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Moola posted:The last few pages of discussion about DAIs characters speaks volumes about the quality of MEAs companions Well the patch notes Bioware put out a few weeks ago did said they were going to expand the mlm romances SgtSteel91 fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Apr 19, 2017 |
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Apr 19, 2017 18:44
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Drifter posted:God, the voice director was so bad here in this game. Probably didn't even bother showing up to the recording studio. My favourite thing is that a lot of characters pronounce Reyes differently from line to line. It's sort of insane.
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Apr 19, 2017 18:44
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Moola posted:The last few pages of discussion about DAIs characters speaks volumes about the quality of MEAs companions The only good one was Drack and then the choice at the end of the game makes him lovely as well.
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Apr 19, 2017 18:45
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Also I'm the translation tech that the Angara have even though they have never encountered an advanced alien race other than the Kett.
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Apr 19, 2017 18:47
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I thought it was a bummer for players who were interested in that that their two choices are Gil, who is pretty underwhelming and kind of an rear end, or Reyes, who can totally vanish from the story based on your decisions in the plot (and who is also kind of an rear end). Also neither is a squadmate and Reyes isn't even a crew member.
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Apr 19, 2017 18:48
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SgtSteel91 posted:Well he patch notes Bioware did put out a few weeks ago said they were going to expand the mlm romances "I'll go out with you, sure, but first you gotta get two other people to go out with me."
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Apr 19, 2017 18:49
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A Buff Gay Dude posted:The only good one was Drack and then the choice at the end of the game makes him lovely as well. Let me guess, you picked the Salarian Pathfinder to be the interim ambassador after sacrificing his scouts?
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Apr 19, 2017 18:49
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Drifter posted:"I'll go out with you, sure, but first you gotta get two other people to go out with me." ahaha
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Apr 19, 2017 18:50
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Android Blues posted:A lot of the people working on Andromeda were relatively fresh to the industry, but I'm not sure whether it's them or Chris Schlerf/Mac Walters' inane overarching vision for the plot that's really to blame for why the narrative in particular feels so weird. I dunno I don't think it's the new peoples fault. The writer for Kadara, Reyes, and Lexi was just a SWTOR community coordinator until she was hired as a writer in 2015 (although she was 'trialed' on DA:I's Descent DLC) and I think that's some of the better written stuff. It's probably best just to blame Mac Walters and Chris Schlerf.
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Apr 19, 2017 18:54
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Turbl posted:I dunno I don't think it's the new peoples fault. The writer for Kadara, Reyes, and Lexi was just a SWTOR community coordinator until she was hired as a writer in 2015 (although she was 'trialed' on DA:I's Descent DLC) and I think that's some of the better written stuff. That's my instinct too. What jars most about the game's writing is the overarching stuff for me, although a lot of the small quest stuff is garbage too. But the narrative as a whole would feel a lot better if the Remnant and the Kett and the angara didn't feel constantly messy and cliched.
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Apr 19, 2017 18:57
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SgtSteel91 posted:Let me guess, you picked the Salarian Pathfinder to be the interim ambassador after sacrificing his scouts? No. But if you make the choice on the bad ship that makes him mad, he's mad at you for 30 seconds and then....fine.
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Apr 19, 2017 18:58
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I'll happily blame everything on Mac Walters. Also, Vetra is good and cool, but as I've said earlier in the thread, basically everything that makes her so is in her Nomad conversations with the rest of the squaddies, especially Drack.
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Apr 19, 2017 19:01
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I know Bioware put out their patch plan for the 1.05 patcha few weeks ago, but did they release their focus for the new stuff? Are they working on patches aside from their multiplayer balance stuff, or just trying to prepare for a dlc marketing push? And, sure. I don't know who Chris Schlerff is, but absolutely gently caress Mac Walters.
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Apr 19, 2017 19:02
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Groetgaffel posted:I'll happily blame everything on Mac Walters. True that. I love her as a character but if you don't bring her along on missions and planet exploration, you miss a lot of her best moments. The shipboard conversations are okay, they're just not long or detailed enough to do the job of characterising her by themselves. They work well enough to support her writing if you've heard the Nomad stuff, though.
