Mass Effect: Andromeda

I agree, Liam is not nearly as bad as Cora, which is a damn shame because while at least he has A personality, he's basically a worse Cora gameplay-wise and it's apparent that they REALLY wanted Fem!Ryder to flirt with him given how often the opportunity pops up.

On the other hand, there's Jaal, who suffers for an entirely different reason because he's the most important party member story-wise even though he's not that good either in terms of personality or abilities.

Drak is best and I want him to be my grandpa, though.

Drack is amazing, yes.

I liked Vetra. I just wish she got more opportunities to be involved in stuff. As it is, I'm more comfortable calling her a great background character than a good squadmate. The banter between Vetra and Drack is some of my favorites in the game. Drack verbally adopts her and her sister and it's awesome.

And yes, the developers definitely wanted Fem-Ryder to flirt with Liam. He finds opportunities to undress at every opportunity. His insistence on being a Walking Shirtless Scene is hilarious. He even gets Jaal in on it at one point!

Isn't he also the one who threatens to go to HR because Ryder keeps dying on them and it's emotional abuse? Or something like that? I loved that bit.

In terms of usefulness in combat, I actually haven't noticed who's better than who. I stopped upgrading my squadmates halfway through the game because it didn't matter. Sara the Teleporting Bomb was slaughtering everything so quickly and easily that I was never honestly sure if they were even contributing anything at all.

I'll probably bump the difficulty up if I do decide on a second playthrough. This tactic was clearly too broken for the regular one.

edited 28th Apr '17 6:36:26 AM by TobiasDrake

I had no real issue with Jaal. His main flaw is that he's "The Angaran Guy" so while he does have some stuff to distinguish him, a lot of his characterisation is more based on "Allow me to best represent my species to you by being as typical as possible and explain our culture at you". something the alien party members of ME 1 also did a lot (and outgrew in the sequels).

But he's by no means bad.

Liam grew on me? He's still weird, but I think that self-contradicting weirdness sort of makes him feel more "real" as a person. Coz people don't always make sense.

Isn't that Lexi?

edited 28th Apr '17 6:38:00 AM by Ghilz

Cora's not the only one who gets hit with a case of Dull Surprise. It seems like a lot of the actors are just giving these lines their first take, sometimes without seeming to really be given much in the way of context. With Cora, it's not really a monotone, there's some range there. Just not what there needs to be, in terms of the emotion, based on the context. I don't think that's all on the actress, though. Even if most of the other actors did a better job in the same situation.

I still think Cora, Peebee, and Lexi were all meant to sound younger than they are, though.

And speaking of Dull Surprise, based on what Jaal says, being very open and demonstrative about their emotions is supposed to be the angara's hat, right? Yeah, I never got that. The acting just doesn't communicate that, Jaal included. Just the opposite, really.

Lexi yells at you and SAM, but Liam does joke about reporting you to HR. Which is pretty rich, coming from Liam, heh.

edited 28th Apr '17 7:58:21 AM by Unsung

It really is. Dude, I walked in on you butt-ass naked competing with Jaal to see who could make the best negative remarks about the other's genitalia. It was super-awkward. Sara thought it was the funniest thing ever, but it was really super-awkward.

Do we even have HR for anybody to complain, I wonder? At best, the HR is still in crio :)

Agreed about Cora being the blandest squadmate, and Drack the most awesome. Can he be Ryder's honorary grandfather, please?

Liam got my love the moment he offered the Pathfinder some beer, during his first bialogue about a couch. Of all the romance options, he's the one I can imagine actually spending time with, hanging out and being silly and comfortable.

Did not like Jaal at first, at all, but he eventually grew on me. A lot. I've planned on romancing Vetra this playthrough, but switched to Jaal halfway through :) What I like about him is that he keeps surprising me, and there isn't a particular pigeonhole to put him in.

Peebee - not my favourite. I really liked it that this squad (unlike ME 2) doesn't have any emotional problems for the main character to solve, and does not require one to play Warrior Therapist Except Peebee. She is a mess of issues, and is trying too hard. Still, she is ocassionally entertaining

I think the only person at the ship I'd fire is Gil. There is something constantly aggravating about him

Peebee is another squadmate I kinda wish you could piss off.

My Ryder got on great with Peebee at first. They were kindred in that Peebee was wild and non-committal while Sara was a bloodthirsty berserker who blew people up with her face. They shared an interest in the Chaotic alignment and probably threw some killer parties.

I wanted Kalinda to be a breaking point for Peebee. The point at which Sara stops being a fun party animal in her eyes. Peebee tried to save Kalinda and Sara shot her down in cold blood. In its own way, Sara's remorseless, bloodthirst response to the assholes of Heleus turned on Peebee that day.

I really wanted more of a What the Hell, Hero? from Peebee than what we get after that, as well as more of a cold, even somewhat cruel response to it. From the moment Kalinda even showed up on that planet, Sara made up her mind that she wasn't leaving it. It wasn't about Peebee. It wasn't even about the artifact. Kalinda is dead because Sara wanted her to die.

I wanted that to be the point where Peebee's desire to be here is shattered, not reinforced. She clearly cared enough about Kalinda to try and save her, even after everything. Watching Sara mercilessly gun her down feels like it should be a breaking point.

