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On March 28 2017 08:17 Elentos wrote:How have you guys been doing on the romance front? I've been enjoying the Peebee romance. Granted it has a bunch of similarities to Jack's romance (way less insults though), but watching her develop as a character like that was really nice. Also the fact that now every time I approach her to have a chat, she opens the conversation with "Yes. Whatever it is." is very sweet. That level of commitment from her actually touched my heart a little. Also I got 100% viability across all planets super easy and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before finishing the game. And my only reward was the game trying to spoil that + Show Spoiler +Meridian would be settled
I don't know who to romance, no-one really interests me so far.
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On March 28 2017 19:50 Heartland wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2017 08:17 Elentos wrote:How have you guys been doing on the romance front? I've been enjoying the Peebee romance. Granted it has a bunch of similarities to Jack's romance (way less insults though), but watching her develop as a character like that was really nice. Also the fact that now every time I approach her to have a chat, she opens the conversation with "Yes. Whatever it is." is very sweet. That level of commitment from her actually touched my heart a little. Also I got 100% viability across all planets super easy and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before finishing the game. And my only reward was the game trying to spoil that + Show Spoiler +Meridian would be settled I don't know who to romance, no-one really interests me so far.
I probably would have romanced Suvi if she was available for male Ryder. I ended up going with Peebee because I wanted to see where it goes because her attitude doesn't really fit a relationship. More like a fling. Which makes sense considering her age. But it was nice to watch her come around and change.
Overall I'm actually pretty satisfied with how the crew ended up story wise. A krogan grandpa companion is like the best thing that's happened in Mass Effect ever. Not really a fan of Liam though to be honest. But as much as I like the companions in story, in gameplay it's off-putting. No weapon/appearance customization? Pretty much no control over them in fights? Surely Bioware could have done better.
TotalBiscuit did a WTF video on single player. Despite saying he hates breaking a game's rating down to a number, he said he would call ME:A "the most 7 out of 10 game ever". Good, but with flaws. Many flaws in fact. But nothing to justify all the venom the game gets.
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On March 28 2017 20:08 Elentos wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2017 19:50 Heartland wrote:On March 28 2017 08:17 Elentos wrote:How have you guys been doing on the romance front? I've been enjoying the Peebee romance. Granted it has a bunch of similarities to Jack's romance (way less insults though), but watching her develop as a character like that was really nice. Also the fact that now every time I approach her to have a chat, she opens the conversation with "Yes. Whatever it is." is very sweet. That level of commitment from her actually touched my heart a little. Also I got 100% viability across all planets super easy and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before finishing the game. And my only reward was the game trying to spoil that + Show Spoiler +Meridian would be settled I don't know who to romance, no-one really interests me so far. I probably would have romanced Suvi if she was available for male Ryder. I ended up going with Peebee because I wanted to see where it goes because her attitude doesn't really fit a relationship. More like a fling. Which makes sense considering her age. But it was nice to watch her come around and change. Overall I'm actually pretty satisfied with how the crew ended up story wise. A krogan grandpa companion is like the best thing that's happened in Mass Effect ever. Not really a fan of Liam though to be honest. But as much as I like the companions in story, in gameplay it's off-putting. No weapon/appearance customization? Pretty much no control over them in fights? Surely Bioware could have done better. TotalBiscuit did a WTF video on single player. Despite saying he hates breaking a game's rating down to a number, he said he would call ME:A "the most 7 out of 10 game ever". Good, but with flaws. Many flaws in fact. But nothing to justify all the venom the game gets.
I really like the crew character wise and story wise even Jaal who gets a lot of flack on the internet was interesting and had a great personal quest (even if nothing in this game reaches the magnificence of Iron Bull) but you (and TB) are absolutely correct that the squad controls are a massive step back.
Yes they likely had data internally that almost no one used their squadmates properly in ME3 (fact is I only bothered on Insanity) but we still had that option on insanity. Coupled with the fact that in the current state of balance powers are next to useless (overload doesn't even strip the shield from a simple sniper, in MP a proper biotic combo doesn't kill a mook on silver difficulty) the combat boils down to a shooter with some magic skills.
That might be nice (and for multiplayer at least i expect major balance changes in the coming months) but I am absolutely astounded that this didn't get adjusted during internal testing. I don't expect great balance from launch titles but they had 5 years worth of data from ME3 multiplayer so how could they get it this wrong?
Some more words on MP now that i have played that for nearly 3 days straight: The current "meta" is really stale mostly because only sniper rifles are worth a damn damage wise. It's not uncommon to enter a gold lobby and have 3 infiltrators and a soldier who has a sniper equipped as weapon. The "good" shotgun is ultra rare (and also cannot really compete with a decent sniper rifle because you have to be right in their face or the pellet spread wrecks the dps again) the only halfway decent assault rifle I have found so far is the old revenant. Pistols are good if you include the SMGs (which they did) and the Talon but all others are mediocre at best. The carnifex need 3 headshots to kill a mook on gold (compared to 1 in ME3).
