MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA (Here be Spoilers)

[J.T.]

3 hours ago, jstout said:

The Avenger's go-to move, the Avenger Strike, is on a timer, and you don't want it slowed down by carrying too much crap. Especially since it's rare to even shoot a gun at all, much less two guns. Just get a light shotgun, equip with melee mod, and start knifing stuff.

Depending on how heavy the weapons are and how you spec the character, the Cooldown Rate penalty is manageable.

[odessasteps]

I see only carry one gun now, usually the PAW or Ushior (sp). I still have a negative cool down for my sniper rifle so I try not to use it. 

[RIPPA]

JT is one of the few people I see carrying two guns - outside of folks on APEX missions

[odessasteps]

I don't even carry 2 guns in story mode anymore: just level X modded PAW and level X  modded Widow. 

[RIPPA]

Patch 1.10

Quote

Veteran ranks of characters will only drop after all characters of that rarity have been unlocked to rank 10.
Naladen explosion now deals damage when Cryo or Incendiary Ammo are equipped.
Fixed issue where Dwindling Supplies and Empty Resupply mission modifiers would not function correctly if a player left the game.
Dhan shotgun now properly primes enemies.
Fixed issue where Bulwark, Siphon, and Concussive variants of pistols and sniper rifles would prime enemies too slowly when using special ammo.
Fixed issue where using Supply Pack Transmitter would reduce spare ammo if Empty Resupply mission modifier was active.
Using First Aid with Supply Pack Transmitter no longer heals enemies.
Fixed issue that caused screen to blink red/yellow when using Siphon and Bulwark weapons.
Rank XIV Common Characters are no longer displayed as Rank XV

All MP changes

[jstout]

That first change is really helpful and hurtful to me, because the last two ultra-rare character draws I got were kineticist XI and XII, while I'm still trying to bring the Avenger up to X.

Problem is, once I get the Avenger to X, he's shut off while I level everybody else up to X.

[Robert C]

I still carry two guns in MP, as long as it doesn't hit my weight limit.  Usually shotgun and pistol.   Piranha and Hurricane if I can manage it.  It's funny to me, since I never used either a pistol or a shotgun in story mode.

[J.T.]

15 hours ago, RIPPA said:

JT is one of the few people I see carrying two guns - outside of folks on APEX missions

If you lean on the trigger of some of the high ROF ARs or SMGs, you will find that ammo supply is not as generous as it was in ME3.  Hitting Supply Crates during waves will result in either diminishing returns or nada if you are playing an APWX match with Empty Resupply.

Going Powers Only is not a problem in normal matches, but trying to survive a Gold APEX match with Dampened Powers or Weakened Assault Team can be a bitch.

Liam is a complete dumbass, but his Loyalty Mission is the fucking best.

What is taking Jaal so long to set up this meeting with that Rokkar leader?

[RIPPA]

5 minutes ago, J.T. said:

What is taking Jaal so long to set up this meeting with that Rokkar leader?

Have you found the Kett Transponder on Kadara yet? 

[J.T.]

41 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Have you found the Kett Transponder on Kadara yet? 

Nope. I switched to Campaign Mode after beating this morning's Bronze APEX mission and set the Tempest in orbit around Kadara..

I unlocked my Tier 5 gear, so took time out to craft myself a set of Tier 5 Pathfinder armor and cobbled together a couple of Tier 5 weapons in prep for the bullshit on Kadara.. 

I was kinda stoked when I equipped my N7 Valiant with four mod slots and my N7 Eagle with three mod slots.

I also had to turn in the cluster mapping mission in to Dr. Aridana.

During Liam's Loyalty Mission, I leveled up during the fight with the Hydra mechs.  I scanned a mech to complete the Aid APEX side mission and suddenly had enough skill points to give my Remnant VI the Electric Beam of Doom. 

Suddenly being able to score Tech Combos at will on a synthetic enemy was a welcomed state of affairs.

[RIPPA]

Yeah - Jaal's mission won't go any further until you advance the main story further

[J.T.]

16 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Yeah - Jaal's mission won't go any further until you advance the main story further

I don't think I can finally dispense with the Rokkar Manifestos side mission until Jaal's Loyalty Mission begins, because the habitats I need to get into are story locked IIRC.

I guess I'm going forward with that shit so I can head back to Havarl as quickly as possible.

[J.T.]

I just logged into the APEX app in order to re-deploy my strike teams and realized that my APEX rating is now over 13K and my Challenge Rating is over 10K!

MOVIN' ON UP~!

[Eivion]

So Bioware Montreal is being absorbed into Motive.

[J.T.]

Jade Raymond's shop?

So they're going to work on that Star Wars game that Visceral / Motive has been developing for who knows how long?

Folks had family over last night so no Campaign Mode for me last night.  I watched Sunday's episode of GoT again and am mostly caught up on S5 of Samurai Jack.  I still have two episodes to go.. 

Got the morning APEX bullshit done and since I will be housesitting for the 'rents for the next couple of days, I should get some time to get crap done on Kadara between today and tomorrow.

If anyone is online and wants to do MP, give me a shout out if you see me online.

[Robert C]

Whatever they did to the servers with the last update, I hope they undo it.  I've gone from having issues occasionally to having issues (game freezing on a loading screen during a game, kicked off MEA online, host dropping) more often than not.

