Mass Effect: Andromeda - The Journey Ahead

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HiddenX

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BioWare General Manager Aaryn Flynn annouced a lot of improvements for Mass Effect: Andromeda:

Hi everyone,

It’s been two weeks since the launch of Mass Effect™: Andromeda and we’re thankful to the millions of you who have already joined us on this journey. And though the game is now in your hands, it’s really just the beginning.

Since launch, our team has been poring over your comments and feedback, looking to discover what you like about the game, as well as areas we can evolve or improve.

This Thursday, we’ll release a new patch that addresses technical fixes (crashes, improved performance), but also adds a number of improvements we’ve heard you ask for, such as:

  • Allowing you to skip ahead when travelling between planets in the galaxy map
  • Increasing the inventory limits
  • Improving the appearance of eyes for humans and asari characters
  • Decreasing the cost of remnant decryption keys and making them more accessible at merchants
  • Improving localized voice over lip sync
  • Fixing Ryder’s movements when running in a zig zag pattern
  • Improving matchmaking and latency in multiplayer
There are many more adjustments being made, all of which you can find in our patch notes.

Over the next two months we’ll be rolling out additional patches which will go even deeper and look to improve several areas of the game:

  • More options and variety in the character creator
  • Improvements to hair and general appearance for characters
  • Ongoing improvements to cinematic scenes and animations
  • Improvements to male romance options for Scott Ryder
  • Adjustments to conversations with Hainly Abrams
These upcoming patches will also address performance and stability issues. And we’re looking at adding more cosmetic items to single player for free.

For multiplayer, over the same timeframe, we’re going to continue to build on the APEX missions that have been running since launch. We’ll be adding new maps, characters, and weapons. On Thursday, we kick off the first of three new chapters centered around The Remnant Investigation.

This is just a taste of what’s in store as we continue to support Mass Effect: Andromeda. And as always, you all play an important role in that. We want to hear from you about your experiences, both what you love about the game and what you’d like to see changed. We’re listening, and we’re committed to partnering with you as we continue to explore the Andromeda galaxy together.

Here’s to a great journey,

Aaryn
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Thank you for the info Robert Grosso and rjshae!

More information.
 
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It's better "too damn late" than never, I suppose. At least they're responding to the criticism in (mostly) constructive ways.
 
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Stingray said:
And this game will be cheap soon too, with its horrid reviews. All the more reason to wait…:lol:
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Still #1 on the UK physical chart, second week in a row, might not drop in price as soon as you think.
 
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azarhal said:
Still #1 on the UK physical chart, second week in a row, might not drop in price as soon as you think.
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That doesnt mean much since they dont really have competition at the moment for sales, Zelda is a possibility but it is bottle necked by the hardware unit availability and Horizon seems to have taken a dive too. That said casuals might be blissfully unaware of the entire fiasco.
 
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Damian said:
That doesnt mean much since they dont really have competition at the moment for sales, Zelda is a possibility but it is bottle necked by the hardware unit availability and Horizon seems to have taken a dive too. That said casuals might be blissfully unaware of the entire fiasco.
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It's not a question of competition, game #2 and #3 aren't RPGs and have been selling steadily for weeks now, hell GTA V is still at #5 on that chart. If MEA sales were that much in trouble, it would have dropped in the chart or even off the chart, not stay at #1 for a second week in a row (only ME2 acheived that). The sale chart for week 2 split by platforms has MEA PS4 at #1 and MEA XBOX at #3 with the Kingdom Heart HD collection beginning at #2 (a PS4 exclusive, debuted at #4 on the combined platform chart).

Funny enough, the #2 and #3 games are Ghost Recon: Wildlands (metacritic score of 72% -PS4-) and Lego Worlds (metacritic score of 69% -PS4-). Casuals in the UK clearly don't give a shit what the professional reviewers think.
 
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azarhal said:
It's not a question of competition, game #2 and #3 aren't RPGs and have been selling steadily for weeks now, hell GTA V is still at #5 on that chart. If MEA sales were that much in trouble, it would have dropped in the chart or even off the chart, not stay at #1 for a second week in a row (only ME2 acheived that). The sale chart for week 2 split by platforms has MEA PS4 at #1 and MEA XBOX at #3 with the Kingdom Heart HD collection beginning at #2 (a PS4 exclusive, debuted at #4 on the combined platform chart).

Funny enough, the #2 and #3 games are Ghost Recon: Wildlands (metacritic score of 72% -PS4-) and Lego Worlds (metacritic score of 69% -PS4-). Casuals in the UK clearly don't give a shit what the professional reviewers think.
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Or perhaps that is a shit week overall in sales, i mean GTA V, a 3 and a half year old game being in the top 5 proves that doesnt it? Do you have an overall revenue comparison for the week in the UK?
 
