A Year Later, Whats the General Opinion on ME:A?

[mcsupersport]

Maybe I am sensitive to it, maybe I am just tired of hearing about people wanting equality or any of the other bs things running around the political sphere.  I do vote with my wallet on most things, but for Bioware, in the last 10 years plus, have been a buy and don't bother checking out much before, list inhabitant.  Bioware has generally speaking put out game of a high enough quality that I didn't bat a eye at pre-orders and NOT looking at stuff until after release.  They have messed up in the past, but generally speaking their games are still worth the money even when they mess them up....DA2 and MEA as examples gave me hundreds of hours playing time even though they aren't the best Bioware has offered and I even bought the DLC for DA2 when they released and not as a bundle later.  Maybe it is the reviewers I have listened too after the poostorm that MEA became due to the graphical choices and such on release. 

I personally just get tired of hearing the talking heads talk about how games "objectify" women and are sexist, and yet they have no issue with a scene such as trading armors, or when the big tough warrior is dumb as a stump and can only say..."Wraaa, KILL!!"  Somehow the warrior is OK, cause it doesn't harm men, yet a shot of Mirranda's butt is a travesty and hurts all women making them all be exploited.  I just hate the hypocrisy of certain people who say "this is bad, EXCEPT for when it goes the other way...." 

Personally I could easily see it as a combination in MEA, both a desire to attract more women gamers by not making it a Barbie Doll ship, and a total FUBAR of the art and graphical department.  It may only be 2% of the first and 98% of the latter and at this point it really doesn't matter.  Like I said though, it is fun to get others perceptions and insights to broaden horizons, mine in particular.

Personally I love strong female characters, and as a quirk of my nature, I love playing Female leads.  Tomb Raider reboot, Female Shepards, Female Skyrim characters, and Female Ryders, just to name a few.  If they offer a female option for a game, I am often choosing it and many times it is my first option to run through a game.  I love Samara, Cassandra, Miranda, later Liara, Cora, and generally speaking rebooted LCroft.   Whiny females in real life and in games often get on my last nerve, with me wanting to tell them to grow the heck up. 

LOL, I remember the hoopla over the side nudity in ME1, it brought the game to my attention, and when I realized it was Bioware who had made Jade Empire and other games I loved, I bought it as soon as I could on PC.  I still have to laugh over the idea that they thought only kids played video games, and since I was 36 at the time it was going down, I couldn't figure out why they should care what I played.  It had a mature rating on the box IIRC so, what was the issue, lol, man that helped their sales though....I also loved the easter egg in the Asteroid DLC that you could find that referred to that whole hoopla.

On ME series, I don't usually mod them, but I have modded extensively my Skyrim game, and while I went through a phase not too long after I started modding it of boob armor, and such, I fairly quickly grew tired of about 99% of it and removed it to a more classical and accurate version of armor for females.  I do like the characters to be good looking in general....that is why I play video games and watch movies, not to see reality most times but fantasy lives...but they don't have to be supersexoutcrazybusty mode, they just really should be better than what we got with tired faced MEA.

Last point of the night before bed...

One reason the SJW line is so easy to say and is in fact the low hanging fruit line, is from past games to now, it seems to be a trend in Bioware games, of the women getting less classically pretty while the men often trend towards the better looking.  Along with not having "objectifying women" scenes, while often having scenes that if women were involved would raise eyebrows.  This is most likely a desire to cater to more women gamers, and simply bringing in a balance to the games between women and men. It is only when you add the horrible graphics choices for character creator and female faces throughout MEA, that it becomes easy in the Political Correct world we are living in, to stand up and say it is SJW's fault and Bioware is "caving" to those "World Wrecking Fiends!!!""  DUNDUNDUUUUUUUU!!!!  I just hope for the future, Bioware goes back to putting the effort into their games that brought them to my "BUY NOW" list and all this goes away because they make such fantastic games. 

[EgoMania]

The SJW issue is often explained in too simplistic an approach and additionally there is the mixing of issues or groups that aren't necessarily in full agreement with each other.

