Dear Makers of Mass Effect Andromeda

[Nightmare8-8Imp]

Dear Makers of Mass Effect Andromeda,

I'm playing the game on insanity and find that the game is so hard as to being unfair on two planets Eos and Voeld. This is coming from someone who has beaten Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3 on insanity as a Vanguard. I love the Vanguard class but as of now it is all but impossible to play as a Vanguard. Instead I am more or less being forced to play as an Infiltrator.

The reason for this is because all enemy groups target the player all but ignoring squad members this includes the wild life. On top of squad members not reacting fast enough with purpose or often at all. Meaning the enemy will walk right past the squad members who will make no move to stop them sometimes even when ordered too.

This is best experienced for yourself so you can see what I'm talking about. So start as I did put the game on insanity, pick operator as your training (I wanted a Vanguard with a cloak), then pick pull, and throw as your skills. I was going to pick charge but after the ambush on the starting planet where everyone was attacking me. I chose to go with pull and throw with assault rifle instead of shotgun. With this setup I was able to get through Eos and Voeld but every battle was hell. After Voeld I respected to Infiltrator, Cloak, Energy Drain, Incinerate, and sniper rifle. This made the game a little easier but when I got to Havarl the game took a 180 and became easy, the same with Kadara, Elaaden, and all the loyalty missions (haven't finished the game yet still working on it). The game started for the first time to be enjoyable it was like playing the old Mass Effect games. Then I went back to Voeld and the game became hell again the same with Eos.

A few ways to improve this is.

1. Have the enemy AI equally target the entire party.
2. Have squad members use cover, repositioning when necessary, and call out enemy positions. A good example of this is during the battle with the Turians on Havarl.
3. Allow squad members to revive the player and each other. This is a no brainer often I am behind cover taking on multiple enemies and unable to get to a fallen squad member with my other squad member just standing around doing nothing.
4. Make it so the wild life is neutral so they will attack anyone not just the player and let each faction fight each other as well as the player. Often I will come upon a fight between the wildlife, Kett, and Remnant. They will always stop fighting each other to attack me.
5. I don't know if this is possible but I would like to be able to decide when my squad members use their ability primers and detonators.

It will be great if your able to fix these issues the game will be more enjoyable. I want to play through the game on insanity as a Vanguard without instantly dying after each charge. This would have been fixed long ago if you had one or several of your testers play through the game on insanity using different skill combos.

[Bagheera22 · Accepted solution]

First of all the developers know that the enemy ai targets first and foremost the main player.   Also the game has not being designed to be played on insanity since the main player unfairly and unjustly only has a base shield count of 250 and the companions are just not competent and fast enough on that kind of difficulty.   Squad members beeing able to revive the player would be usefull.   More usefull would be if the main player would be on par with the stats of the companions by starting with a shield count of 500.    Thus one would be able to withstand a bit more punishment when caught in the crossfire and would make the game more enjoyable on higher difficulties.   I would recomend this even for multiplayer!

[VladVonCastein]

Never persoanally used this but saw other options like a remnant shotgun with the correct aug(think its plasma charge and shield oscillator that could regen your shields everytime you fire.  Full video here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alt5HQACBaQ

My issue is that at level 98 my guns and armor stagnate at X and cant go beyond that, my powers max out at 6 bars and doesnt improve, but the enemies gets tougher.  During my first playthrough I was desperately looking for materials to craft my first blackwidow I, once I got it, it killed the Kett Chosen with 1 shot, now it takes around 3 shots on my blackwidow X.  Personally preferred the infiltrator class and using vanguard as secondary.  Would be great if they brought back the medigel system lol.

[Nightmare8-8Imp]

The game on insanity is not hard it is unfair meaning the enemy iqnores the squad members and targets the player even while the player is cloaked in some cases. The strange thing is these bs battles only happen on Eos and Voeld all the other planets are great. Having the enemy only target the player makes many of the skills useless. Your charge regains your shields, and a shotgun that gains shields with each kill is useless if you don't have time to check for targets because you're running around looking for a place where you're not surrounded. Meaning you're always on the defensive making Vanguard builds useless. Since Infiltrator can cloak and enemies only see through cloak 45% of the time its your best option.
 
