a video showing the mod in action and here is the link on how to install it.

Frijoles wrote on Jul 3, 2018, 12:51:
Article was crap. TLDR: Was it flawed? Sure. And it released against other games that did things better.

That's exactly what the article said. How does that make it crap?

ME:A committed, in my world, one of the greatest sins any game can; it was boring. The only somewhat interesting character out of the lot was Jaal. I recently picked it up again about six weeks ago and made it as far as New Tuchunka before giving up again. I literally just don't care about any of the characters and every quest is a FedEx quest.

I wish the interviewee had talked about specific issues and why they didn't fix them. Thee game's budget was supposedly more than double ME3's - surely you can't blame all the problems on resources?

Article was crap. TLDR: Was it flawed? Sure. And it released against other games that did things better.

And I still haven't played it yet - but bought it a year ago or so when it was very cheap. I still can't believe it is really that bad unless it has multi-colored endings.

Not one mention of triggered cave trolls crying about pansexual characters, because it was a non issue.