Mass Effect: Andromeda

Kiith

Played it all day yesterday, and i really do enjoy the game. Story is grand, and the combat is a whole lot of fun. Switched builds a few times, and i prefer a Vanguard with energy drain, or a Biotic with Lance, Warp and Incinerate.

Varik

Found out that melee augments are always active but don't effect the melee weapon itself, so if you've 4 3% weapon damage on one it means that everything gets that boost bar the weapon itself unlike guns which get the boost themselves only.

Works for weapon damage at least, might not apply to other augs but it does for weapon damage at least.

ItsShane

Finished the main story tonight with 56hrs play time.
LOTS of side quests still to complete.

ItsHoggie

Anyone got any armour recommendations?.
I'm currently level 34 and have the Hyperguardian level V armour equipped but my shields are only 414 where as all my team mates are 1000+

The_Valeyard

so,

What's everyone's favourite weapons and armour?

Kiith

I haven't been able to find a weapon that i really like. The Black Widow is a nice sniper, but no assault rifle or shotgun have really clicked with me. I always used the Mattock in ME3, but i don't like it as much here.

Armour is a mix of Kett and Angaran gear.

Zero-Cool

Same, haven't found a weapon I've clicked with either. The AR's I have are weak even at 72 damage per shot. I feel the Sidewinder pistol does more damage to enemies. I'm trying a few different shotguns but not found a nice one yet, Snipers are okay, just waiting to to unlock the black widow.

Are ye developing armour or just wearing what ye find? The option is a bit overwhelming atm and research points are limited so holding off for the time being.

The Specialist

Zero-Cool wrote: »

Same, haven't found a weapon I've clicked with either. The AR's I have are weak even at 72 damage per shot. I feel the Sidewinder pistol does more damage to enemies. I'm trying a few different shotguns but not found a nice one yet, Snipers are okay, just waiting to to unlock the black widow.

Are ye developing armour or just wearing what ye find? The option is a bit overwhelming atm and research points are limited so holding off for the time being.

I have my loadout equipped with few different weapons- Pistol, AR, Falcon (it's under AR category but is a grenade launcher) and Shotgun. Gives me a couple of different options in a fight if needed.

For the armor, I started out just wearing stuff I'd collected in containers etc but I'm late game now and using my research points to make some decent gear. The Remnant Heritage armor is my current project, nearly have enough to get V level and it looks cool as ****

Little CuChulainn

I went straight for the Black Widow II as soon as I could. Has served me well enough. I'll upgrade it as soon as I can. Trying the Revenant AR at the moment but not very impressed.

Mitch Connor

created a blackwidow that fires a charged/tracking explosive plasma shot. Took some time to get used to - the speed of the shot is.... slow. Does massive damage though.

Have an electric AR that recharges ammo. Much fun.

Varik

Stolen from Reddit.

Little CuChulainn

PSA: Don't use the skip function on the Galaxy Map

There's a pretty big bug in the Galaxy Map that appears to be triggered by using the new skip function. It causes the Galaxy Map to freeze if you go to a previously unexplored system. If you are experiencing this bug I think you can reset it by going back to an explored system and scanning a planet without using the skip function. This bugs affects consoles and PC.

Zero-Cool

Little CuChulainn wrote: »

PSA: Don't use the skip function on the Galaxy Map

There's a pretty big bug in the Galaxy Map that appears to be triggered by using the new skip function. It causes the Galaxy Map to freeze if you go to a previously unexplored system. If you are experiencing this bug I think you can reset it by going back to an explored system and scanning a planet without using the skip function. This bugs affects consoles and PC.

Happened me the other night, had to hold the ps button and close the game. Restarted it and brought me back to the newly discovered system, only lost about 5 minutes tho.

Little CuChulainn

I think the assault rifles are a bit messed up. The rate of fire difference between the Valyrie and Revenant is not that big but one feels like a single shot and the other like a minigun. Am I missing something? Is there a key to change rate of fire?

Kiith

I've gone back to the Black Widow 5 (1 lvl off the improved version), with Lance (specced for unlimited, shield draining lances), Energy Drain and Incinerate. Sniper to max, and i do some pretty decent damage. Killed one of those big Revenant guys last night, after finding it much harder with other builds.

Gbear

RopeDrink wrote: »

Drivel. Drack alone is a force to be recokoned with. Nothing more satisfying than sitting back behind cover prepping to engage, only to hear him throw out his Krogan roar before he zips past me and starts going ham with that hammer. He'll hitstun enemies, attract the attention of almost everyone and can take a slap. Meanwhile someone like Vetra provides tech-support buffs and her AR is an aggro magnet. Sure, they're mostly distractions, but between that and enemy displacement, team/shield or attack buffs, the extra bit of damage in general and, most importantly, PRIMERS & DETONATORS... Calling them mere bullet sponges makes no sense as they can fill holes in Ryders own build (until you get to the point where you have hundreds of stat points to spend).