Someone just mentioned the idea of objectifying women. Well, I have some gay people in my direct vicinity and they tell me that objectifying men is definitely a thing in the gay community and there is a lot of stuff going on with eating disorders and such as a consequence. I cannot judge this and I'll have to take their word for it, but I also hear from women that they look at guys also when it comes to their physique so there as soon as we're talking about sexual interest, it seems pretty common across all groups that there is some level of objectification going on.

So what that would mean to me is that for example gay or lesbian players would also like love interests that are good looking and fit as the term goes.

Then there is the issue of emphasizing those physical elements that are sexually attractive itself. But that's another element than LGBTQ issues. There are women that hate "perfect" looking characters for whatever reasons and they put that under the header of objectification and submissiveness alike. I'm not sure how others feel about Miranda for example but she's hardly a push over in my book and aside from her genetically engineered body, she actually did have character and struggles on a personal level so I don't think even there she was just about objectification.

I also found the concept of EDI walking around in Dr Coré's body an interesting idea that touched on topics about AI and robots in our society which is becoming a reality quickly. So I find it a shame that characters like that are so easily dismissed as negative.

There is of course a lot of diversity out there in the real world and I think it's difficult for a game maker to match that diversity and still create characters that appeal to a larger player base...they do want to sell games in the end. What i mean is that probably 70-80% of the players are straight and most of them probably want "hot" companions and well that also means human males or females as companions that fit that bill. However, there are also other players that need to be considered and BioWare has done that increasingly with Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

The problem, in my view, starts when all those groups are seen as equal size groups. There is of course a limited group of love interests and they have expanded beyond the actual companions to meet some of these interests. There is male, female, androgynous (for lack of a better term). There is straight and non straight. There is human and alien and even within the human group there is the colour issue that is also a factor. Then there is the issue on how good looking they are "allowed" to be.

That's a LOT of factors to try to manage and the problem is that you have a very limited group of npc characters to work with. And I think with all their best of intentions, they can't really win this. I think ME3 worked best because it had a lot of variations in there that appealed to the vast majority of the player base.

And in Andromeda they did create a lot of diversity but it didn't appeal to a lot of the player base because like it or not, most players and I should say people are straight and also I believe that most players straight or not, still like the idea of good-looking companions.

So it really is a great challenge for them to get the mix right and still have enough of an appeal for most players in there. I suspect (but we'll find out soon enough) that for example Anthem may not have love interests. Not even sure if we'll have companions at all. And part of the reason might be because it's such an impossible thing to get right.

I think it's fantastic that BioWare tries to recognize diversity where it can, but I also know that they struggle because it makes it extremely difficult to still keep the largest part of their player base happy when trying to cater to too many splinter wishes. It'd be nice if they could but I don't think that's realistic for them to do because there is that same reality that the majority of paying customers are straight males and you can't blame them for what they are either.

And where it's politically correct to take everybody into account, financially it's not possible. So unless they find some clever way to increase the diversity without alienating their majority of players, I fear that BioWare will likely avoid the whole thing but it garners them more complaints no matter what they do. It may not make me popular but I think there is wisdom in looking at the larger picture and not just at what I want and what offends me. As stated, I think ME3 had the best mix so far, since it also introduced male on male romance but with more recent games I think they missed the mark because they went too far in trying to please too many splinter groups at the same time. They do need to make money in the end and I for one believe that BioWare is a company that had already gone out of their way to  embrace diversity but that it shouldn't come at the cost of their ability to make money or they will no longer be able to make any games at all. 

So we'll see, but I'm very interested to see how they deal with love interests in Anthem because I have this feeling that may simply not be part of that game. Guess we may find out at EA Play in a few weeks.

But anyone who cries diversity and objectification should take care not to cry too easily and to realise that even though a minority voice should be heard, they shouldn't lose track of the bigger picture that means catering to other groups as well that are bigger and therefore are important as customers. I personally feel that BioWare either forgot or incorrectly hoped that it would work.

I just think that if there are only two female human love interests one of which is straight only and the other lesbian only then I think you missed the mark for the majority of players. And that's just one element. I saw a poll of around 1500 people on reddit that is quite interesting to see  https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/668o0r/mea_spoilers_mass_effect_andromeda_romance_surve...