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Apr 19, 2017 19:03
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Vetra's entire identity is wrapped up in her sister. She's a likable character but not a very interesting one.
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Apr 19, 2017 19:04
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A Buff Gay Dude posted:Also I'm the translation tech that the Angara have even though they have never encountered an advanced alien race other than the Kett. They encountered the milky way people a year back. It's fine. And remember, again - the Kett have been in the Heleus cluster for 72 years. quote:Vetra's entire identity is wrapped up in her sister. She's a likable character but not a very interesting one.
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Apr 19, 2017 19:05
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Drifter posted:I know Bioware put out their patch plan for the 1.05 patcha few weeks ago, but did they release their focus for the new stuff? Are they working on patches aside from their multiplayer balance stuff, or just trying to prepare for a dlc marketing push? Drifter posted:gently caress Mac Walters. On this we can all agree.
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Apr 19, 2017 19:07
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One thing I really like about Vetra, while we're on the subject, is that she's a responsible, capable adult who has her poo poo together and knows where she's at in life. More than that, it's really well expressed through the writing that this is the case. You're shown it, not told it. Bioware have tried to do this with companions before (Jacob springs to mind), but it usually just manifests as them telling you, "hey, I'm a responsible adult with no psychological issues and I know what I want in life! No drama!", which feels super clunky and if anything makes them sound kind of insecure. Vetra is just written as a competent adult woman who's good at her job and knows what her priorities are. Normally Bioware companions need a psychological issue or personal conflict for the player to help them out with, but for Vetra the writer pretty cleverly uses Sid as her main source of drama/conflict, so she evades that. It's a different kind of character from the archetypes they normally write, and I dig that.
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Apr 19, 2017 19:11
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Groetgaffel posted:On this we can all agree.
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Apr 19, 2017 19:13
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Taear posted:Her intro is terrible too. She's just sort of there. I actually thought it was maybe the first good crewmate intro in the game, in that they use a little vignette about her getting the Tempest out of port to show you what kind of person she is, rather than just telling you, "this turian lady is a smuggler and fence, she's great at doing deals", they actually have her doing a deal to help you. Liam and Cora have really bad intros in comparison.
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Apr 19, 2017 19:15
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Android Blues posted:One thing I really like about Vetra, while we're on the subject, is that she's a responsible, capable adult who has her poo poo together and knows where she's at in life. More than that, it's really well expressed through the writing that this is the case. You're shown it, not told it.  Also, her romance scene is really  and it's well done. It's pretty much the only one that is.E: Seriously, compare Vetra's to  Peebee's.
Groetgaffel fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Apr 19, 2017 |
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Apr 19, 2017 19:18
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Android Blues posted:I actually thought it was maybe the first good crewmate intro in the game, in that they use a little vignette about her getting the Tempest out of port to show you what kind of person she is, rather than just telling you, "this turian lady is a smuggler and fence, she's great at doing deals", they actually have her doing a deal to help you. Liam and Cora have really bad intros in comparison. I guess for me it felt like she was the designer of the ship and I was surprised that she also joined my team. She felt like a Gil.
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Apr 19, 2017 19:42
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Android Blues posted:I actually thought it was maybe the first good crewmate intro in the game, in that they use a little vignette about her getting the Tempest out of port to show you what kind of person she is, rather than just telling you, "this turian lady is a smuggler and fence, she's great at doing deals", they actually have her doing a deal to help you. Liam and Cora have really bad intros in comparison. Let me tell you, the Initiative has the best people, you won't even believe it. It's gonna be so great. We're gonna build a Scourge.
