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 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
It means Bioware is dying. Won't be long until EA shuts them down properly.

That's.. not even close to what's going on right now.

That's just one studio of Bioware's and it's pretty much their D-team. Bioware Montreal was essentially made to support the other studio's by giving extra gruntwork to start with, but then suddenly they decided to go from 'Helped make ME3' to 'Start a whole new trilogy of it while that studio is working on a new IP by yourself.'

So if it comes down to it. We'll see Montreal likely either regulated back to support or shut down with Mass Effect going to one of the other Bioware groups.. All of which are currently busy (One with Dragon Age, one with new IP, and the last is working on Star Wars)

Now if Edmonton is the one being shut down, then you know Bioware is dead.

This is how the snowball starts with EA. I say Bioware as a whole is likely on its last legs. EA loves messing up its own developers/franchises and undermining them at every turn.

I have my own issues and frustrations with Andromeda (turns out yesterday's patch hasn't fixed all my bugged missions after all) but ultimately, except maybe for some instances of wonk dialogue, every issue in Andromeda is a fixable problem.

 Paradigm wrote:
That's still a shame, I honestly didn't think Andromeda had done that badly. There was a lot of very loud criticism, but people who actually played the damn thing seemed to enjoy it, by and large, and I thought the sales figures were still decent.

The problem is, to companies like EA, "decent" sales figures for a triple-A title aren't good enough. Especially when that title is an extension of an established IP, which often sets expectations very high.

 warboss wrote:
Apparently the franchise is on hold...

http://kotaku.com/sources-bioware-montreal-downsized-mass-effect-put-on-1795100285

No idea how this might affect upcoming DLC.

Likely not much. A lot of their staff had been downsized even before Andromeda. They primarily worked on the MP side of things for ME3+DAI.


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 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
That's still a shame, I honestly didn't think Andromeda had done that badly. There was a lot of very loud criticism, but people who actually played the damn thing seemed to enjoy it, by and large, and I thought the sales figures were still decent.

The problem is, to companies like EA, "decent" sales figures for a triple-A title aren't good enough. Especially when that title is an extension of an established IP, which often sets expectations very high.

If that were true, we wouldn't have gotten a Titanfall sequel--or a reboot of Mirror's Edge.

EA has been, for a long while now, trying to shake off the idea that they just kill things off willynilly.

Beyond NCSoft that willingly kills any IP that does not do well in Korea (or I would assume as well as in Korea, but the numbers there are ridiculous anyway, almost no western MMO can hope to reach half the numbers) No publisher willingly kills their IP that easy.

The scale down of Montreal Studio follows a typical pattern of post production support, interestingly of a post launch MMO downsizing, there are many assumptions that can be made from this, taking aside the most pessimistic and probably wrong, expressed here and elsewhere death of bioware and the ME IP, I would hypothesise many other scenarios, obviously this was the first big project this studio did, EA might judge that by the results the studio is not mature enouph to handle big projects, how they will handle it, giving them more time/ training, leadership or making them again a support studio, I do not know, definitely MEA needs fixing and such task does not need a full compliment of production studio, even if they redo everything, the IP is far from dead, but before they start planning the next one they need to fix this and repair the goodwill.

The next MEA is were everything must be (near) perfect or the IP will suffer greatly and probably with the results of this one, the planning team has a lot of pre production work to do before they even start putting the first actual initial development.

I am guessing that we will see much more action with MEA in the form of patches and DLC, the world has the potential to expand tremendously they could even make planet specific DLC doubling or tripling the explorable areas.


Mass Effect Andromeda is an interesting beast to observe, underfunded with a large historical baggage to carry with it, made by a new studio whose experience was multiplayer coop and supporting already launched products with fixes, with questionable hires as key personnel and questionable management decisions like outsourcing critical elements (like human and human-like character models) to other studios with refusal to allow the studio responsible to evaluate them (even for free) and all that while working on a new engine and making all assets from scratch.

I stand by my initial assessment, it is all over the place with equal parts be great and bad in all aspects except combat witch is mostly stellar.

I think MEA will be a different game from what it was launched a couple of patches and DLC later.

Yeap I'm waiting for it to be on a big sale half off or better. Or with how busy I am the game of the year edition or whatever they want to call it.

 Paradigm wrote:
That's still a shame, I honestly didn't think Andromeda had done that badly. There was a lot of very loud criticism, but people who actually played the damn thing seemed to enjoy it, by and large, and I thought the sales figures were still decent.

When you're talking about a multibillion dollar publicly traded company, people seeming to enjoy it despite it being the lowest rated game ever in the series and only decent sales aren't good enough. They make sales projections, publicize them to stockholders, and are then expected to meet them or there are consequences (despite the PR spin otherwise). That's business. It happens in "smaller" only multimillion dollar tabletop game companies as well. A product line can be successful at turning a profit but not successful enough when those same employees could be working on something that makes much more money for the same effort expended and good moderately successful cult favorites get cancelled.