[J.T.]

1 hour ago, Robert C said:

Whatever they did to the servers with the last update, I hope they undo it.  I've gone from having issues occasionally to having issues (game freezing on a loading screen during a game, kicked off MEA online, host dropping) more often than not.

I've also noticed that host dropping is happening a bit more frequently than usual.

I haven't had any game freezes while loading, but I have noticed that any encounter with a Fiend in Multiplayer causes me to experience a tremendous amount of lag and it will sometimes freeze up my game.

[odessasteps]

I had a host drop last time i played over the weekend. 

Just for fun while seeing if i can improve on 97% completion, i made level X model of that white and purple Helius armor. Havent used it yet though. 

[Robert C]

36 minutes ago, J.T. said:

I've also noticed that host dropping is happening a bit more frequently than usual.

I haven't had any game freezes while loading, but I have noticed that any encounter with a Fiend in Multiplayer causes me to experience a tremendous amount of lag and it will sometimes freeze up my game.

Fiends have always been a problem.  I lost a game at the end of round 6 last week due to a Fiend related freeze.  Worst one was during the first 11 wave mission.  I lost several games there due to Fiends, including one that froze with 45 seconds left before extraction.

The few times I've played since the update, I've run into new stuff.  Twice I got dumped off MEA online completely, and could not get back online.  Also, I had two missions where the game just went to a black screen, with the little red/white load/save indicator in the lower right of the screen.  The only way to get out of it was to quit the game and restart.  One of those was on wave 6.  The other was after extraction.  Oddly enough, I got credit for the extraction.

[J.T.]

I've had some loading issues with Firebase Sandstorm and Firebase Icebreaker lately, but most of my recent MP issue deal with lag or dropped hosts.

[jstout]

I've found that if I'm at the back end of a game and the game freezes, I'll get paid for it anyway.

Right now, when you try to join a game via quick start, the game says "can't find one right now, try later," which has gotta be some kind of problem on their end. Usually if it can't find a game for you via quick start, it'll start one for you with you as the host. 

I've also found that if there are two fiends on the screen at the same time, you're virtually guaranteed to lock up.

Someone was asking a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't form coherent words to explain it: Each ammo box gives you four of the power cells for every ability that uses them per wave.

For example, I have sticky grenades and cloaks running on my character. They both use power cells.

Let's say I use 2 grenades and one cloak. Then when I go to ammo box A, I'll get two grenades and a cloak, leaving that box with two grenades and three cloaks. Let's say I use all my cloaks and grenades and head back to the same ammo box. Then I'll get the two grenades and three cloaks from the box, but it's done for the rest of the wave.

Smartest thing to do is when you're told there's three left, find an ammo box (or two if you have to) that's gonna refill your power cell supply, because if you don't use that wave's supply, you'll lose them at the end of the wave and it'll all reset for the next wave. Any ammo trips after that "good job folks" or whatever Kandros says at the end of the wave counts toward the wave coming up.

By the way:

[J.T.]

I saw that Stout, Burke, and Melraz were on yesterday afternoon.  I am bummed that I wasn't online to hang out with them.

I had meetings at unreasonable hours with the Mission Control Center over vidconference with Osan Air Base in South Korea.  By the time I got home, I only had energy enough to eat, take a shower, and go to bed.

Today is relatively project free and I should be home at a decent hour.  I'll be in the mood to get some Multiplayer done this afternoon since the Item Shop gets restocked today and there may be Weekend Challenge missions up.

14 hours ago, jstout said:

 

Odd.  Bioware / EA is doing its best to earn the goodwill of the customer base with shiny MP content since there will be no DLC, but Batarians in the new content does not earn my goodwill since I hate them more than I do most Salarians in the game.

Why couldn't the stowaways have been Quarians or Drell?

 

[J.T.]

Now I remember what I wanted to ask!

Did anyone here build a military installation on Eos rather than a science outpost and if so, how did it affect the content of Liam's Loyalty Mission?

Also, the achievement you unlock for completing Liam's LM mentions "outposts," so does anything in the mission change in relation to how many outposts you have, or is it always Prodromos that provides all of the cavalry?

I didn't see anything in the mission pointing to Voeld providing any support even though I have a working outpost on Voeld and the planet is 99% Viable.

[RIPPA]

Just now, J.T. said:

Now I remember what I wanted to ask!

Did anyone here build a military installation on Eos rather than a science outpost and if so, how did it affect the content of Liam's Loyalty Mission?

Also, the achievement you unlock for completing Liam's LM mentions "outposts," so does anything in the mission change in relation to how many outposts you have, or is it always Prodromos that provides all of the cavalry?

I did both

The only difference between the two (besides some dialogue) is in the end mission

It doesn't affect Liam's mission at all

And no it doesn't matter how many outposts you have. (I mean technically the implication is all of them are joining in but it really is only Prodromos)

[RIPPA]

49 minutes ago, J.T. said:

I saw that Stout, Burke, and Melraz were on yesterday afternoon.  I am bummed that I wasn't online to hang out with them.

What's funny is that I saw all of you on and playing MP so I thought you were all together last night.

So I decided to watch Netflix and then promptly fell asleep 10 minutes into whatever the fuck it was I decided to watch