Tumgik
#Mass Effect Andromeda gameplay
mahiiimahiiii · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
can a girl-failure & a dandy fall in love?
Tumblr media Tumblr media
18 notes · View notes
coffeeworldsasaki · 10 months
Text
Shit blowing up before the game came out is what ruined mass effect Andromeda (WHICH WAS A FUCKING GOOD GAME) and if people do that again with dragon age I'm going to start killing. WE HAD ONE PERSON WHO DIDN'T WORK THERE FOR WHO REMEMBERS HOW MANY YEARS SAID THEY TRIED AI AND THAT IT WAS SO BAD HE DOESN'T THINK IT CAN EVER WORK AND PEOPLE START SAYING BIOWARE IS WRITING DA4 WITH AI. SHUT UP
13 notes · View notes
vivispec · 3 months
Text
is this a good moment to mention I fucking love mass effect andromeda I just started playing it last week and uhm. I thought it was gonna be atrocious but guys. It's fine. Unpolished but? Mostly fine. I'm actually having so much fun with it. And have you seen Vetra?? wife material
5 notes · View notes
idontknownothin · 2 years
Text
the biggest problem with video games today is that none of them are Mass Effect
9 notes · View notes
beckiboos · 2 years
Text
I both love and hate BioWare games, as in I love the storylines and the characters so much, but the actual gameplay ranges from ok to physically mind numbingly boring to play
6 notes · View notes
patricksteel · 2 years
Video
youtube
Mass Effect Andromeda Astroid Song Remake H-047c 2k visuals
2 notes · View notes
spinsterssister · 4 months
Text
i just finished mass effect andromeda and wow. what a ride. i’ve spent the past 4 months playing all of the mass effect games and damn, i get it, i get why everyone loves these games so much, i’ve had the best time. i already miss this universe and i can definitely see myself going back and playing the og trilogy again
1 note · View note
pedradagamer · 2 years
Video
youtube
Mass Effect: Andromeda takes place in parallel to Mass Effect 3, hundreds of light-years from Earth with “exciting new worlds to discover, great characters and intense action, exploring a new galaxy called Andromeda in search of new civilizations, places for human colonization”. and pilot the new and improved Mako. All this with a new team of adventurers with whom we will work, learn, fight and fall in love.
0 notes
theharlotofferelden · 7 months
Text
Gonna need to put Mary Kirby + other long time staff being fired into perspective because this isn't a recent development. Bioware has been plagued with issues for well over a decade, and it's not just because of EA.
When Gaider decided to move on from Dragon Age in 2014, everyone thought it was just because he wanted to move onto a different project. He ended up leaving the company completely in 2016 after working on Anthem for a bit, and it was later reported that staff on the project had issues with his writing. He didn't mention why he left Bioware until very recently in a long twitter thread detailing that, while Bioware is a company known for its storytelling and characters, upper management went from valuing its writers to quietly resenting them, and feeling as though the writing were "holding the company back."
When they started working with Frostbite they encountered so many technical problems with it because it was specifically designed for FPS games. They were literally designing the tools they needed to work on both Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda while they were working on those games. Darrah (or perhaps Laidlaw, I forget which) even acknowledged when he was interviewed by Jason Schreier for Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, that this is a big industry no-no. But Bioware was put in a hard spot to either work with Frostbite or use the Eclipse engine that DAO was designed on (which I'm assuming would've required developing the engine and toolkit further to bring the graphics up to industry standards). So they ended up working with Frostbite which resulted in a fuckton of issues both for Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda, because the teams behind both projects had to design their own tools.
With the added stress of the toolkit also came the toxic work environment, departments that were perpetually understaffed, directors leaving and new writers coming in with different visions for the project, time mismanagement where they spent too much time on "high concept" gameplay, not having a clear vision for the game, resentments between studios, inexperience with coordinating video calls across multiple studios, the resultant mandatory crunch, etc. All of this is mentioned in this article about Mass Effect Andromeda's production cycle and this article about Anthem's.