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 Tannhauser42 wrote:
The problem is, to companies like EA, "decent" sales figures for a triple-A title aren't good enough. Especially when that title is an extension of an established IP, which often sets expectations very high.

Yup.. I wrote the same thing basically as I hadn't made it down that far in the thread yet. Take for instance the latest Call of Duty. It sold more than most everything else but sold substantially less than predicted (although those predictions were bonkers given the horrible reception the announcement trailers for the game got that Activision ignored). A relative failure for COD would be a massive success in terms of sale numbers for pretty much any other game except battlefront/battlefield.


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 Kanluwen wrote:

If that were true, we wouldn't have gotten a Titanfall sequel--or a reboot of Mirror's Edge.

EA has been, for a long while now, trying to shake off the idea that they just kill things off willynilly.

Unless with the massive deal they did with Respawn after the public and messy split with Activision included a clause that there had to be a sequel for Titanfall since the original was supposed to be a launch title for a new console that would automatically limit sales. On top of that, EA sabotaged Titanfall 2 by releasing it within a week or two bookended by the only bigger shooters' releases on the market (Battlefield iirc right before it and COD right after it). You're assuming alot there, Kan.

As for cancelling things willy nilly, no one is suggesting that. Being a commercial (less sales than ME3 at launch) and critical (lowest review scores in the series) disappointment are valid reasons to pause for reflection or even cancel a game series until a proper reboot years later. Those aren't willy nilly things especially after the gak stain on an otherwise good game (and excellent trilogy) that was the original trilogy's phoned in ending.

These too are assumptions, it has been seen repeatedly after NDAs have expired that massive multi-billion (and multi-million) companies favour employs and studios and allow them more leeway (or continuation of work despite catastrophic results) because they are "friends" ectr.

I do not know what really will happen, so far the articles about whatever happens are emotional clickbaits from known big sites playing the tune the "haters" want to hear, the actual news are more or less what one expects for a studio post game release, same happened with ME3 when most moved to Dragon Age, probably their next game (speculated to be a destiny like game) needs all hands because it is delayed and continuing support for MEA does not need much crew DLC included.

Since Andromeda is the construction of the ME frostbite framework and it has been shown lacking, working on a new instalment might have been delayed until this is fixed it might not seem like working on the next one, but making the framework right and ironing out all the bugs (well the important ones at least) is fundamental for all other games (and DLC) they will do onward.

What I wrote is also speculation on my part until some NDA end and real information comes out we will not know what happens, we might get a glimpse from when the DLC come out and what they will include and the nature of bug fixes they will do in the meantime.

Oh for gods sake
>Its a Kotaku Article, a KOTAKU ARTICLE
>The Writer changed the Title as it was Clickbait
>No Actual Proof of these Claims
>EA Nor Bioware have Made a Statement about it
>Its Common Business practice to reduce your Workforce after a games release, you dont need ALL your Writers, Animators etc to be working on Patches and DLC (E.G CD Projeckt Red did the EXACT SAME THING after the Witcher 3 Was Released)
>EA are Happy with Bioware Currently
>The Article literally highlights the Business Practice i wrote above
>Again, no Proof of said Claims
>People are Overreacting, on r/masseffect we have already calmed down and realised that the article is nothing new
>for the 3rd time NO PROOF
>No One ACTUALLY Reads the Article


It is Literally NOTHING to worry about

There are a few things to worry about, but none of these is included on this article.

I was annoyed that 1.06 still didn't fix some of the minor bugs I've seen:

I still can't finish "earn your badge"

I still have a quest on Kadara in my book that I can never finish, because the quest-giver has despawned due to choices I made (which is fine, but remove the quest!)

I still get random notifications from SAM that I have new email, when I don't (patch notes say they fixed this but they have not)

There still are no fire mode augs (patch notes say they fixed this but they have not)

These are all minor annoyances, but they are annoyances.

More irritating to me is that they threw in a new casual skin and some new Nomad skins for people who bought the Deluxe edition, but they're in the box that despawns when you first open it in the very early hours of the game: in other words, they have a bonus to people that's only accessible to people who start a new game. Terrific. They said they were going to fix this but... c'mon, guys. How did you not catch this before rolling it out? Just sloppy AF.

I've already stopped pre-ordering games ever since Aliens: Colonial Marines. While I still generally speaking have enjoyed Mass Effect Andromeda and don't regret buying it, this is a strong reminder that there is also very little reason to buy a game when it first releases, either. The people who buy the game after it's been out a few months will have a better experience for less money.

