- Joined
- Jun 27, 2014
I have zero interest in this game, and it's not for the reason you might think.
See, I was of the camp that didn't mind ME3 from a gameplay standpoint. Storyline wise, it was loaded with problems, but from a gaming perspective it held up at least satisfactorily, and I'm one of the idiots that actually stuck around playing the multiplayer with KidKitty. We had a lot of fun, or at least we did at first. Over time, however, the bugs and balance problems suddenly began to undercut everything else, and the completely broken store system meant the whole thing was little more than a cash-extraction scheme in a $60 retail game. Everyone fucking hated the store system, but we tolerated it because we had to and usually we could get what we wanted eventually.
That changed over time. Every single time Bioware updated, you braced for madness. One problem would be allegedly fixed, only to introduce three more. It became very apparent very quickly that the focus of the patches was on thwarting farming methodologies and fixing bugs that could be used for cash farming and never for actually fixing gameplay issues. They tried to stamp out the Missile Glitch about a dozen times over the course of the patch cycle, only for players to discover a new way to do it mere hours after the patch.
With so much focus on trying to nerf farming and punish the exploiters (who were only doing it because the Store system was ass, mind you) actual issues went unaddressed for patch after patch and the devs continued to make the game harder just to fuck with the players. By the time that the game hit its final patch, the game was not only vastly harder, but the store problems had been made worse because the item pools were now impossibly bloated and basically guaranteed you'd never get anything you wanted. Eventually, around 400 hours in, you'd have every single item except the ultra-rares and you couldn't guarantee those would ever drop except by spending literal millions at the casino unlocking shit.
So right out the gate, the Multiplayer in Andromeda, assuming it's there (and all evidence is that it is) wil be just as much of a fucking mess focused on cash-extraction above all else. But what about the single player?
Well, we know that none of the original devs from the good Mass Effect games (1-2) work for Bioware anymore. All of them have either fucked off for greener pastures or worked consultation and then left later. What this means is that the core team for Andromeda is a mix of newcomers and the ME3 team. As in, the same team behind the worst one, as well as one of, if not the most blundered endings to a franchise (its only real competition is the Ultima series with Ultima IX: Ascension). This is a team that, for lack of a kinder term, are inexperienced and willing to feed canon into a paper-shredder for the sake of making a story click, no matter how contrived it becomes in the process.
With these in mind, odds are extremely low that this game will have the staying power or quality it needs. Indeed, if past experience is any indication, quite the opposite is the case.
That changed over time. Every single time Bioware updated, you braced for madness. One problem would be allegedly fixed, only to introduce three more. It became very apparent very quickly that the focus of the patches was on thwarting farming methodologies and fixing bugs that could be used for cash farming and never for actually fixing gameplay issues. They tried to stamp out the Missile Glitch about a dozen times over the course of the patch cycle, only for players to discover a new way to do it mere hours after the patch.
With so much focus on trying to nerf farming and punish the exploiters (who were only doing it because the Store system was ass, mind you) actual issues went unaddressed for patch after patch and the devs continued to make the game harder just to fuck with the players. By the time that the game hit its final patch, the game was not only vastly harder, but the store problems had been made worse because the item pools were now impossibly bloated and basically guaranteed you'd never get anything you wanted. Eventually, around 400 hours in, you'd have every single item except the ultra-rares and you couldn't guarantee those would ever drop except by spending literal millions at the casino unlocking shit.
So right out the gate, the Multiplayer in Andromeda, assuming it's there (and all evidence is that it is) wil be just as much of a fucking mess focused on cash-extraction above all else. But what about the single player?
Well, we know that none of the original devs from the good Mass Effect games (1-2) work for Bioware anymore. All of them have either fucked off for greener pastures or worked consultation and then left later. What this means is that the core team for Andromeda is a mix of newcomers and the ME3 team. As in, the same team behind the worst one, as well as one of, if not the most blundered endings to a franchise (its only real competition is the Ultima series with Ultima IX: Ascension). This is a team that, for lack of a kinder term, are inexperienced and willing to feed canon into a paper-shredder for the sake of making a story click, no matter how contrived it becomes in the process.
With these in mind, odds are extremely low that this game will have the staying power or quality it needs. Indeed, if past experience is any indication, quite the opposite is the case.
was plot important as her quests affected the ending, as did Alistair's quests, and so on. ME2 got it right as well - you don't do the sidequests, you end up fucking yourself. 