Casey Hudson and Gérard Lehiany left Bioware in 2014 right in the middle of production on Andromeda (Casey rejoined the company as general manager in 2017, but left again in 2020). David Gaider left in 2016 in the middle of production on Anthem, as did Aaryn Flynn who left before the game was shipped in 2019. Mike Laidlaw left in 2017 and left production of Dragon Age Dreadwolf in Mark Darrah's hands, who left in the middle of its production in 2020. Matt Goldman (creative director for Dreadwolf) left the following year. Mac Walters (production director on Dreadwolf) who's been with the company for over 19 years left in January of this year. Are you seeing the pattern here?
I don't doubt that EA has influence over Bioware considering the recent layoffs appear related to the announcement back in March that EA would lay off 6% of its workforce. But it's clear there's something deeper that's going on at Bioware, and it's really not good.
When veteran senior staff are leaving one by one along with other long time staff, and it's been reported that the studio has a toxic work environment with management issues that make crunch necessary, there is something deeply wrong with the company and how things are being run. This is a sinking ship, and in all likelihood everyone is betting on keeping the company afloat with the success of Dragon Age Dreadwolf and/or the next Mass Effects game.
I want to say something more about how broadly the mainstream AAA video games industry is abusive and how incredibly fucked up their practices of layoffs have been normalized, but this is already pretty long. What I will say is that I'm not claiming this means DA4 or the next ME game is going to tank. It sure as fuck doesn't look good for it, but despite my grievances with Dragon Age, I do want the game to be successful and for Bioware to keep doing what they're doing.
And honestly, whether those games do well or not is really besides the point. Something is wrong at Bioware, whether it's the company itself or the fact it's owned by EA, and it can't be solved with mass layoffs. This is a cultural problem within the company itself, and it's very unlikely to be addressed considering how MEA failing seems to have done little to change how things are being run right now.
1K notes · View notes
rpgchoices · 2 months
Note
What rpgs do you recommend? This blog made me find out about a lot that ive never heard of and wanna play some day ^_^
Ohhh hello!! I think it depends on what you like in an rpg in general or what rpgs you played before and your priorities!
For me the main elements I want are characters and good story, but characters will always be first so I basically only play rpgs with companions. I also love romance but I tend to play only queer romances so I mainly play rpgs that allow me to play a wlw or mlm romance.
You can also check my series of useless recs and what to expect for different recs!
Let me know what kind of games you'd like to play and I can give some more personalized recs!
In general my absolute favorites are (divided in types)
ISOMETRIC (so a lot to read, and you look everything from above):
Pathfinder Kingmaker: amazing character, fav polyamorous romance with a lady elf and an orc guy, the story is okay and the mechanics are fine, but the characters really make it shine.
Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous: incredible customization of player character, great companions and romances, AMAZING story and villain. The mechanics and gameplay are like Kingmaker and not my favorite, but here they added turn based.
Pillars of Eternity (and sequel): amazing amazing story and very well created characters, the romances are not my favorite but I still love Tekehu!
Rogue Trader: this is set in a very bleak world where everyone is a villain so well, everyone is horrible. It is still quite a fun game if you do not mind the setting! And it has one of the most messed up romances ever (Marazhai)!
Shadowrun Hong Kong: I love the setting and the companion so much, but no romance.
Expediton Viking: Historical setting is not my favorite, but the game is still quite good and allows you do play as an usual companions rpg. It also has romanced!
DISCO ELYSIUM: I know I said I mainly play games with romances, and this has none, but everyone in the world should play Disco Elysium. One of the best isometric rpgs ever made.
Divinity Original Sin 2: If you liked BG3 maybe you will like this one too! The tone is much more humorous and absurdist, the story is quite good and the companions are amazing. The romances are also pretty good and as BG3 you can play as one of the companions.
ACTION RPG (is this even the name? Rpgs like Dragon Age and Baldur's Gate 3, so you can see the characters, and they speak)
Of course these need no introduction (but I put them in order of how much I love the companions and romances): Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Origins, Baldur's Gate 3, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda, Mass Effect trilogy.