Bottom line is that I support diversity but not when it's done disproportionally and I think that everybody who's had a look at it can see that in Andromeda it's disproportionate to what people are generally interested in. The interesting thing is that it probably wouldn't have taken much to rebalance it.

Oh well, it's just my views and people can agree or disagree but I think that BioWare will have to do something different in future games or it will remain an incessant stream of criticism of unhappy players and might lead to more people avoiding the whole romance thing...and then it might not be worth it to them to do it at all.

[mcsupersport]

@EgoMania

Well thought out, and I loved the thread you listed and the data contained once you opened the spoiler section at the top. 

There is a whole lot of data collected by that thread on love interests and who was popular.  I know EA/Bioware should have this kind of info from data collected in game but even still, I would hope they at least glance at this thread when they look into their next love interest for games.

One of my takes on the linked thread was how much a disappointment Liam was as a romance character considering his screen time and obvious push towards Ryder.  Liam's highest percentage of romancing among all groups, was 9.6% with Hetero and Bi-sexual females.  This group WAS the one they were looking to have him romance and he only managed to bring in a little under one in ten women.  This to me is a writing issue along with maybe an art issue as it showed Bioware didn't create a character people wanted to romance.   Since they did better with Peebee and Cora on the male side, I have to wonder if they either didn't consult enough with women in what they wanted or consulted the wrong ones(too agenda driven or biased) to get information to appeal to the majority(Or maybe he was written by a straight guy who has no clue what women actually want.....).  They did manage to get it right seemingly with Reyes romance for Hetero females, but he falls to Peebee for Bi-sexual females....which makes me wonder if hetero females "settled" for him or if he was that good an option for them.

I also wonder if Bioware in Anthem is going to have any romance....but then I also wonder how much story they are going to have in Anthem as well.  Story takes time, effort and for a game like they are leaking Anthem to be, continued effort in creating ongoing story.....and I don't know if they will bother and instead just make it more combat/exploration/event driven game.  I know it would drive me crazy to have to balance all the different groups and people to try and make them happy so they don't savage my games and still make most gamers happy enough to buy my current game and future games.  According to surveys, LGBTQ people survey out to be 3-5% of the population, and I don't know the % of them as gamers.  Female gamers  in games like ME and DA are usually around 30% of the gamer population BUT Bioware usually pulls a higher percentage(DAI pulled almost 50% women) and more women are gaming now than ever before.  Historically males were 90% plus, but that has changed over the years, and now depending on the type of game women can make anywhere between 5% and 70% of the games player base.  I don't think I could balance and keep happy the mix of gamers that Bioware draws....I would end up ticking a group or three off and causing bankruptcy if I was in charge of it.

I think the biggest issues come when agendas override the story content.  By this I mean, you design a game to cater to a certain agenda instead of making a great story and if it also furthers your agenda that is ok, but not the point.  I watched a video recently on some of this and they used Dorian from DAI as one example, and Steve Cortez from ME3 as the other.  They basically said, Steve Cortez was obviously written as a Gay love interest character that had a minimal story and Dorian was an interesting character, with a deep character who just happened to be gay.  The team of ME3 "needed" a gay character so they cobbled together Steve Cortez, while the DAI team wrote an interesting character and backstory for someone who just also happened to be gay.  The point in DAI was the story, and the point in ME3 was the character.   This idea is one I can fully understand and after looking at both, I can agree on.  I know I have often complained about doing thing "just because" in games and how it hurts the story....whether it is sex, sex scenes, violence, blood, or language used, don't do it unless it makes sense for the story.  In previous threads I had complained about the ME2,3 love scenes because Bioware seemed to want mature content, then chickened out in the end and threw underwear on, which didn't make sense in the story.  I said you should either show what you made, ie people in bed without underwear, people taking showers naked, OR fade to black and just imply what happened, because the half measure hurt the story.  They(BIoware) actually did both in MEA.....and people still complained, so lose lose for them.......and I really liked that they in the end chose to honor their story. 

[EgoMania]

Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me of Dorian. Even though I'm not generally interested in gay male love interests myself, I have to agree that he's probably the most interesting out of all the new companions in DA:I. Since I only played it through on a mage, he wasn't the ideal companion for me to bring along but yeah, now that you mention it, I do remember him being the only one that really had an interesting personality at least from my point of view.