Instead, five minutes later she was asking Sara to be her girlfriend. F*cking asari, man....

Agreed. Between the "I'm gonna modify the ship on the fly without talking to anyone about it coz I'm a special snowflake" and the general smugness, I'd fire him out the airlock.

...have you MET Kalinda? Most people would shoot her on sight. I don't think Peebee or anyone rational could argue with shooting Kalinda.

edited 28th Apr '17 9:13:25 AM by Ghilz

Peebee demonstrably could, given that she actually tries to abandon the artifact she launched herself into a lava world to find in order to save Kalinda's life.

I don't think Peebee's especially rational at that point. Kalinda has been sending hired guns to shoot you, and her, for a long time running at that point. And on Lava World in particular, one wrong move and you're pretty dead.

The fact that you shoot Kalinda isn't necessary, though. The choice should be 'help Peebee save Kalinda' or 'grab the artifact, then help Peebee, who just can't hold on any longer' (although...biotics? Jump-jets? No?), rather than 'shoot Kalinda in the back'. The latter is the kind of ruthless choice the game generally doesn't support.

It's the non-choices with Peebee that bother me more than the Kalinda decision, though. She forces her way onto the crew, ostensibly because she's an expert on the Remnant, but other than furthering her own research, there's not a lot she actually does for the mission. Other than risking her life as a squadmate assuming you bring her along, that is.

I don't know. I'd say that shooting Reyes in the back as he's fleeing for his life is about as ruthless as shooting Kalinda if not moreso.

So is keeping the Remnant drive core away from the krogan and accepting the likelihood of impending war.

Also, straight-up executing the Cardinal after making the choice of what to do with the kett base.

edited 28th Apr '17 9:37:18 AM by TobiasDrake

She gives you a robot minion. It's more than most people give me.

Oh, and taking the shot when Sid's being held hostage with a deadman's switch. That's more reckless than ruthless but still follows theme.

There aren't a lot of Randomly Evil options in the game, but Ryder has plenty of opportunities to be reckless and bloodthirsty.

edited 28th Apr '17 9:37:49 AM by TobiasDrake

Eh. I was counting those. I wouldn't really call that very many, and they don't really feel like they line up with how Ryder acts most of the time, which is to default to quips and playing along in situations where I really would've appreciated the opportunity to go in guns blazing. I wouldn't have taken that opportunity for the most part, but it's more meaningful if that's because it's my choice. My choice, for example, to go the diplomatic route on Kadara, rather than being required to play along with Sloane right up until Reyes assassinates her.

edited 28th Apr '17 12:38:04 PM by Unsung

I fail to see how that's wreckless when the only alternative you're offered is "nicely put down your guns while facing a dozen heavily armed mercs whose comrades just tried to kill you in the last six rooms". I wish that scene had been set up more like the ending of Taken, but shooting the grenade out of her hand and seeing Vetra quickly improvise and use it to kill three of the raiders was good enough.

edited 28th Apr '17 9:59:19 AM by MonsieurThenardier

It's reckless because you're shooting from the hip at a person who is hiding behind a human shield. Even if you ignore the deadman's switch, that's a hard shot to make on the best of days even looking down the sights. It's basically impossible that Ryder actually pulled that off.

Even harder depending on your weapon. My Sara somehow made that shot with the Revenant LMG. I call so much bullshit on that. Sid should have been swiss-cheesed.

edited 28th Apr '17 10:00:18 AM by TobiasDrake

Sara made that shot with the Piranha in my game. So yeah.

In general, I feel like the cutscenes let Ryder do way too much sniping with a spray-and-pray weapon.

It's interesting because it's not like the game's above teleporting convenient guns into your hand. If you shoot Reyes, they give you a dinky pistol to do the job with so that he can survive it. A spray of bullets from the Revenant or a well-aimed sniper shot would have killed him dead.

My Ryder would have painted the scenery in his viscera by teleporting into his face and then detonating, but that's beside the point.

But other times? They just use whatever gun you're holding and pretend it's a pistol.

I fail to see how shooting an enemy (Reyes) is in any way wrong.

And what's this about killing the Cardinal? I see multiple discussions about this but I never had that choice.

Overall though, no, there is absolutely no way to be a dick in this game and it's very disappointing. I linked to a video in the ME General thread discussing ME 2 and how during Thane's LM you get an Interrupt to hit the guy being interrogated while he's whining. Why? Because they know you want to do that and are giving you the option. Same for the Tali Hug. Some people for some reason want to hug her so they give you that option.

That doesn't happen in this game.

Also, on the topic of Liam, I pissed him off. Then he immediately forgave me next cutscene .Apparently this happens with everyone. If you leave Drack's scouts, he'll be pissy for one scene and then get over it.

You can't do anything wrong in this game.

edited 28th Apr '17 10:34:31 AM by Nikkolas

I do appreciate that this game at least tells you what the interrupts do

Me too.

The "Punch Reyes" one kinda sucked though. I wanted Sara to punch him the f*ck out, then be like, "Whoops, found this drunk guy passed out," when the lady came into the storage room. Not give him a mild love tap in the kidney.

Dude? You ever been punched in the kidneys?

It fucking hurts.

The kidneys are surprisingly fragile.

I have, actually.

A broken nose hurts worse.

...I concede.

Apologies for double posting but how difficult are the bosses in this game?