Enderal: If you have Skyrim you can easily install Enderal for free, it is a mod but it is an indipendent game with its lore and characters. The only game that destroyed me and makes me cry when I think about it, so... play at your own risk. Amazing romances, incredible story.
The Technomancer: While the gameplay is a bit repetitive, the game is still pretty good! The characters are all interesting and the romance is kind of cute even if short.
OTHERS:
Sorcery!: This is an rpg that is basically the adaptation of a text game. It is absolutely perfect, one of my favorite games ever. It also has one of my favorite romances (Flanker)
Not exactly classic rpgs but still amazing: (I just wanted to recommend two of my favorite games that have roleplay elements):
Heaven's Vault
Dreamfall chapters (and the series in general)
56 notes · View notes
mahiiimahiiii · 3 months
Text
During the entirety of taking down the keth base on eos I COULDN'T FIND MR.BOYFAILURE JAAL AMA DARAV.
so it was just me and Cora and my son, the assault turret named Google.
Tumblr media
4 notes · View notes
askagamedev · 10 months
Note
Does sunk cost ever affect game dev? IE we put so many zots into a feature that isn't working, we may as well put in more to finish it?
Sunk cost affects us like it affects most humans. We're loss-averse creatures and our brains abhor feeling like we've wasted resources. The problem then becomes throwing "good" resources after bad and trying to "get over the hump" when it is really just digging our own graves even deeper.
Tumblr media
One famous example is Mass Effect Andromeda. ME:A had a major problem with sunk cost - the game was originally intended to feature a procedural planet generator that could create a near-infinite number of planets to explore. The dev team spent a tremendous amount of resources building out such a system and ended up scrapping it because it was just not good enough to generate the kind of quality content they knew their players would expect.
Tumblr media
The sunk cost problem is often a real issue because it is extraordinarily difficult to solve and extremely easy to feel like you're almost finished with them. The biggest problem with sunk cost is that the solution to the problem feels tantalizingly close if you only fix these issues, but this is why these problems are cursed. It's usually a conflict of core gameplay values that cause these, and pushing to solve the incongruity usually just creates new issues that must be solved.
[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]
Got a burning question you want answered?
Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter
Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr
Frequent Questions: The FAQ
54 notes · View notes
androidtrashfire · 2 months
Text
Shout out to both Mass Effect Andromeda and Outer Worlds for being the only two rpg games I know of that, when they say they have an easy/narrative mode, they fully mean it. I like combat mechanics in general, but I cannot overstate that I couldn't care less about the combat being "realistic" or proving that I can do it on harder modes. My biggest concern is feeling immersed in the story – and not feeling that visceral gamer rage of having been working at a fight for 10+ minutes (sometimes much longer) only to realize you're in over your head and better restart/reload/grind somewhere else before you can come back. It's great that harder modes are available for people who love strategizing or just love the challenge. But I wish more games with easy/narrative modes understood that some of us are just here for the story, and truly difficult battles aren't what a lot of us are looking for from those modes.
But anyway, like I said, shout out to those two games specifically. Mass Effect Andromeda and Outer Worlds both felt like they had challenging enough combat for easy modes. But in ~30 hours of gameplay, i only died twice in my first run-through of Outer Worlds. And one of those was just a timed event thing, not even combat. And in MEA I did die more often than that, but I made it the whole way my first playthrough without even upgrading or switching out gear.
Thanks to whoever out there worked on those dev teams and decided to make the games more fun and immersive for us story-focused players. I see it and appreciate it.
(Oh and also a fond thank you to whoever worked on all those other rpgs that decided to put those scary little icons, to show when an opponent is way outside your player-character's capabilities at the moment so you can avoid the fight before you start if you don't wanna waste like 20 minutes fucking around to find out. Next best thing!)
10 notes · View notes
dukeofriven · 8 months
Text
I think Mass Effect Andromeda suffers from the same problem as Bioshock Infinite, wherein its primary gameplay loop (shooting people in the face) is fundamentally at odds with the story (what we call ludonarrative dissonance.) It's less acute than in BI, but your inability to do anything other than shoot really undermines the game's rosy-eyed verbiage about exploration, science, discovery, and learning.
