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Senior Member
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22 random tidbits:
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1. Ryder is intentionally more of a blank slate than Shepard at the beginning of Andromeda. “Shepard came on the scene, and it felt like they’d already accomplished a lot and they’d done a lot and they’d seen a lot – but I hadn’t,” says creative director Mac Walters. “That whole universe was new to me, and so there was a bit of a disconnect between me and my player character right from the start. And so, with this, I’d really like us to close that gap as much as we can without going full amnesia.”
2. Your companion Liam has a British accent.
3. You find clues about what happened to the other arks. For instance, as you locate asari escape pods, you learn more about what happened to them and their ark, and that thread is eventually resolved in a mission.
4. Some quests take place on the planet where you discover them, and others point you toward new locations. “It’s about a 90-10 split,” says Walters. “Once you’re on a world, you should feel like you can spend your time there and complete the level. The rest are either resolved from somewhere else or send you somewhere else.”
5. Despite the series’ long history, the move to new hardware and adopting the Frostbite engine means BioWare built all systems, tools, and assets from scratch for Andromeda.
6. All of the systems (though not necessarily all of the content) are currently implemented in the game. Now it’s just a matter of “balance and tweaking,” according to Walters.
7. Enemies of the same class have different abilities based on their race.
8. Not all of the races from the original trilogy appear in Andromeda, but they may show up in future installments. “We’ve designed the IP in such a way that they can all show up,” Walters says. “For hopefully obvious reasons, they’re not all going to show up in the first game.”
9. The points you earn by gaining experience are applied to more than just your powers. It’s the same currency you use for other kinds of progression, like improving the hover time on your jetpack and increasing the Nomad’s speed.
10. The blistering heat of Elaaden is only one kind of environmental hazard. “Another planet you might have ice, or radiation, or another kind of hazard,” says producer Mike Gamble. “We’re trying to mix it up, and how you survive them will be different depending on the planet. Some might require a different Nomad upgrade, others will take shelter, and so forth.”
11. For players worried the scope expansion will dilute the experience: “The key for us has been ensuring that the content is rich and up to BioWare quality standards,” Walters says. “Believe it or not, as massive as this is, we’ve actually continued to restrain the scope as much as possible so we can bring quality to each of these areas and make each one memorable. That’s a term I use a lot – I want these places to be memorable. I don’t want it to be like, the white planet, the blue planet – I want to remember the names of the locations and the characters I meet.”
12. Think the default Scott Ryder looks a bit like original Mass Effect project director Casey Hudson? It’s not intentional, but the team thinks it’s a funny “ghost in the machine” moment.
13. Don’t expect the events or characters of the original trilogy to shape the state of the world in Andromeda. “We didn’t want to invalidate anything that people had done in the past, and we wanted to make sure everyone feels like they can be onboard, whether or not they have played before,” Walters says.
14. Before assuming the role of Pathfinder, Ryder’s title is “recon specialist.”
15. As you leave the Ark for the first time, your dad wants you to rub a good-luck rock on the way out.
16. About 20,000 humans are still asleep on the Hyperion when Ryder wakes up at the beginning of the game.
17. During sequences that might have just been non-interactive cinematics before, players now have a degree of control – like steering a character falling through the sky, or examining objects in a shuttle as a conversation is going on.
18. “Armor is split into sub-categories, and you can mix and match pieces,” Gamble says. “Helmet, shoulders, chest, legs. You can have different pieces from different sets.”
19. On the graphical front, the CG trailers for the original trilogy are what the team uses as a reference for what it is trying to accomplish now in real-time.
20. You pick up additional Tempest crew members on your journey.
21. While the game isn’t zany, the tone is lighter compared to Mass Effect 3. “I think there’s a bit more humor,” says producer Fabrice Condominas. “I think everybody takes it a bit less seriously in the tone of the dialogue. The characters are different – they’re younger, and you feel that in the tone.”
22. You don’t have to start New Game+ after finishing the game. You can just keep exploring once the final mission is complete.
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http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featur...andromeda.aspx
5 multiplayer changes:
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1. Less Hunkering
One critical strategy in Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer was figuring out the most defensible points on each map, and then staying in those spots for as many waves as possible. While increasing pressure from advancing enemies certainly made combat feel dangerous, hiding behind a few crates for the majority of a match isn’t the most exciting way to approach multiplayer.
Andromeda is doing more to keep players on the move. For instance, some enemies are specifically designed to flush you and your team out of hiding, while others are intended to force you into cover. When each of those foes are on the map, no one location is easily fortified, so you have to spend more time out in the open and fending off foes on the run.
That may have been a death sentence in Mass Effect 3, but the new powers and mobility options you have in Andromeda are tailored to these situations. Defensive play is still important, but now players have more offensive options, and more variety in the combat scenarios that arise.
“The first thing everyone will notice is how dynamic it is,” says producer Fabrice Condominas. “Everything is more fluid, fast-paced, there’s a lot of action going on. The controls are also more responsive. All of that is on purpose; we really wanted to increase the dynamism and how accessible it is while retaining the depth and going more into layers.”
2. Power Cooldowns
The gunplay in Mass Effect 3 was fun, but the main feature that set the multiplayer apart was how you used your special powers – both by yourself and in coordination with your team. The team is amplifying this in Andromeda by putting powers on individual cooldown timers, rather than having them all attached to a single global timer.