Played the entire game with Drack/Vetra and I just can't see myself using anyone else anymore. Nice dialogues (often quite touching), and good in fights. I didn't need any primers/detonators so they served as perfect aggro magnets with a side-dose of buffs while I'd pick'n'detonate my own targets one firey explosion at a time.

Topato Pomato.

The ludicrously weak damage that powers and everything else your companions do makes everything else largely irrelevant.

Why they elected to remove customising their loadout I will never know. At least you could've given them something not rubbish, like Vetra's Cyclone or Drack's puny krogan shotgun (also, where the hell is my Claymore dammnit!?).

And as for the primers and detonators, well, in addition to removing any customisation of their equipment, you also can't control any of their powers, and detonators are piss weak anyway.

You used to be able to go into the tactical menu, overload a guys' shields with Garrus, lift him Liara and charge into his face for a detonation that probably killed him, rather than dealt 1/5 of his life.
Now you leave the two numpties to their own devices and hope they turn enough heads for you to pick off the enemies, because your companions certainly won't make a dent.

And the game isn't even hugely punishing because of that. I'd prefer either more enemies or ones that hit harder as well as the tools to deal with them they had in previous games.

It's immersion breaking when you've got these supposedly legendary warriors backing you up and they're entirely decorative.

The combat isn't bad, particularly when you take it in isoaltion to your own actions, but at 40 hours in I feel like I've seen enough to know that it's a step down from 2 and 3, even if moving about is a bit more polished.

Needless to say, MP doesn't suffer from that, and gains all the benefits. No problems there.

Joshua J

About 10 hours in and my main gripe is not being able to loadout your squadmates.

CiaranW

I am a huge mass effect fan, earned every achievement in the trilogy.
I have only played a small bit of Andromeda and I have a few little problems.

Why is the left bumper weapon wheel and right bumper power wheel gone.
I liked controlling my squad mates. Also liked using the Y/triangle button for using powers like Combat Drone etc.

Not overly enjoying pressing different buttons for melee or interact, but the jet pack seems pretty cool.

I also picked up a Carnifex and couldn't equip I had to run back to Tempest to equip.

Not really enjoying the combat, seems a bit clunky and outdated. The combat in mass effect 2 feels and looks better.

I don't get that much gaming time anymore and there hasn't been anything so far that has made me want to play for a few hours straight.

As I said I'm not that far into it yet, so hopefully I can accept the changes and enjoy the rest.

Have to say, the Remnant Decryption is one of the absolute worst parts about this game and would personally put me off playing it completely since it seems to have a pretty big part in the few short hours I've played. I don't want logic puzzles when playing this kind of a game.

Gbear

Deleted User wrote: »

Have to say, the Remnant Decryption is one of the absolute worst parts about this game and would personally put me off playing it completely since it seems to have a pretty big part in the few short hours I've played. I don't want logic puzzles when playing this kind of a game.

On the other hand, they reminded me I like Sudoku.:o

I hate Soduku. I just personally think it was a real misstep to put a logic puzzle in this game and then make it such a big part of it, in what I've experienced so far. I really am so tempted to not keep playing, if it means I have to keep doing it.

wyrn

I quite like the logic puzzles. There's not that many of them. I get why they put them in, they're "different" to show how alien the remnant area. I keep calling them Geth 2.0! I like to make up names for the letters when I'm going through the puzzles

Got it wrong. Right. Off the play Battlefield 4. See you in a few weeks, ME.

Varik

Deleted User wrote: »

Got it wrong. Right. Off the play Battlefield 4. See you in a few weeks, ME.

You can craft keys to open them if you're that stuck.

Gbear

RopeDrink wrote: »

Ironic given that if detonators are 'so weak' then you'll have to explain why they're pretty much what is used to casually farm above mentioned multiplayer matches. One bio shambling around actually detonating their powers is going to do 20 times more than a Solider with Turbocharge laying into mobs with high impact weapons ever will - not even accounting for the boosters you can use to emphasize this. Have you even improved their damage with any of the 20 bazillion talents you can pool from all the specs? No? I'll guess it's just me chunking packs of enemies in either mode with huge radius damage that can come from either me or my own companions - hell even Drack, Mr.ScreamsALotThenPrimarilyFocusesOnMelee'ingEverything can detonate my abilities as his build is fleshed so I don't have to - and when he alone isn't doing that, he's sponging damage and stunlocking flanking enemies - not even accounting for the spare 'useless' squaddie of choice.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying companions are the epitome of relevance in terms of in-game performance (it should primarily be you doing the work anyway - makes no sense if squaddies can do the work for you in Andromeda where you have so much power in your main character, compared to ME3 where Shep is far more limited by design), but you won't convince me that your first post was even remotely correct about them being useless when I can make them work on numerous levels with a little bit of creativity.