38 notes · View notes
felassan · 11 months
Text
Some more snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from an older Mark Darrah on Games YouTube video where he was livestreaming playing Dragon Age: Origins some months ago -
Chat asked why Marvel's Avengers and Fallout 76 are still being supported yet Anthem isn't. Mark replied, "Two reasons, but they're basically the same reason. EA is definitely not something that likes to support things that they consider to be failures. But the other reason, which is kind've the same thing, is that because BioWare has so much going on, there is a tendency, there's always a lot of pressure to move people onto the biggest need, and Anthem is not the biggest need. If BioWare was allowed to add fifty to sixty people that wouldn't be the case, well at least it wouldn't be in the short-term, but it isn't because EA is very cost resistant, resistant to spending costs, so it's really about corporate structure and culture than anything else. If you look at something like Battlefield or other games at EA that have failed and then recovered, it's usually because the studio that made them literally had nothing else going on so the only option was to let them fix it or to basically shut the studio down. In the case of BioWare, there's always something else they could be working on and as a result, when things don't go as well people tend to get moved onto those other things. That's essentially what happened with Mass Effect: Andromeda as well, though in the case of ME:A there was also pressure from Jade Raymond's studio to steal all those people, which is what ended up happening. So it's really about the approach to these things at a corporate level."
Chat asked "Can you make a video about development hell and how games with long production cycles like Dragon Age Origins avoid that?". Mark replied "The short answer to how do games avoid development hell long production cycles is basically that they don't. It's probably worth a video to talk about what happens in the middle of long projects, but the short answer is what often happens is that they spend some period of their time kind've going in a big circle because the time is so long that projects can get lost. DA:O added and took out multiplayer three different times. Anthem spent a ton of time not being able to admit that it was making Destiny. ME1 spent a ton of time trying to figure out what it wanted its combat to feel like".
Chat asked "What do you feel about the revival of the Griffons?". Mark said "I think it's going to be hard to pay griffons off in gameplay but I'm glad that they are back, it's an interesting addition".
Chat asked "Did you know about the Netflix show? If not what are your thoughts?" Mark replied "I did know about the Netflix show so I'm not going to comment on it at this time, I'll wait and see what it looks like. It's been in the works for a while" [note: this video is from before Absolution released]
On the reason why Dragon Age has so many multimedia things e.g. books, comics, compared to other IPs: "I mean Witcher has tons. BioWare actually has a dedicated business development group which looks for opportunities to make money with the IP".
[source]
He also talked more generally about DA:O and the franchise and things in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length -
[on the lyrium spirits/ghosts that provide the riddles during the Gauntlet] Chat asked "I've never been sure if these spirits are accurate memories of these people, or just how the masses believe them to be. I presume that's deliberate?". Mark said "Yes, definitely the accuracy of these memories is definitely up for debate and that is on purpose. Definitely DA:O, Dragon Age in general is filled with the unreliable narrator"
If you go the Gauntlet with no party members, the game gives you a bunch of indestructible ash wraiths instead. "It's super weird"
Chat asked "Is there an answer to the question of what the Ashes and this whole [thing] are really about, or is it left deliberately unknowable?". Mark said "It's left unknowable, I don't think that the Ashes is ever discussed. It doesn't really fit in with the magic of the rest of the setting does it?"
