Oh yeah, I just did that vault on Elaaden a couple days ago. Was way harder than it had any right to be, considering every one up to that point in the game had been a joke. Probably took me 20 minutes as well.

As for some rumors I've seen floating around for DLC:

Spoiler

Supposedly there's a Quarian ark out there somewhere that has them and a bunch of the lesser races like Volus and Elkor on it.

As I near the end of the game, I've come to realize what the game is really lacking, and that is a sense of actual exploration. We come to this new galaxy, but all the exiles have already done everything before the player. They met the Angaran before us, and all the planets we go to (minus the very first one on Habitat 7) are already inhabited in some form or another. It just feels like it kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a game like this. The only thing we really do is use Plot Device to interact with the Remnant and do everyone elses minor chores.

 

Basically this is my biggest issue with it. The game is good...but ultimately hollow.

 

You definitely aren't wrong.

Spoiler

The only place we really discover (besides the vaults) is the remnant planet at the end that becomes the new Human World, and we don't even get to explore that! It better come up in a dlc because it seems like such a good opportunity.

 

Finished the game today.

Spoiler

Not sure how I feel about the final mission. Was kind of anticlimatic, but I did like seeing all the various factions I helped throughout the game come back and do something. Not really sure the actual impact of those choices, but it was cool. I guess the scene after the credits just reinforces the idea that the Archon wasn't the leader of the Kett, which I guess we sort of learned earlier when we boarded the Archon's ship to steal the map.

ended up at 89% when it loaded after the mission to do the post-epilogue stuff. There are a bunch of "additional tasks" that I never managed to complete. Scouring every bandit camp for datapads, or scanning angaran bodies or whatever, that's kind of tedious especially when the quest tracker doesn't actually track then. I was also pretty thorough in my exploration, but somehow I managed to not complete 9 of those tasks. Also, two quests bugged on me "dissension in the ranks" won't trigger on Eos for whatever reason, and "task: earn your badge" bugged out after I turned it in, and won't disappear from the quest log. Also never did Liam's personal quest. I never even got it for whatever reason. I never used him on a mission, then again, I never used Vetra either yet still got her mission.

Anyways, final thoughts. I still feel like the biggest missed opportunity is the actual lack of exploration. Almost without exception, every single system you go to is already known, whether it's like an abandoned Angaran mining outpost, or a Collective satellite stolen from the Nexus. It's kind of unbelievable how much the exiles managed to do in 14 months, and it really took way a lot of potential enjoyably from me.

Also, what about other races? We had one "good" race, one "neutral" race (which created the good race) and then one "bad" race, which seems to be a conglomeration of other races that they've exalted or whatever. I would loved to have seen any hints of other civs at all. Seems like they've just gone with the idea that the kett have already gotten to them all, but that feels like a bit of a cop-out.

So, overall, I feel the writing was weak to average, while the gameplay was good to great. The characters themselves were hit or miss. Using Natalie Dormer as a random PC felt like a pretty big waste, especially since the character was kind of boring. I was more excited when I realized Suvi was voiced by the same person who did Cait in FO4. But I liked some of the interactions between the crew, like with Drack and Peebee.

Like, even the premise of the game itself felt kind of weak. I could forgive that, since the idea of exploring a whole new galaxy was interesting, but we didn't get a chance to do that. So, then I look at the premise. Well, I guess there's two of them. There's the reason that the Initiative exists, which is to build arks to survive the Reapers (bets on the Benefactor being the Illusive Man? Would he have been able to put aside his dislike of other races if working together meant the survival of the human race? Or maybe it's the shadow broker/Liara, depending on the timeline) The second premise is the reason that individual people opted to leave the Milky Way and travel to a new galaxy. There's some notion that there's nothing left interesting in the Milky Way, because everything that can be done has already been done, no new places to see.

But I call bullshit on that. If you look at the time line, it's been 35 years. 35 years from humans getting FTL to people decide that the Milky Way is too small. There's 100 billion star systems in the Milky Way, maybe more. I find it highly unlikely that every corner of the Milky Way has been explored. Hell, even more than a few percent is highly unlikely. Sure, remote probes and scans can cover large portions, but they can only do so much - we see what scans versus actually being there can be two entirely different things when we actually get to Andromeda and nothing is what is should be.

Also, in the first trilogy, we see proof of unexplored systems. We go to systems where no one has ever been. Sometimes we found that there was an ancient civilization that lived there 120,000 years ago, long before the Promethans, and that's the sort of thing that is interesting, and the sort of thing I would have loved to have seen in Andromeda. I think I may remember exactly one planet where something like that may have been the case.

So, then I ask myself, why come to Andromeda, when there's actually a ton to explore back in the Milky Way. There's a ton of Mass Effect relays that aren't active, and then there's millions of systems in the darkspace between the Relays. Might take weeks or months, even years to get to them, but that's not the 600 years it took to get to Andromeda.

I just don't know how I feel about the game. On one hand, I actually finished it, which means I enjoyed it enough (or perhaps I just really wanted to get to the fem!ryder romance scene). I usually get bored of most games these days before I manage finish it, so that's a plus. And it was fun, since I can look past bad voice acting and visuals. The MP isn't terrible either. But, I feel like most areas is lacking, and can definitely be improved. I will probably buy DLC to see what happens to the quarian ark, if that's what's coming.

 

That sounds like a bug, and that's unfortunate. Everyone who plays the game should do Liam's mission. It's probably my favorite of the loyalty missions. The setting and how it changes through the mission is awesome, the concept is great, and the writing's a ton of fun, with some real zing lines and truly hilarious moments. It doesn't take itself entirely seriously as well, which really makes it a blast to play.