That may not seem like a big deal, but the increased versatility and initiative it affords you in combat makes a significant difference. In Mass Effect 3, the global timer meant that you were briefly locked out of all of your powers when you used any one of them. This made some players hesitant to use a power in a tight spot for fear that a more pressing demand for a different power was just around the corner. That’s not a concern anymore; when you use a power, you only need to wait for that particular timer to recharge. That gives you more freedom to use the tools at your disposal.
“You can dump everything at once if you want to, or strategize and hold off until the right situation,” says lead designer Ian Frazier. “So you can do a lot more interesting combinations.”
The global timer also made it challenging to prime and detonate powerful combo moves solo. With that restriction removed, you have more access to these techniques within your own repertoire – though you should still coordinate with teammates to get the most out of them.
3. The Jetpack
All of the obvious advantages you would expect from a jetpack are present in full force. You can hover above enemies, quickly surmount obstacles, and maneuver quickly from side to side. It has limitations, but going airborne is still fun (once you get used to being mapped to the button that made you take cover in Mass Effect 3). “It’s not a permanent rocket that you use to fly around,” Condominas says. “There is a beginning and end to them – a momentum curve – based on when you do your input.”
However, another important aspect tied to the jetpack is a new element of verticality to multiplayer maps. Even though Mass Effect 3’s maps had different tiers, you had to move between them using either ladders or ramps, which slowed down the action. The jetpack allows you ascend quickly and easily, which makes the battlefields feel more interesting and unpredictable.
In one session we played, an elevated command room separated lower platforms on either side. The higher ground (and superior cover) make it desirable, but it isn’t impenetrable. By tossing a singularity to take the exposed enemies out, our team was able to swiftly fly up into the room and wipe out the remaining foes – regular Kett grunts. We then used our advantageous position to fire down at enemies on the opposite side. The fluidity is difficult to describe, but when you use the jetpack, the freedom of movement feels like a big step up.
4. Going Shopping
The blind card packs are returning for Andromeda, so the new weapons, character kits, and items you obtain are determined by luck. You buy the packs with in-game currency you earn from playing. You can also purchase them with real money, which doesn’t give you access to anything that you can’t buy with the in-game alternative. Even so, if there’s a particular weapon you want, or a race/class combination, it can be frustrating to burn through pack after pack and never have the cards come up in your favor.
Andromeda provides players a way to bypass the grind. You now have access to a store that sells a limited assortment of loot on a rotating basis. Yes, there’s still an element of chance involved in what items the store sells, but at least you know what you’re getting.
“If you don’t want to be at the mercy of the random number generator for the cards, you’re still at the mercy of what’s in the store right now, but it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s the Black Widow and I really want it!’” Frazier says. “You can buy them with real-world money if you want to, but again, nothing requires that.” If you want to shop at the store, you need to spend “mission funds,” a new currency different from the credits you use to purchase blind packs (but which are still acquired by playing the game).
5. Prestige
One of the biggest challenges for any multiplayer mode is hanging onto players over time. Long-term rewards help to keep them invested beyond the simple enjoyment of playing a fun game. Mass Effect 3 saw continued support for a year after release, but even so, the progression plateaued. “If you really got into the ME 3 multiplayer, you could always collect more cards and get more items, but at a certain point, you’re playing because you like to play,” Frazier says. “There was no systemic benefit at a certain point.”
Andromeda addresses that with the concept of prestige XP. As you play, you accrue prestige XP alongside standard XP. Instead of being used to advance a single character, prestige XP accumulates across a particular character styles. For instance, characters that occupy a tank role in combat share prestige progress, so any time you play one of those kits, you earn XP building toward their next prestige level. When you hit that threshold, you earn a bonus – like a health boost – across all characters (not just the tanks). The more you play, and the more you vary your playstyle, the more of these prestige bonuses you will earn. This is a slower burn than standard progression; we didn't get enough hands-on time at BioWare Montreal to see the prestige mechanics in action, but the idea has us excited to sink time into Andromeda's multiplayer.
The Big Question: Campaign Tie-In
The most conspicuous mystery surrounding multiplayer right now is its connection to the single-player adventure. The team has confirmed that such a connection exists – this isn’t like Dragon Age Inquisition, where the multiplayer mode has no effect on your campaign. However, BioWare also knows that many fans didn’t like how Mass Effect 3 effectively twisted your arm to engage with multiplayer by tying it to your galactic readiness – and thereby impacting your ending. The degree to which single-player and multiplayer are linked falls somewhere between those two extremes.
Here are a few things we know for sure:
The mission funds you obtain in multiplayer have “tendrils going out into the rest of the game,” according to Frazier.
In the single-player demo we saw, there was an option on the pause menu to jump straight into multiplayer.
“You will have possibilities to send teams to complete kind of side missions, or to do it yourself in multiplayer,” Condominas says. “That’s the idea.”
The team doesn’t want solo players to feel like they are obligated to play multiplayer. “If you feel cheated, we’ve done something wrong,” Frazier says.
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http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featur...-question.aspx
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2016-11-07, 22:54
Graphic Designer