"Definitely there's a lot of 'Andraste taking over old elven temples' throughout the world"
The Queen of the Blackmarsh "was definitely combat design firing on all cylinders"
Chat commented "I noticed recently that many character models in BioWare games have a 'collar' on clothes even when it doesn't otherwise fit with what they're wearing. Is there a reason for that?". Mark said "The collar is probably to cover a neck seam. That's usually why there's something weird going on with the head"
Chat commented "I still don't know how I feel about the 'every class gets their version of lock pick' in DA:I". Mark replied "The reason for the every class gets their own lock pick thing in DA:I is, the problem is that what you usually end up with is rogues get a bunch of stuff to do outside combat and nobody else does, so the goal was to try to get a variety of activities for different classes. I don't know that it was super effective because I don't think that it was used widely enough, but that was the thinking. 'It's useful to have a mage along because a mage will let you get into these spots, it's useful to have a warrior along because they can lift heavy things and reach jars on high shelves'. But I think there's a lot of established game design around locked doors and locked chests, and I think the things in DA:I, people just weren't used to introducing them"
"I think the reason why you can't recruit anyone into the Wardens in DA:O is you don't know how to do that and Alistair doesn't either I guess. But there are a couple of opportunities in DA:O where you could sort've imagine, 'hey, we could use some more of us'." Chat commented that it's also a blood magic ritual and Mark said "It is totally, I mean it is fairly obviously blood magic, but yes it is not really ever [addressed]"
"Jade Empire had gay romances, that's probably the first mainstream game that had them"
Chat commented on the difficulty spikes in DA:O being a bit random at times. Mark said "There's only limited auto-balancing in DA:O so things are triggering on certain assumptions and those assumptions are definitely not always being met." Chat mentioned character movement speed and hardware engine speed at the time and Mark replied "Speed is most likely a limitation"
"I don't know if inventory limits are worth it. It's an interesting question. I get the idea but, I don't think everyone loves inventory management. It's been done better but I don't know that it's ever been done good. Especially for stuff like this where it's just, y'know, punishing you for not having sold stuff. I think having a weight limit on what you can equip, maybe, because then it's more you just can't carry around everything and the kitchen sink, but punishing me and my treasure-gathering for not having bought the extra backpack, kinda stupid, honestly. From Baldur's Gate 1 to modern games, inventory is pretty similar"
Chat asked "Were the Warden Colors (from DAII on) not decided on in DA:O? The mods prove the engine can handle the graphics". Mark replied "The art direction in DA:O is a little loose. So it's really about art direction in future games, it's not about technology, I mean you have to remember that this thing was supposed to run on a much crappier console, but yeah it's really more about art direction than anything else. DAII is where the art direction starts to establish a look for Dragon Age"
"Infinite healing is problematic. But yeah toxicity works, some other form of limiting works, but if you can heal infinitely then every single combat needs to be able to threaten you all on its own which is a problem"
Chat asked "How do Sha-Brytol and Golems function in terms of Titan connection? They're identical minus the rocks right? Instead of rocks Sha-Brytol are bound to armour?" Mark replied, "I don't know lore-wise the difference, I mean it's possible that golems are sort've a broken construction in comparison, the lost lore kinda thing"
Chat commented "I asked Mike [Laidlaw] about the golems and I got the impression that there was some sort of implementation difficulty that he couldn't easily explain". Mark said "I do think there was an ask for golems for DA:I from an art perspective and we didn't have the model, the time for the model, so that's part of it for sure". Chat mentioned that we fight golems in The Descent. Mark said "If so they were created after the fact, I don't really remember though"
Shale is small for a golem so they can walk through doors in gameplay. That's why they are the size they are
Chat said "I'd be curious to know how the global metrics break down, what the most popular race and class people choose is. I imagine BioWare has those numbers." Mark said, "I don't know if we have numbers on DA:O because our telemetry was so bad, but yeah, humans are usually the most popular. Dwarf is a pretty niche one but people who play dwarves pretty much always play dwarves. Elf is probably the second most popular. I think human is just sort've the choice that people who don't understand fantasy well, so it's also I would say often the one that's often chosen by people who are less engaged in the game. I'm not saying everyone who plays human is doing so because they don't want to engage n the system, not to deride that, but it includes that group as well". Chat commented, "The order was Human > Elf > Qunari > Dwarf. Dwarf was the least played race in DA:I". Mark replied "Yeah, I think that's probably right. Dwarf is sort've a 10 percent sort of thing. It's got a very strong group that play it any opportunity they can ever have but it doesn't get a lot of play otherwise"
[source]
(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)
25 notes · View notes
patricksteel · 1 year
Photo
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Mass Effect Andromedas Planets with a cool trippy Reashade Mod, and other games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWYP4_PEdSY
1 note · View note