If I didn't have cloak there is no way I would have gotten past Eos. Which is not the point of Mass Effect Andromeda's choose different skills idea. When you aim for a headshot all enemy targets the player. Using charge will get you killed unless your fighting those rare battles where the enemy is spread thin. The best way is to charge, shotgun, cloak, repeat, but charge is a detonator not a primer and cloak is neither, and ammo type is not reliable so you don't get combo bonus damage.  If however they made charge both a primer and detonator and ammo types both a primer and detonator and make the ammo act like it did in Mass Effect 2 you would have the perfect stealth Vanguard build. Get this you start out using your sniper to pick off several snipers in the back until only one remains then charge, shotgun repeat until the map is clear cloaking when necessary. 
 
Oh, yes medigel would be a lifesaver and adding a Specter like ability to revive both squad members at the same time. I hope these devs understand that we are not looking for a nurf we just want a challenge without the bs.
 
 

[irmcghee]

You're playing on Insanity which is supposed to be near impossible going by pre-release info, with a build made to jump into the middle of mobs no less. What's wrong with turning the difficulty down a notch if it's not fun for you at that level ?

BTW you've got team healing via the Tech skills support trees at the bottom as well. Regeneration boosts mostly, which when combined with teammate regen skills should keep your team mostly intact.

[Nightmare8-8Imp]

"You're playing on Insanity which is supposed to be near impossible going by pre-release info"

Insanity should be the ultimate challenge where you need to use all your skills to their max to get through it. However you should not be hindered because your squad members cannot pull their own weight. In the other Mass Effect games the squad members were great other then a few AI glitches here and there so if you failed to pass a point it was your fault not the games. Here its the games fault and that's not how it should be.

"With a build made to jump into the middle of mobs no less"

You have no idea how to play a Vanguard on insanity.  Do you not understand that Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3 were great on insanity as a Vanguard.  Yet, Mass Effect Andromeda is bs?  Think about that for a second.  What changed?  1.  You no longer decide when and how your squad members use their abilities.  2.  You can no longer heal yourself or your squad members in combat and must revive them one at a time. 3.  The enemy AI is great but your squad member AI is terrible.

"What's wrong with turning the difficulty down a notch if it's not fun for you at that level?"

No, turning the difficulty down would not be fun. Do you understand I nearly completed this entire game on insanity even with all the unfair battles and useless squad members and the game is getting easier the closer I get to the end. And you think turning the difficulty down will make things better? No at this point it will only make the game boring. Though it is true that I am unable to play the game as I would like because of the enemy attacking the player forces me to run around dashing from cover to cover staying there only long enough to get a headshot then dashing away. Meaning I'm playing my Infiltrator as I would a Vanguard only without the charge and shotgun.

[Nightmare8-8Imp]

 
"You're playing on Insanity which is supposed to be near impossible going by pre-release info"
 
Insanity should be the ultimate challenge where you need to use all your skills to their max to get through it. However you should not be hindered because your squad members cannot pull their own weight. In the other Mass Effect games the squad members were great other then a few AI glitches here and there so if you failed to pass a point it was your fault not the games. Here its the games fault and that's not how it should be.
 
 
"With a build made to jump into the middle of mobs no less"
 
You have no idea how to play a Vanguard on insanity.  Do you not understand that Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3 were great on insanity as a Vanguard.  Yet, Mass Effect Andromeda is bs?  Think about that for a second.  What changed?  1.  You no longer decide when and how your squad members use their abilities.  2.  You can no longer heal yourself or your squad members in combat and must revive them one at a time. 3.  The enemy AI is great but your squad member AI is terrible.
 
 
"What's wrong with turning the difficulty down a notch if it's not fun for you at that level?"
 
No, turning the difficulty down would not be fun. Do you understand I nearly completed this entire game on insanity even with all the unfair battles and useless squad members and the game is getting easier the closer I get to the end. And you think turning the difficulty down will make things better? No at this point it will only make the game boring. Though it is true that I am unable to play the game as I would like because of the enemy attacking the player forces me to run around dashing from cover to cover staying there only long enough to get a headshot then dashing away. Meaning I'm playing my Infiltrator as I would a Vanguard only without the charge and shotgun.

"BTW you've got team healing via the Tech skills support trees at the bottom as well. Regeneration boosts mostly, which when combined with teammate regen skills should keep your team mostly intact."