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Apr 19, 2017 19:49
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I really don't understand the original timeline decisions. Set aside the idea of launching a massive sleeper ship program just for funsies when you have current tech with crazy unrealized potential to move big things long distances makes no sense; more importantly the Andromeda Initiative as planned doesn't fit the original series cannon. ME2 largely took place off of global society's radar, so humanity's place in Andromeda should be more or less in the same place it was after ME1. Which is to say a bunch of new money hicks that struck The opening cinematic should have been a tense counsel meeting called on the premise of "Shepard is right and we are all going to die" followed by a grim montage of bootstrapping together a desperate continuation of life contingency. Using an AI makes more sense if you need every possible advantage in the immediate term. The combat tutorial should have been a powered up Papa Ryder cycling through different playstyles while holding off the Reapers as the ships launched. With a big combat set piece up front, they could have focused on exploration and survival in the early game. Think of all the fun stuff they could have done. There should be incredible tension between the average colonists and a handful of crewmembers who launched the ship before going into stasis because they carry the secret knowledge that the Milky Way is likely ash. There should be be a massive racial tension threatening to boil over as each species competes to for primacy in the new galaxy. Rather than being told about the revolt, the player could have lived through it, securing short term survival but unable to keep everything falling apart politically. Rather than a lovely side quest about the first murder, they could have put Ryder in a position to be the first murderer(and giving him/her a good reason to do so). Then you could build up the outcasts as competent settlers driven to revolt rather than "whoops we accidentally brought along a bunch of psychos and criminals. All this could have been done against the backdrop of seemingly dead worlds and then just as everyone seems to be getting thier poo poo together, then you get the Kett. But instead we get a plucky but inexperienced hero who does nothing but win while uniting an array of previously interesting races that are now interchangeable except for the binary decision of "okay with bureaucracy = initiative; not okay = outcast" Its just such a goddamn waste.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:15
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Yeah, it's pretty fun to imagine what ME4 could have been if led by someone who had any imagination or creative drive whatsoever.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:18
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:
This has actually been a major issue with these last two Bioware games. In DAI, after the initial attack by the big bad, you pretty much spend the rest of the game winning and by the time you get around to facing him, he's a pushover and it feels like you wittled him down to his last resources. The same happens in this game with the Kett. You win constantly and it is only a clever move by the Kett Commander that even momentarily turns the tide of things in his favor. They even seem to imply in the post game reading materials that the fucker may not even have been able to use Meridian in the manner he intended. For all that Kai Leng was poo poo and Mass Effect 3 needed better writing, it at least felt through most for the game that you were fighting from behind against near unstoppable odds.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:21
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Moola posted:The last few pages of discussion about DAIs characters speaks volumes about the quality of MEAs companions Where as I can vaguely remember Seras as being annoying, only the Krogan stands out in a pile of inoffensive nothing crewmates for Andromeda. So at least this Bioware wasn't stupid enough to gently caress up writing a Krogan! But whether its THE PATHFINDER or THE HERALD OF PIZZA, Bioware can only write chosen ones. Because they desperately hope for one to fix all of their incompetent, inexperience and otherwise lovely luck in doing their job - just like the inquisition or the Andromeda initiative! Crabtree fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Apr 19, 2017 |
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Apr 19, 2017 20:23
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To be fair, when they had Shepard lose in the second act of ME3, there was a pretty vocal pushback from fans. Granted some of that was the fact that you get beaten up by Kai Leng on a gunship, but a significant number of people also seemed grumpy about the fact that Thessia was an "unwinnable" mission.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:26
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:The opening cinematic should have been a tense counsel meeting called on the premise of "Shepard is right and we are all going to die" followed by a grim montage of bootstrapping together a desperate continuation of life contingency. Using an AI makes more sense if you need every possible advantage in the immediate term. The combat tutorial should have been a powered up Papa Ryder cycling through different playstyles while holding off the Reapers as the ships launched. With a big combat set piece up front, they could have focused on exploration and survival in the early game. Also, Jien Garson, founder of the Initiative actually ran out of cash before launch, and the rest was funded by a mysterious Benefactor (who I really loving hope won't turn out to be Cerberus). Is it stupid to have that locked behind a boring fetch-quest? Yeah, extremely. Oh, and of course it is never acknowledged in the game after finishing said quest in any way shape or form. Such a giant waste of potential.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:29