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Crazy how GTA is still selling this well. Played IV and V...they were fun but, one and done where little stood out ( outside of incredible world detail and design).
 
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This game has totally gotten under my skin. Unlike some games that seem to lose steam as it goes on this started of slow, almost to the point I dropped it, but now I am hooked and as it has really improved with some better pacing. Even left work early today (late lunch) as it was a nice rainy day and was eager to play. Probably got a good 4-5 hours in tonight and enjoyed it a lot. Twice now I though I was on an "end" mission only to find a new twist.

Somewhat a shame it had a rough start and while that doesn't excuse the issues I, at least, am having a total blast with the game. Way more than I thought I would considering I have a pre-made character. But I really bonded with Ryder and the crew. Lots of little touches all over that help you connect with the crew and what is going on. I like the crew notes, the banter among them, the little quests inside the Tempest, the emails … all rather fun.

Anyhow just glad I changed my mind and decided to try it. Course it's not for everyone but I have really gotten into the space opera aspect and been some wicked cool missions.

Looking forward to the patch. Perhaps if they had had more time to polish and better animations it would have gotten off to a better start.
 
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Despite all the bad reviews, i'm 55hrs in and its been really fun. Sure, the animation isn't great, but the story isn't bad and the combat is glorius!
 
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Damian said:
Or perhaps that is a shit week overall in sales, i mean GTA V, a 3 and a half year old game being in the top 5 proves that doesnt it? Do you have an overall revenue comparison for the week in the UK?
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GTA V is still going well, it was even higher in the UK chart early this year. It sold 5 millions copies between November 2016 and February 2017 (all platforms/worldwide, 75 millions copy sold since release).

GTAV was at the top of the UK chart when DAI released…

I doubt revenue comparison are released for weekly charts (I didn't find any either).
 
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azarhal said:
GTA V is still going well, it was even higher in the UK chart early this year. It sold 5 millions copies between November 2016 and February 2017 (all platforms/worldwide, 75 millions copy sold since release).

GTAV was at the top of the UK chart when DAI released…

I doubt revenue comparison are released for weekly charts (I didn't find any either).
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5 million isnt that much in 4 months in all territories. That would be ~600k in the US and EU per month since Japan really doesnt buy much GTA V. Works out to about 60k if we assume that UK normally has 10% of the sales in the EU. It really isnt that much for a month. Say ME:A has 100k in the UK even if GTA V dipped to 50k for example. Is that really that much compared to the other ME games? It already started will less sales, do you think suddenly for no reason they improved sales?
 
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and we’re committed to partnering with you as we continue to explore the Andromeda galaxy together.
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UGH...

Another terrible EA romance option... will it never end?
 
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"…and we’re committed to partnering with you as we continue to explore the Andromeda galaxy together."

Wisdom said:
UGH…

Another terrible EA romance option… will it never end?
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"And we’re looking at adding more cosmetic items to single player for free."

And you can skip off together hand in hand wearing silly hats. Free silly hats, which we all know are the best kind. No better way to quiet the rabble than with free hats.
 
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Changes sound pretty good - but as expected, I don't think the overall result will improve the game much at all.

Essentially, you either enjoy it now - or you never will.
 
Fixing Ryder’s movements when running in a zig zag pattern
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Spending time and resources on manufactured stuff.

Gameplay all the time.
 
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Capt. Huggy Face said:
"And we’re looking at adding more cosmetic items to single player for free."

And you can skip off together hand in hand wearing silly hats. Free silly hats, which we all know are the best kind. No better way to quiet the rabble than with free hats.
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Have to defend EA here. You're probably not following news on Division which is advertised as RPG nor news on For Honor. Cosmetic items in those games is expensive as hell - Ubisoft is forcing phonegames design on gamers.
EA with the statement on freebie cosmetics "pretends" not to be an evil company any more, in this case IMO they hit the spot. It's all about trends, at least a part of the industry will follow big players, EA decided not to charge cosmetics, Persona 5 is selling $100 worth cosmetics, I hate EA, but who's side should I take here? My wallet's side.
Notice that mainstream reviewers (deliberatly?) missed to spot this moveaway from scamming DLC while "calculating" their score on ME4.

NewDArt said:
Changes sound pretty good - but as expected, I don't think the overall result will improve the game much at all.

Essentially, you either enjoy it now - or you never will.
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Never say never, maybe they do rework those menus. ;)
ChienAboyeur said:
Spending time and resources on manufactured stuff.

Gameplay all the time.
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That bugfix is the one they shouldn't have included. The result of the bug is not a progress lost nor something irritating (IMO) but a laughing material and it should have stayed intact.
 
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