I think I've all the biotic passives maxed out.
Like I said, I enjoy the combat, but it's mostly a question of lift, charge, detonate, Nova, and even then I'm generally having to finish things off with my trusty Piranha.
On the odd occasion when they detonate my primed target, it's like a pet dog doing an unexpected trick ("complete with me muttering "whos-a-good-boy-den"). It's not something to be relied upon.

One of the issues I see with biotics is the nerf to cooldowns for detonaters.

I think it was the standard Asari Adept who had Warp/Throw in ME3 and that must've been there or there abouts for highest damage output of any character because you could be throwing a detonation out every two or 3 seconds.

I can't think any who match that in Multiplayer except maybe the Kinetecist when she activates super-duper mode and has no cooldowns, but even then, it's Pull/Throw, which I don't believe works on armoured or shielded enemies?

Warp has been replaced with Lance, which is a detonator now, not a primer and even Pull and Throw have either been nerfed themselves with longer cooldowns, the lack of weight-based cooldown bonuses is the problem, or both.

You used to be able to, even on Gold, stand right in front of a Brute and just melt him with the likes of Warp/Throw, but I haven't found that sort of combination in Andromeda.

I'd love to know what you're using to do it on MP.
I have had a go with the Kinetecist and it's fun, but I'm interested to hear how to go about it with her or other charcters at proper difficulty levels.

RopeDrink wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPbB4qfsA14

Thrilling gameplay altogether. I'll take the weaker squaddies who act like they're their own entity that are co-operating with the guy/gal who can swap to different profiles in order to have countless more abilities than they can ever have any day. They are an extention of an already versatile Ryder - unlike ME3 where you literally focused on one build in static, grounded gameplay where a bit of extra pep was a much more useful hole-filler. Not saying it's how it should be - it's not, could be improved in many ways - giving them more meat and upping enemy count and/or damge like you suggest wouldn't be a bad start.

In that case, I think it's more an issue with the weapon. The N7 DLC weapons and, the Harrier and the likes were only really balanced in MP and made mincemeat of singleplayer.
Even the Prothean rifle was a bit much (although their AI didn't know how to use it properly).

If you had to face in SP what you do in Gold/Plat MP you'd get murdered in short order, so they chucked in the Spitfire and co to allow you to maintain your murdering on higher levels.


Useless is, you're right, hyperbole, as i can attest when the bullet-sponges can sponge bullets no longer and I have 15 Kett attacking me alone from all angles, but the stripping out of tactical gameplay is the core gripe I have and if they are, like you say, extensions of you, like little semi-autonomous drones flittering about your head, then that's commiting a huge sin in an RPG IMO.

It's fine in a pure FPS or action game if they throw in a section where you get a squaddie that just pisses about but ME is supposed to be a squad-based, tactical, action RPG, but when it comes to the action now, the first two and last words in that description don't fit that well anymore.

Gbear

RopeDrink wrote: »

Lately I've been using a pure melee built Krogan Merc (works well surprisingly enough), though I lost 50% of my RAM to a computer issue which has rendered my ME:A playtime to zero for the timebeing. It's playable with 16gb but not to the quality I enjoyed for my first playthrough.

You mean to say you've dropped from 32GB to 16GB RAM and that's causing issues?

I can't comprehend how that would make any iota of a difference.
I doubt there's any performance difference between even 8 and 16.

Im on 8GB DDR3 at 1440p.

I'd imagine I'm getting solid enough 40+ fps, but if there's a bottleneck it's my GPU or mayyybe the CPU.

Maximus Alexander

Yeah I'm on 16gb and I can't imagine dropping to 8 would make any difference. Perhaps the occasional stutter on the large open world sections if it needed to swap with the disk, but RAM won't effect frame rate like.

Varik

Heard people complaining about frame rate drops on the Tempest (all platforms), but I noticed that if you walk into the air lock (opposite side to Peebee on the bridge) it sorts it self instantly until it drops off again.

Also just go into the airlock when back on the ship you get some research points each time.

Regarding the companions I was glad I didn't have to manage them like Dragon Age, and worse feel like they were stealing my kills. Probably the first Bioware title I didn't feel that way. Their AI was piss poor at times and on insane that was a problem but no where near as bad as the last dragon age game. I could have enjoyed that game just fine without the squad in terms of game play if that could have balanced it that way.

Little CuChulainn

RopeDrink wrote: »

This whole thing reminds me of the 'Garrus Ascends to godhood' video where you can sit in cover while he smashes everything by himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPbB4qfsA14

Now I want to play ME3 again.

I've just spent hours going around Voeld looking for the additional tasks and apparently it's yet another bugged quests. As far as I can understand' there's three different task where you have to search unmarked Kett camps for items but whatever way it was coded sometimes they replace each other in the same camp. So one camp might spawn one of each thing but the game will only allow one of them so it erases the other two. The amount of quest bugs in this game is ridiculous.