I think I was also really disappointed that Leliana was there but no longer a companion and not romanceable either but anyways.

I dunno, I have a lot of criticism but really I just want to love these games and it's just disappointing when things get botched up in unnecessary ways. Also like you said it feels like they are more doing it for out of game purposes (agenda) than in game purposes.

Overall I have this feeling that Anthem will not really be in the line of Mass Effect so Andromeda is not exactly ending on a high note. I haven't given up hope on Mass Effect coming back at some point but in the meantime, yeh, there are a few things that could've made Andromeda a whole lot better and I guess I wished they hadn't gotten the game in the development hell it ended up in.

[stevenomes]

For me the game is okay but not great. Going from a game focused on building a team to save the galaxy to an open world exploration game was a big jump. The biggest issue for me was the overall lack of urgency and meaning for mostly all the quests. it mostly consists of fetch quests for NPC characters you meet briefly and there is no reason to care about them. while other mass effect games had some of this it was as much and I felt that the writing in those games was much better to justify it. Never did j have a sense of danger for any of my squadmates and there was no option to kill off any of them like in other ME games. boy did I want Liam dead and out of my squad. he was so annoying yet his skillset in the game was one of the best. the game goes for quantity over quality and bombards you with so many sidequests you lose interest in them quickly. the romances were mostly weak and only a few of the characters were memorable.

there were no really game changing decisions or things I really had to deliberate about before choosing (like picking between 2 squadmates lives, choosing to destroy a species or save it, or worrying about how my actions may make other squad members react). Nothing felt all that important and there wasn't really a way to play the type of Ryder you wanted. removal of paragon/renegade system meant all choices were milk toast and just meant only a few different voicelines. the combat though was really good and I enjoyed switching between different profiles based on the enemies I encountered. the sense of epicness was gone and I think it really hurt this game, along with the lack good sideplots. most of the loyalty missions were well done but took too long to get too. so many steps on many quests made them just loose focus and at some point I didnt care anymore about it and just wanted to get through the quest.

[voteDC]

I played Andromeda for 15 hours and simply couldn't force myself to play any longer. The only character I found in that time that I gave a damn about was Gil the engineer.

Combat was fun, is there anything jetpacks can't make fun? However the automatic cover system irritated the life out of me. Having no classes kind of ruined the point for me as well, I didn't have to think of different approaches to an enemy with my current powerset when I could just switch to a new more effective one.

What the hell did Bioware do to the menu system? It's like they looked at Mass Effect 1 and thought "right lads, let's make Andromeda's worse than this." At least ME1 was just a cluttered list, MEA had cluttered everything.

The Nomad was enjoyable to drive but kind of pointless as it carried no weaponry. Plus if your maps require a fast travel system then they are either too large or there isn't enough to do in them, in Andromeda's case it was both.

I wanted to love Andromeda but what I got was a game that reeked of people just saying "that'll do" about every little thing.

[EgoMania]

@voteDCI hear ya. I did last a lot longer but I pretty much agree with all your points. Once I figured out my sniper build, which ruled, I never felt like playing anything else to be honest so I just stuck with that. So I didn't get the replay value from trying different classes cause when I did my second playthrough and tried something else it was just easier to go back to sniping and sod the rest. 

It seems that Anthem will be the next evolution of ME combat. Instead of jump jets you get flight jets and you can also switch classes/javelins on your character. So not sure that game will hold my attention for that long. Probably will wait with buying it and see what people think first cause after Andromeda and seeing where Anthem is going I've become rather wary of what BioWare is doing.

[Jack1Tear]

In the same boat here. Loved the game series, and came into the new game unsure of what I'd find. UNTIL I played it, and found I loved it. Even got it twice for PC and PS4. Although... Some of the characters did look like clay models, but put against the beautiful landscapes and design of the aliens and ships. I can't really argue.