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remusclaw posted:This has actually been a major issue with these last two Bioware games. In DAI, after the initial attack by the big bad, you pretty much spend the rest of the game winning and by the time you get around to facing him, he's a pushover and it feels like you wittled him down to his last resources. The same happens in this game with the Kett. You win constantly and it is only a clever move by the Kett Commander that even momentarily turns the tide of things in his favor. They even seem to imply in the post game reading materials that the fucker may not even have been able to use Meridian in the manner he intended. I think this is due to the open world setup. You can't both be exploring and looking at loads of stuff and ALSO be having the bad guy win all over the place. At least not with the setup Bioware uses.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:31
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Android Blues posted:To be fair, when they had Shepard lose in the second act of ME3, there was a pretty vocal pushback from fans. Granted some of that was the fact that you get beaten up by Kai Leng on a gunship, but a significant number of people also seemed grumpy about the fact that Thessia was an "unwinnable" mission. The main issue with Thessia in Mass Effect 3 is how they have you personally lose, and that they do it in a manner that makes you look like an idiot against your own will. You don't really win on Palaven either, Reapers are everywhere, the one killed on Tuchanka is blip of a victory in sea of defeat. They would have done better to let you win whatever you were doing on Thessia and having you lose the objective anyway due to the fact that the Asari kept info from you. It better suits what they were trying to say about the Asari and it means you don't have job humiliatingly to Leng.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:33
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Groetgaffel posted:Well, about that. Once you finish the sidequest to unlock SAM's memory blocks it is revealed that dad Ryder and a few others knew about the Reapers and put the Initiative in overdrive to be able to leave before the reaping started. Surprizing no one, there is a side quest on castaway planet where Evil Scientists are doing SOMETHING to try and give HUMANITY AN EDGE but were somehow bored of the usual stupidity of Cerberus in the Milky Way. How, How is Cerberus both the most successful organization in existence yet also the most incompetent of all?!
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Apr 19, 2017 20:36
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Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:I really don't understand the original timeline decisions. Set aside the idea of launching a massive sleeper ship program just for funsies when you have current tech with crazy unrealized potential to move big things long distances makes no sense; more importantly the Andromeda Initiative as planned doesn't fit the original series cannon. They didn't do this because Mac Walters loving loves Cerberus
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Apr 19, 2017 20:40
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Groetgaffel posted:Well, about that. Once you finish the sidequest to unlock SAM's memory blocks it is revealed that dad Ryder and a few others knew about the Reapers and put the Initiative in overdrive to be able to leave before the reaping started. The best part of these quests is that they're story locked as well. I've collected all the memory fragments (because I hate myself) but I hadn't finished the Archon quest and it refused to actually unlock it. Obviously I had to wander all the way back to SAM Node to find that out.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:39
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Crabtree posted:Surprizing no one, there is a side quest on castaway planet where Evil Scientists are doing SOMETHING to try and give HUMANITY AN EDGE but were somehow bored of the usual stupidity of Cerberus in the Milky Way. How, How is Cerberus both the most successful organization in existence yet also the most incompetent of all?! Those guys very much felt like Mass Effect 1 Cerberus.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:39
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Crabtree posted:Surprizing no one, there is a side quest on castaway planet where Evil Scientists are doing SOMETHING to try and give HUMANITY AN EDGE but were somehow bored of the usual stupidity of Cerberus in the Milky Way. How, How is Cerberus both the most successful organization in existence yet also the most incompetent of all?!
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Apr 19, 2017 20:42
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remusclaw posted:Those guys very much felt like Mass Effect 1 Cerberus. The only successful Cerberus projects involve Shepard. There is no Shepard in Andromeda, hence Cerberus reverts to their ME1 status.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:42
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cerberus in general has been a mess in the series, it went from a throw line in ME 1 to ME 2's shadow government wetworks operation to literally COBRA in ME 3
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Apr 19, 2017 20:46
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Zikan posted:cerberus in general has been a mess in the series, it went from a throw line in ME 1 to ME 2's shadow government wetworks operation to literally COBRA in ME 3 Mac Walters sucks
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Apr 19, 2017 20:47
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Zikan posted:cerberus in general has been a mess in the series, it went from a throw line in ME 1 to ME 2's shadow government wetworks operation to literally COBRA in ME 3 1 had them as something of a loose coalition of mad scientists who had managed in each case to have already gone too far and got everyone killed by the time you showed up wherever they were and cleaned up the mess.
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Apr 19, 2017 20:47
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