And the architect bug is still there. I have one I was trying to battle on Eos. Got to the point where it wouldn't land for the third and final bout. went off and did some other stuff after exiting without saving so I didn't have the bugged battle in the save.

Tried again last night. The quest is still available in the Journal, there is no nav point for it on the map, but I know the location, so I went there.

No Architect in the air, so I thought it might have worked, but no. I have apparently finished the hammer mission, but no Architect is forthcoming.

Looks to be they 'removed' the bug by removing the mission, except it's still in my journal.

I am guessing some fixes do not apply when the quest is already underway....

I finally beat MEA. It took about 90 hours, and I ended with 92% completion - by the end I was getting a little bored.

There was a lot of stuff I liked, and there was quite a few things I didn't like by the end. At least by the end, I felt like I was constantly places just to fill time, not because the plot required it. I wish I had done less of the "additional tasks" since it seems like none of them really mattered.

I loved driving the Nomad - I know a lot of people hated that stuff previously, but I dug it. I found the multiplayer to be pretty solid, but nothing groundbreaking.

I would have to say it's one of the weaker entries in the franchise though, all in all. Some of the characters were a little uninspiring, at best. I didn't hate them but I found it hard to be anything more than indifferent to Gil, Liam, Lexi, and so on. The story was pretty awesome at times, though - Ryder Family Secrets had me going oooooh now and then.

Been honest I found the game to be the more solid of the franchise, if one can exclude the technical bugs, I feel it tries to say too much, but I found the characters to be in general of the same or better quality, but they needed some more exposition, I really hate Liam, but read a nice theory of him been in a breakdown because he left a good life back on earth for the mess that is everything in Andromeda and everybody except him adapts to it.

Would explain the hostility towards almost everybody and his desperate actions "to make it work" while for the others it works.

My problem is with Andromeda I started seeing the series without the rose tinted glasses and I feel that Andromeda from a story perspective is on the same line with better combat, ME2 while generally praised as the best of the series (and I agree) makes no sense from a story perspective and the only parts of it that make any sense are the Arrival and Leviathan that are DLC, ME3 is too fast paced and deus ex machina for what it is and the ending (even with the extended cut) makes the whole series crumble.

Liam... I'm kinda surprised at.

In my playthrough, where I didn't really have him as a squadmember, I thought he was great, an awesome dude, the first 'normal human guy' I actually liked in the Mass Effect series.

I've been following someone elses playthrough on twitch who has him as a regular party member and, well, wow... Dudes a jerk, a massive jerk. It really switched my opinion on him entirely.


Having completed the game, I'm focusing more on multiplayer now and I'm really enjoying it. I got an Asari Duelist today as part of some deluxe edition reward box thing and I had a great time using her. - Managed to top the board on a bronze mission at level 3, which was really neat. Gotta say, not certain how she'll do on harder difficulties right now, but for the moment I'm still figuring out her abilities. My single player Ryder completely skipped out on biotics.

So far I've figured "Backlash" (a weird name for a biotic shield), doesn't help against a hydra shooting you from point blank range with its rockets...

I think it's "Backlash" because it's supposed to reflect damage back to the attacker. So the Hydra may have taken some damage from it's own attack, but you suffered because rockets and explosives have splash damage.

This is the very reason I love crafted weapons with the "Sticky Grenade" mod built into the blueprint, anything with a really high rate of fire. Slather those grenades on an Ascendant's orb, watch as it passed behind the shield from you, then those puppies explode. It can make him think he's being attacked from behind [as that's where the damage came from] and if you take down the shield, slather him with them too. Sure, his shield may go up again before he's dead, but the last ones should be going off inside the shield so you may take him out too.

Works just as well on Remnant Destroyers and Architects too.

I wound up using a Revenant with sticky grenades and it was a good combo.

 Ouze wrote:
I wound up using a Revenant with sticky grenades and it was a good combo.

Try the N7 Hurricane with the Sticky Grenade augment and the Turbocharge skill ramped up for magazine size and fire rate.

I like to call it my Dearchitecter. Because those fights became a joke.

Something else I ought to try.

Although I have the Hurricane with SG mod, I am now wondering if you can make 2 slightly different versions. If you can, can you then carry one of each, effectively doubling your ammo capacity?

For example: [off the top of my head, just concentrate on the basic idea, not the last mod in the chain.]

Slot 1. hurricane with Sticky Grenades, double mod extension, disruptor ammo.
slot 2. Hurricane with Sticky Grenades, double mod extension, incendiary ammo.

Would that effectively double the ammo availability, or would they both run off the same ammo? Logically, it should either have both weapons run off the same supply, or double the supply and enable you to use the entire lot on a single weapon..

Which means it's likely to either be a double of the ammo supply, but you have to use half in one weapon and the rest in the other, or both run off the same supply, but you have no more than if you only carries a single weapon.