It's got the same kind of vibe/tone as several of the missions from the Citadel DLC for ME3, and for much of the same reasons I liked that, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Really recommend going back and trying to do it, if you can.

 

Just as a bit of a minor thing.

Spoiler

There are actually 4 new races in the game. Though 1 is mega low key and only gets mentioned in computer terminals and refereed to not by name. Liam calls them real motherfuckers since they created the Scourge and the Scourge is essentially a space minefield. They are called the Jehln and either kicked the Jaardan out of the cluster or they completely wiped the Jaardan out 600 years before the game started and they are still alive and kicking somewhere.
If you listen to the computer terminals at the end, it sounds like the Quarian ark is in deep shit, so deep that they don't want anyone to go near them iirc.
I suspect that is the Jehln.

 

Spoiler

So the whole "everyone's already been there and done that" thing is Peebee's point of view. In the milky way, even though only like 1% has been explored, there really isn't a surplus of scientific discovery to be made. Discovering new planets? Only between relays, which takes a LOT of time to get to and won't yield anything more interesting than simple life forms, instead of actual people. If there were people to be encountered, they would be on a planet with a mass relay within the solar system. Since all the relays within Citadel space have seen space traffic of some kind, I think it's safe to assume that all the sentient races within Citadel space have been discovered.

And since the Council doesn't allow inactive relays to be activated and traveled through, there's no way to discover more of the milky way, meet new races, etc.

I believe Peebee also stated somewhere that basically all the scientific studies to be done on the races within Citadel space had basically already been done, at least by somebody, that there wasn't anything new to discover.

In Andromeda there are no laws that prohibit exploration, and a decent chance of meeting a space faring people (since there are multiple in the milky way). With that comes new technology, new species (like Kaerkyn or Eirochs for example) and all that fun stuff. It gives her the chance to be the first to discover new and truly incredible, scientifically mind blowing things that would have otherwise been impossible.

I believe it's stated on the intercom on the Nexus once or twice that Peebee is considered a renowned scientist for her work on the Remnant. In Andromeda, she wouldn't have made any discoveries like that that would have her become well known like she is in Andromeda.

Basically the whole "Everything's been done" thing wasn't a reason for the Initiative's creation, it was one Asari's reason for going. And the Initiative wasn't created to escape the Reapers, it was created to explore Andromeda. The Benefactor sort of latched on when Jien Garson started running out of money, and increased the scale of the Initiative for the sake of escaping. But it wasn't created for that purpose.

Tons of people's reasons for leaving the Milky Way were for escaping their past or making a better future for themselves, not just to "explore what hasn't been explored." We don't need to 100% our galaxy just to move on to the next one. That seems a bit ridiculous.

Also Liara probably isn't the benefactor since I doubt she would have ordered the assassination of Jien Garson, and also since she won't be a character in the next game (if there is one). I think it's safe to assume the benefactor traveled to Andromeda with the Initiative, otherwise Garson probably wouldn't have been killed.

 

Spoiler

By the time the Arks leave, Liara has been the Shadow Broker for maybe a few months, tops. The Benefactor is implied to have been involved for a lot longer, at least a year if not more (it's a bit vague on bow far the Initiative is from completion when they get involved, but if they can wrap it up in a couple of months then that's a bit underwhelming). It could have been Liara in her 'normal' information broker phase, but would she have been OK with the AI development at that stage?

 

Honestly, linearity is an undervalued asset in games these days. I know open worlds sell best and all, but it's no co-incidence that Mass Effect 2 - by far the best of the trilogy - was essentially a corridor shooter.

 

It's quantity over quality. I gave up on side quests about halfway through. They weren't interesting and were little more than fetch quests you'd see in an mmo.

I miss the old Bioware.

They haven't put out a great game since Mass Effect 2. ME 3 and Inquisition were good, but by no means great.

 

I like the driving, honestly. It makes the game feel much more expansive and real than it actually is.

As a general rule, I agree on sandbox bullshit, and as a direct result, I barely touched the tasks, only doing them if I happened to run across them while doing something else, but the game as a whole would be lessened without the planets to drive around on I feel.

 

On that Elaaden stuff, Can you not use the cheat bypass items on that vault puzzle?

 

Nope. It's the one chest in the game it won't work on, apparently - by design, to it's obviously supposed to be a real challenge. It just goes too far.

 

I never really understood the complaints about those puzzles. Sudoku really isn't that hard; it's just a matter of logic and process of elimination. Figure out what can't go somewhere and you're basically done, and it gets easier the further in you get.

I get the complaints that it breaks the flow rather harshly, that's definitely something I'd agree with, but it wasn't particularly challenging. It barely took ten minutes for me, and a good third or so of that was just wrestling with the clunky-as-balls interface.

Then again, my perceptions may be a little skewed, since I'm the kinda guy that plays Sudoku for fun when I'm on the train or whatever.

 

It's much harder than sudoku because you aren't familiar with the symbols. They blend together quite a bit.

I would assign values to them. Sometimes calling them J/L/A/V based on appearance, or giving them a numeric value based on the number of dots present in the heiroglyph. That really helped me get through solutions.

Jon are you using the fast travel option?

 

Question, in multiplayer are the big gear buffs limited time only in the store or are they just being slowly introduced one at a time? I bought the war amp and juggernaut shield right when they came out, but never got the ammo gear and I don't see it there anymore.

 

I googled the correct sequences...

 

Big multi-player patch... Kett powered down a bit, power damage and combo damage buffed big time, Vanquisher sniper nerfed and a bunch of ARs buffed finally.

MP notes:

http://blog.bioware.com/2017/05/09/patch-1-06-combat-balance-updates/

SP notes:

http://blog.bioware.com/2017/05/09/mass-effect-andromeda-patch-1-06-notes/