[MaestroDad]

And right there, you nailed it! Bioware obviously put all of their major resources and muscle on Anthem. ME Andromeda played to me like a game with a lot of promise. But completely under performed because the devs were forced to cut too many corners. Based on what I have seen of Anthem so far, That game could suffer a similar fate. Because it doesn't seem to have an anchor story that will generate interest in sequels. Maybe Anthem should have been ME-A Anthem. And connected back to exploration and settling of a new Galaxy. IMO ME-A drifted all over the place because Bioware was drifting all over the place. There were many things I liked about ME-A, that have already been stated by others. I was disappointed by too much repetition in combat and discovery. A strong sequel could easily fix this franchise. Just like ME2 improved ME1. 

[fudgietroll]

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@TeahouseFox wrote:

Liam: Not my cuppa tea, but different and funny. I didn't have too much of a problem with him until his loyalty mission. The security officer engaged in a massive breach of security. In my book that made him reckless and irresponsible. Really couldn't look at him as anything else after that. The mission itself was funny though.

Drack: What's wrong with him? He's wise as krogan go, and funny. I enjoyed listening to him banter with Vetra. Unless you wanna interpret old as bad and only SJWs would like crusty old people. Maybe don't watch Logan's Run.  I wonder why that was never remade... they remade just about everything else from the 70's.

Hark: took me a good five minutes to even remember who that was, but if hyper aggression brought the krogan to the brink of annihilation multiple times, a less aggressive one by definition will be the future of their people.

Alec: I'm more of the opinion that Ryder Sr. died because he was an N7 - symbolically killed off by the writers in the beginning of a new series to make way for the new protagonist. No more N7 for you, fans! Wish they hadn't done that. I'd have had more fun playing a DadRyder or MomRyder I think.

Lexi: It's hard to think of Lexi as pretty since the devs made her appearance so completely interchangeable. Looks like every other asari except Peebee. She's a bit awkward, but I like her.

Kesh: I like her. There was a severe shortage of krogan females, or any krogans portrayed as smart in the series. 

Sloan: Arrogant, tyrannical, evil/brutal weasel. I'm told that in the books, her character's motivations make her a lot more sympathetic, but I will probably never read them and would space her too, given the option. She reminds me of Aria, and she needed spacing a few games ago. 

Reyes: Dishonest, self-serving untrustworthy weasel someone thought would be charming. And, stuck me with the bill. Still, I think he's likely to be better for Kadara in power. Just don't trust him not to shoot you in the head if it serves his purpose.

Kandros: Wish we could take him on the mission squads, but we only hear him in MP. When it's not bugged out.

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Oh, Teahouse, you can't go dissing Aria, she's awesome, if grouchy at times. She's even on the Benefactor list.

Anyway, you should probably read Nexus Uprising. Good story, although it took me about 3 pages to figure out that Sloane was always meant to be a patsy, and another 3 to seriously question what sort of organization has the second in command accountant outrank the chiefs of security, engineering, colonial development, and possibly maintenance. All I can figure is that some kind of disaster was going to happen, Scourge or no Scourge, thanks Benefactor (probably). But if you like a good Sloane vs Reyes debate there is a nice thread you should dig into.

As I recall, you only meet 3 female Krogan in the series, and they're all pretty good, even Morda, as long as you don't have to deal with her in person (making the Krogan learn new mating rituals by watching rom-coms)

Liam wasn't my favorite character, but he’s nice enough. In a lot of ways he’s sort of another Sloane, idealistic, impulsive, has an iffy background, and perfectly placed to take the blame. That could easily be the start of the next MEA, disaster on the Tempest, or the Nexus, or Meridian, or all of the above, Pathfinder Rider and some of the other crew missing, and Liam left holding the bag.

Hark seems almost seems to be based on Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon, which goes a long way to explaining so much.

Lexi, all I can say is “* YOU, DOCTOR-PATIENT ETHICS!”

And Alec, the master of wheels within wheels ad infinitum, who we can’t play because we would then have to know what is in all those wheels, plus he may still be alive.

Of course, if MEA actually gets sequels it may change our view of the character. For instance, ME1 Ashley was one of my favorite characters in the game, while ME3 Ashley was basically her evil clone, except the only evil clone we’ve met in the series is much more enjoyable.

I overall liked the game, although I face a few of the same issues people have brought up: the unfinished stories, dialog system that does nothing, and the general feel that your actions don't have much effect. That's one of the things I liked about DAI, as you take territory/bases you occupy it and even get missions from some of your occupied positions.