As i said they will likely adjust the balance significantly but currently its mediocre. Since it's still only horde mode it doesn't matter that much but it hurts inside when I cannot really play my technical classes on gold because they have no reason at all to be there.
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Absolutely needs adjustments, good god enemies in MP are complete bullet sponges on higher difficulties.
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Yeah getting two Destroyers is a nightmare. So. Much. HP.
As for weapons I've found the Raptor (which was in ME3 as a semi-auto) to be very decent and I use the N7 Valkyrie as my other weapon. Both don't require that much weight. Valkyrie hits hard but has hefty recoil. This is in singleplayer, though I was lucky and got the Raptor in MP as well. The difference between that thing and say the M8 Avenger is night and day.
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On March 22 2017 02:14 Elentos wrote:
Escaping the reapers couldn't have been more than an afterthought.
I take it back
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On March 28 2017 23:13 Thezzy wrote:
Yeah getting two Destroyers is a nightmare. So. Much. HP.
As for weapons I've found the Raptor (which was in ME3 as a semi-auto) to be very decent and I use the N7 Valkyrie as my other weapon. Both don't require that much weight. Valkyrie hits hard but has hefty recoil. This is in singleplayer, though I was lucky and got the Raptor in MP as well. The difference between that thing and say the M8 Avenger is night and day.
If you don't want to double/triple cobra the destroyers then kill their turrets. Then slowly grind them down or wait until they channel their Haduken. The glowing area they shoot from on their front takes a lot of damage when they do. Using a Vanquisher 1 does like 1/9 HP per shot when that is up. (Remember that you will die if you get hit by the shots, so be careful if you are the target.)
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variable difficulty in MP and bullet sponges go hand in hand.
Didn't know it was the dev teams first game, Explains alot though. I can't get over all the Borderlands influence this game has though xD.
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On March 29 2017 01:01 FeyFey wrote:
variable difficulty in MP and bullet sponges go hand in hand.
Didn't know it was the dev teams first game, Explains alot though. I can't get over all the Borderlands influence this game has though xD.
They could also go the route of mass, mass amounts of enemies instead of making them tougher. Boosting all AOE skills and weapons at once. Combos would also improve since most create an explosion.
Hope they don't make the enemies even harder to kill once they add Platinum. Doing something else would be more fun.
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I think this game would have been better if it followed an APEX team and was more of a first/third person shooter then trying to continue the unholy hybrid that is this werid rpg shooter concept they keep streching.
warhammer 40k has reasoned enough that melle would be back in vouge in space future tech and would be a lot more interesting to see DA:40k then space shooter amalgimation.
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Going after that Cora booty.
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37hrs in only 35% done.
game is value so far
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I am enjoying the family plot, I think that feels quite close to home without needing an epic backdrop. I'm slightly annoyed that we're seeing another case of + Show Spoiler +"oh shit, they're remaking us!" with the kett and the angara, just like with darkspawn in DA and with reapers in ME.
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Btw if you run into problems scanning something change the FOV to be smaller. Seems like the aim ridicule and the script for scanning were not both attached to the FOV slider properly, i thought i couldn't progress on a quest because i couldn't scan a console, lowered FOV did it.
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So after a day free of work and my still unstable internet connection I've now finished the SP campaign for the first time. I'll spoiler the story parts I want to talk about later in the post don't worry. First of the game is "worse" than DA:I regarding too much shit to do for little payout. Once i stopped worrying about tasks and started mainlining the story and companion quests it got much much better. Still I wonder who thinks its a good idea to include about 50 "tasks" sidequests without any effort or real payoff (story wise) instead of 10 sidequests?
On that note some of the companion "quests" once you have reached loyalty are similar to the citadel DLC meaning added fluff that shape the characters and try to add meaning and emotional connection. That is a bit hit and miss but i'll get to that in the spoiler section.
Length wise without the useless padding (aka Tasks) it is about 50 hours for a full length leisure style playthrough. Someone obviously will speedrun that at a much faster time simply by hitting skip on every conversation and cutscene but I'd say I was fairly fast so it is a good length game.
The final quarter picks up the pace a lot if you have actually done the companion quests when they appear (meaning your crew is loyal at that point and you don't have to or should interrupt the story from that point onwards unless you want to). I didn't play on insanity so I won't comment on how hard the game truly is at that level but at the difficulty below that it wasn't challenging for a veteran of the series.
So to the spoilers we go:
+ Show Spoiler +I don't quite understand why everyone hates the Kett and the Archon so much as bad guys. They seemed fairly believable if stereotypical to me. Obviously Bioware hasn't explained the details of exaltation but they seem a fairly serviceable borg style Sci-Fi enemy (we absorb you, take what makes you strong and discard the rest).
The part that made the story good for me was the remnant and the "mystery" surrounding it. The small relevation that the entire cluster was created by them including the Angara was great and there is enough hinted at for a sequel or two concerning the Scourge and the "Antagonist" mentioned on the Space Station.