My squad members each have 1000 health, and 1000 shield and they die within seconds of each other often 10 seconds into every battle.  My player character has 500 health and only 250 shield it only takes one hit to kill me and I have defeated all the bosses other then the last one since I'm still running around completing fetch quests so I haven't gotten that mission yet.  Tech healing skills are useless on insanity and regeneration is pointless since one hit and your dead.

[Shotokan7]

I thought I was the only one having that problem!  I am playing as a Biotic and was doing very well until EOS and the 2nd Remnant tower and the Observers hit me.  My team doesn't last 2 seconds!  Each and every time the Observers hone in an kill me!  When I play it again I will only boost my Biotic throw and see if that works.  But yeah I had to decrease the difficulty, I also played all 3 Mass effect games on insanity with no problem, and very class type.

[Nightmare8-8Imp]

Sadly biotic skills are nearly useless on insanity in Mass Effect Andromeda.  At skill level 6 you can do some major damage with the biotic skills that damage shields but unless you drop the shields with one hit the skill is useless the main reason for this is that you can't control your squad members abilities. If you could then biotics would be awesome. You'd simply have your squad members destoy the shields then biotic combo, rinse and repeat. So you have to invest in tech skills and do everything yourself. Go infiltrator, cloak, energy drain, incinerate, sniper rifle, have these skills, and augs focused on removing shields. Armor is not a problem only the shields.

Observers rarely miss and you can't stay in that beam for more then 4 to 6 seconds. Biotic pulls and throws don't last very long on Obervers they shake that stuff off quick. Take them out with energy drain, then incinerate, then shoot them with your sniper rifle, then cloak or dash for cover. The only planets that I have trouble on is Eos and Voeld no other planets have been a problem.

The only Remnant I have trouble with is the Oververs and Destroyers both until their shields drop then they are easy kills.

The only Kett that's a problem is the Anointed because they walk past my squad members who do nothing about it and the Destined because once they cloak the squad members are not smart enough to aim and shoot at the red redicle.

[SirBarzalot]

@VladVonCastein What the heck. xD Was that just one playthrough or NG+ already?

@Nightmare8-8Imp Well, well

First off that statement "it only takes one hit to kill me" is just plain wrong, or at least an exaggeration. This is not even a subjective matter.

Each one of the three skill trees has some kind of passive defensive option, which are all great. I have combat fitness maxed out and this 100 dmg resistance in cover helps a TON. And I love it when skills have impact. Barrier and team support are just as good. The latter even helps your mates. Health & shield restoration are maybe not the first stats one likes to take, but they're by far not as bad as you think, because they decrease the amount of time being a sitting duck while enemies can flank you. Overall cover is way more unreliable than in the previous games (or just ME3 for that matter actually, before you could just camp all day) and I'd strongly advise to abuse the jump jet to fullest extent, so you can hop from cover to cover and flank separated enemies yourself. High risk, high reward. Of course it's not easy, but given how much of a cakewalk ME2 and ME3 were, Andromeda actually comes a lot closer to the literal meaning of the word "insanity". Be quick or be dead.

Enemies also don't focus you like you describe. If that were the case, then how do your squad mates die? ^^

I'd also like more control for that matter, but they make up for it a bit by having much stronger in the first place. Drack with blood rage and his passives is a real monster, as is Vetra with turbocharge and power armor. Count in Liam and you actually have three sick tanks to choose from. Just make sure to crank up their defenses asap. Haven't tinkered much around with the others tho, besides Jaal maybe. The trick is to kill fast and be mobile as hell, the more time - or rather seconds - you spend sitting around, the better your enemy can set up, which is a neat mechanic motivating that very fast pace.

Architects and those flying kett priests are the only exceptions I've seen so far. Those really are some tanky * ... Oh, and that Remnant vault on Eos, where you have to wait for the death cloud to arrive, just to be welcomed by observers at the entrance. But this one was outstanding and I admit, this is hardly any doable without charge, cloak or sentinel armor. Haven't experienced anything like that afterwards.

I just discovered for me, that your build needs to be able to reliably kill anointed ones, against which evading in the free field is quite deadly thanks to their gatling. Every other basic enemy can be easily outmaneuvered most of the time. Also, hovering augments in general and the double mod extension and three of those 5% extra tech/combat/biotic damage or cd reduction on weapons is quite the go-to for crafting, if you ask me. And there's so much reliable crowd control (overload, burn, freeze, biotics) or shielding abilities (backlash, charge, energy drain) in this game, that basic encounters become harmless cannon fodder anyways ...