To be honest, I'm not seeing much of a purpose there, simply as 90% of the time ammo is plentiful enough even for guns like the Hurricane that do admittedly chew through it pretty fast.

If you wanted to try that, I reckon the best option would be to put a different behaviour mod on each, perhaps Electrical Conduits for shield stripping and Remnant and Homing Plasma Rounds for mid-range combat and hard-to-hit targets ect.

I've been having a blast running the skill that lets you regen HP when you use a tech power along with the Bio-converter mod that fills your clip up to max when you fire the last round in exchange for a part of your HP. While ammo is usually plentiful there's still a lot of convenience in simply being able to skip the reload animation and keep on blamming stuff, especially since I'm running a sniper build.

I'm about halfway through, and overall I'm enjoying the game a lot so far. My main problem is that I'm incapable of leaving a sidequest alone, so I tend to play it in big bursts where I try to do everything, and then burn out for a day or two. So far, I'd rate it above ME1 and 3 + ending, and below ME2 and 3 - ending. Switching roles took me a while to figure out (and it's not terribly well explained), but now I'd easily rate it as my favourite skill system out of any of the games.

 Paradigm wrote:
I tend to pick squadmates based solely on their in-Nomad banter. Cora/Drack, Drack/Vetra and Cora/Jaal are the funniest combos I've found, but nothing beats PeeBee/Jaal's exceptionally awkward and yet utterly hilarious exchanges... I also like the crew moving around and talking to each other on the Tempest between missions, makes them feel a lot more like a team while the original trilogy basically kept everyone confined to their exact spots on the ship.

For me, it's Peebee and Drack.

"Why do you wear that stuff on your eyes? Think you're some kind of superhero?"
"Why do you wear bones on your armour? Think you're some kind of supervillain?"
"Yeah."
"Cool!"

 commander dante wrote:

It is Literally NOTHING to worry about

But but but my confirmation bias! There does seem to be a lot of internet antipathy towards this game that I haven't seen real justification for--maybe it's left-over unhappiness with ME3, or people trying to fulfill an anti-EA narrative. Yeah, the graphics are a bit behind the times, but I've never been that fussed about cutting edge visuals so long as the gameplay's there.

Well 1.08 patch is up and brings this troubled game in a serviceable condition,, especially with the improvements in the character creator and bug fixes.

I am impressed with the game and the development team given the information about its development unveiled lately.

Yeah, the improvements in the character creator (and being able to revisit it on the Tempest) are really very good and welcome.

If anyone is interested, Kotaku have been doing some investigation over the past few months to essentially find out just exactly what went wrong with Mass Effect Andromeda.

Truth be told, we're actually really lucky it turned out as well as it did and that a couple of months of patches have been as successful in fixing problems as they have been.

I kind of feel like after playing ME:A the series has run its course. It didn't feel right. Its not the bugs/glitches or performance. Its the feel of it, it just doesn't seem right...its uncanny. I've realized all I really want from Mass Effect now is an 1080 p 60 FPS trilogy on disc for ps4....then i'm content with Mass Effect having its full closure as a trilogy. The reason why I don't want remastered graphics is because they did that with bioshock and the results were very dodgy. Some things looked better...other things looked 10x worse...really inconsistent.

Despite what that article said, I'd have loved a prequel to the trilogy like for instance during Saren's and Anderson's timeframe. Please note that doesn't mean I want a carbon copy of ME1 with those characters but rather something in that time frame (preferably with the option of playing alien characters like Turians and Krogans interacting with the NPC humans for the first time).

FWIW, if you're an amazon prime member, you can pick up a console copy of this for $20 including free shipping. Despite not owning a current gen console (yet) on top of my thoughts on this whole game, I'm considering this instead of buying it used later.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=mass+effect+andromeda

 warboss wrote:
Despite what that article said, I'd have loved a prequel to the trilogy like for instance during Saren's and Anderson's timeframe. Please note that doesn't mean I want a carbon copy of ME1 with those characters but rather something in that time frame (preferably with the option of playing alien characters like Turians and Krogans interacting with the NPC humans for the first time).

Eeeh. I wouldn't have if it forced me to play as Saren or Anderson. Maybe as a subordinate under them perhaps.

I think the best way to handle an ME prequel that offered something genuinely different would be to set it around the First Contact War between the humans and Turians, and the subsequent early relations between Earth and the other council races. You've then got scope for a very different take on the established races, themes and dynamics of the original trilogy; It'd be interesting to see how humanity first reacted to presumably terrifying might of the Krogan/Turians or the sheer technological superiority of the Asari or Salarians. Having those (initially at least) as the Bad Guys makes an interesting contrast to the other games where for the most part they stand as humanity's allies, and opens up the chance to explore a lot of the original trilogy's themes from a different angle.