The companion arcs were pretty well done with almost all party characters developing a real personality and in most cases you even get attached to them within a single game. There are two exceptions for me personally: Gil and Liam are useless and a waste of space. But that is to be expected not everyone likes every character archetype and Liam in particular is a person who would rub me absolutely the wrong way in real life as well. So great job Bioware designing him, he was real enough that i disliked his attitude :p
On the positive side Peebee, Jarl and Drack are amazing. Funnily enough their animations are much better as well (mostly because they are alien enough that they don't trigger uncanny valley effects). Drack is the perfect grumpy Krogan this series needs, like having Wrex back but older and meaner.
The politics of the nexus were the only truly disappointing thing for me, I really hoped there would be a quest where you could effect some real change in that ineffective pile of shit they call leadership. Seriously you have a thousand Krogans out of Cryo but you can't create and secure an outpost? What the hell is wrong with you people... They managed just fine after you made them leave...
That there was no real way to investigate into the "mutiny" and "Krogan exile" is the only story thread where Bioware really dropped the ball. Some questline that ended with the pathfinder shooting Tann in the face would have been glorious (hate that prick).
The DLC hooks (2 obvious ones, the "benefactor and Gian Garson's (sp?) death and the quarian arc, are a tad obvious though... Most likely won't stop me from playing those, if they patch some stuff and service the MP a bit until then though.
So closing thoughts on the Story character development: Krogans are awesome, the bar fight made me laugh out in real life and it is a real bummer that I did not get to shoot either the Archon or Tann in the face.
Btw: whoever decided to include the Addison "my face is tired" line deserves to be fired. Feeding the trolls that much of a line is simply idiotic
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You know, at risk of being the only person to ever say this:
I'm happy with the game, it's better than I expected it to be.
+ Show Spoiler +The finale on Meridian worked a lot better than the attack on Earth in ME 3, I loved the whole section with all your allies showing up and actually doing stuff. Shame about no actual fight against the Archon though.
Regarding DLC hooks:
+ Show Spoiler +Yeah the Jien Garson/benefactor story and the other missing arcs are quite clear. I also believe that the Primus might be a DLC hook instead of a sequel hook. She doesn't seem significant enough of a threat to warrant her own game.
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I'd be happier with the game if my companions were more interesting, i mean drack is the only one i find interesting. I also don't know if the dialogue changes responses much, I've redone parts of dialogue once and awhile to check things out and responses don't seem to very much sorta making it not matter. Also feel a lack of cohesive universe with the background story stringing together, rather just story lines are self contained. It's not bad just not great to me just meh. I'll probably replay the game a couple months from now, hoping for patches and or fandom to change the experience. Put in 60 hours going though the whole game as much as possible and don't feel like a repeat will do anything atm.
I also feel the music is a bit stale, most of it sounds like it's trying to copy sounds but not the tone of "uncharted worlds" from the main franchise, the space music for exploring planets.
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As far as I know conversations choices are accumulative and doesn't really change based on a single choice most of the time. If you pick logical the entire game your conversations will start being logical on all choices since that is how your character acts and others knows about you. I havn't played through it twice so I am just taking others words for it.
Basically you effect your personality by the choices you make and your character then gets different dialogue choices based on that. Meaning a full logical person won't get a wacky choice in the conversation. While a fully happy go lucky type won't get a very logical choice even on the logical option. As previously mentioned, that is just what others say and I don't have two runs to be able to verify it.
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On March 31 2017 10:33 Yurie wrote:
As far as I know conversations choices are accumulative and doesn't really change based on a single choice most of the time. If you pick logical the entire game your conversations will start being logical on all choices since that is how your character acts and others knows about you. I havn't played through it twice so I am just taking others words for it.
Basically you effect your personality by the choices you make and your character then gets different dialogue choices based on that. Meaning a full logical person won't get a wacky choice in the conversation. While a fully happy go lucky type won't get a very logical choice even on the logical option. As previously mentioned, that is just what others say and I don't have two runs to be able to verify it.
So is it kind of like a hidden renegade/paragon system where you score points towards certain branches and those then unlock better or different dialogue options for those branches?
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On March 31 2017 14:40 Bacillus wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2017 10:33 Yurie wrote:
As far as I know conversations choices are accumulative and doesn't really change based on a single choice most of the time. If you pick logical the entire game your conversations will start being logical on all choices since that is how your character acts and others knows about you. I havn't played through it twice so I am just taking others words for it.
Basically you effect your personality by the choices you make and your character then gets different dialogue choices based on that. Meaning a full logical person won't get a wacky choice in the conversation. While a fully happy go lucky type won't get a very logical choice even on the logical option. As previously mentioned, that is just what others say and I don't have two runs to be able to verify it. So is it kind of like a hidden renegade/paragon system where you score points towards certain branches and those then unlock better or different dialogue options for those branches?
As I understand it, more the second case than the first. Same conversation end point/information given but with different dialogue from the NPC and you.
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EPT