Btw, there are some insanity vanguards on youtube already and they perform pretty well on Eos. I'm just playing classic infiltrator, but I did that without much thinking beforehand and haven't tried much else except sometimes switching into engineer with turret. The cloaking mechanic itself always was and is highly abusive, but just as much fun and unique. As the game gets a bit easier the more points and passives I have, I'm planning to mix in some fancy biotics and am quite sure, it'll work out nicely. Mixing skill trees in the beginning is generally a bad idea, because this would kinda require you to invest in more than one offensive passive besides weaponry. I'd say, there are a whole lot of options actually, just not every combination is viable, especially at the start. For example, priming something with energy drain (rank 5 evo I think) and following up with any detonator is a nice way of striping away shields instead of going for the classic overload. I imagine annihilation/singularity + detonator with some extra combo damage could work similarly.

Part of the reason for this game difficulty is, that we can't begin with "new game+" or import a character from a previous game. Depending on starting level, one could probably do more experimental stuff.

In the trilogy, having these bonuses right away helped out a lot on insanity and it will be no different here. ME 2 was just as unforgiving when starting off as vanguard or caster without bonuses and even with them, Omega still was a bit of a pain.

The combat appears even more unforgiving in Andromeda, because it is so fast paced. Camping, wasting cooldown time, missing shots, evading in the wrong direction or hovering blindly can indeed kill you, but for me that's what insanity is supposed to represent.

The real thing I'd consider unfair is the saving system and having no checkpoints or manual save options when fighting bosses or kett bases. That would rather be my top priority.

[Nightmare8-8Imp]

"Well, well
 
First off that statement "it only takes one hit to kill me" is just plain wrong, or at least an exaggeration. This is not even a subjective matter."

Since I can't post a video you'll have to load the game up yourself. One thing the game does is gets you really good at dashing since every failed dash could be your last. There are times where my squad members are standing next too me and I move out of the way they take the hit die and I'm near death because I was at the edge of the attack. If I could post a video you'd see but just take a few minutes out of your day and load up the game on insanity and then stick your head out in the open. Depending on what attacks you it could be as many and two hits. First hit drops the shields second hit kills you but with the other enemy its a one hit kill.

"Each one of the three skill trees has some kind of passive defensive option, which are all great. I have combat fitness maxed out and this 100 dmg resistance in cover helps a TON. And I love it when skills have impact. Barrier and team support are just as good. The latter even helps your mates. Health & shield restoration are maybe not the first stats one likes to take, but they're by far not as bad as you think, because they decrease the amount of time being a sitting duck while enemies can flank you. Overall cover is way more unreliable than in the previous games (or just ME3 for that matter actually, before you could just camp all day) and I'd strongly advise to abuse the jump jet to fullest extent, so you can hop from cover to cover and flank separated enemies yourself. High risk, high reward. Of course it's not easy, but given how much of a cakewalk ME2 and ME3 were, Andromeda actually comes a lot closer to the literal meaning of the word "insanity". Be quick or be dead. "

Dude, how many skills do you have on Eos when you start? I didn't have enough skills for my abilities and passive defensive skills so use your brain. You are just starting the game you have a limited number of skills where do you put them? From your post I can tell you never played on insanity if you did you would understand what I'm talking barrier does no work because they walk around it the same goes with cover so that 100 dmg in cover will only last you a few seconds until they mass around you. The play style you are talking about only happen after Eos and Voeld where the game seems to be better programmed. On the other planets the enemy flank you instead of blitz you. The cover system is great but it only works in one direction meaning if your in a corner you will only be protected from one direction. The cover system in ME2 was better and infiltrators are sniper meaning they are meant to camp and target from a distance but like I said I played Vanguard in the other game but still didn't get targeted by the enemy like I do in this game. The jump jets on insanity will get you killed. Jump jet and dash are two diffrent things using jump jet in insanity will get you killed using dash will keep you alive. From your comments I doubt you even played the game let alone on insanity.

"Enemies also don't focus you like you describe. If that were the case, then how do your squad mates die? ^^
I'd also like more control for that matter, but they make up for it a bit by having much stronger in the first place. Drack with blood rage and his passives is a real monster, as is Vetra with turbocharge and power armor. Count in Liam and you actually have three sick tanks to choose from. Just make sure to crank up their defenses asap. Haven't tinkered much around with the others tho, besides Jaal maybe. The trick is to kill fast and be mobile as hell, the more time - or rather seconds - you spend sitting around, the better your enemy can set up, which is a neat mechanic motivating that very fast pace.
Architects and those flying kett priests are the only exceptions I've seen so far. Those really are some tanky * ... Oh, and that Remnant vault on Eos, where you have to wait for the death cloud to arrive, just to be welcomed by observers at the entrance. But this one was outstanding and I admit, this is hardly any doable without charge, cloak or sentinel armor. Haven't experienced anything like that afterwards."

The squad members die because they are on your butt the whole time so that when you dash out of the way they take the hit and die and if you make them target an enemy they will rush in and get them selves killed because when they hit the enemy then and only then will the enemy focus on them. Again this only happens on Eos and Voeld on the other planets the Squad member AI is great. Again you sound like you have no idea what you are talking about. Your squad members abilites do not matter if your the one being attacked. On Eos and Voeld its hell then after these two planets the game takes a turn and starts playing like the other Mass Effect games where your squad members wake up and start flanking using abilities effectively they still die very fast though which sucks because they have 1000's of health and shields.

"I just discovered for me, that your build needs to be able to reliably kill anointed ones, against which evading in the free field is quite deadly thanks to their gatling. Every other basic enemy can be easily outmaneuvered most of the time. Also, hovering augments in general and the double mod extension and three of those 5% extra tech/combat/biotic damage or cd reduction on weapons is quite the go-to for crafting, if you ask me. And there's so much reliable crowd control (overload, burn, freeze, biotics) or shielding abilities (backlash, charge, energy drain) in this game, that basic encounters become harmless cannon fodder anyways ..."

Dude, you don't know what your talking about the Anointed are cake the only problem is they run right up to you in groups. They die quick but you can only attack one and a time but with everyone attacking you its hell. So you just dash staying alive until all the chosen are dead then focus on the Anointed one at a time. The fact that you said hovering means you never played insanity you'd die before you reached max height. Your just wasting time posting about stuff you know nothing about. Do a play through of Eos on insanity then come back should only take you about 5 hours.

" Btw, there are some insanity vanguards on youtube already and they perform pretty well on Eos. I'm just playing classic infiltrator, but I did that without much thinking beforehand and haven't tried much else except sometimes switching into engineer with turret. The cloaking mechanic itself always was and is highly abusive, but just as much fun and unique. As the game gets a bit easier the more points and passives I have, I'm planning to mix in some fancy biotics and am quite sure, it'll work out nicely. Mixing skill trees in the beginning is generally a bad idea, because this would kinda require you to invest in more than one offensive passive besides weaponry. I'd say, there are a whole lot of options actually, just not every combination is viable, especially at the start. For example, priming something with energy drain (rank 5 evo I think) and following up with any detonator is a nice way of striping away shields instead of going for the classic overload. I imagine annihilation/singularity + detonator with some extra combo damage could work similarly."

Yes, I've seen them but many of them did it during the 10 hour trial which is different the squad member AI was great during the trial even on Eos. Its the reason I preordered the game in the first place. Just go play the game on insanity.

"Part of the reason for this game difficulty is, that we can't begin with "new game+" or import a character from a previous game. Depending on starting level, one could probably do more experimental stuff.

In the trilogy, having these bonuses right away helped out a lot on insanity and it will be no different here. ME 2 was just as unforgiving when starting off as vanguard or caster without bonuses and even with them, Omega still was a bit of a pain.
The combat appears even more unforgiving in Andromeda, because it is so fast paced. Camping, wasting cooldown time, missing shots, evading in the wrong direction or hovering blindly can indeed kill you, but for me that's what insanity is supposed to represent.
 
The real thing I'd consider unfair is the saving system and having no checkpoints or manual save options when fighting bosses or kett bases. That would rather be my top priority."

The main reason I think that Eos and Voeld are this difficult is because they were rushed the other planets are just fine. You sound like you barely played the game let alone played the game on insanity.