Mass effect Andromeda does away with 'classes', thoughts?

[sanquin]

So, I just read that Mass Effect: Andromeda will remove classes all together and instead allow you to change 'profiles' whenever you want. (Or at least before missions/at specific points) In other words, they're going from fixed classes to load-outs. Apparently you'll still be able to specialise which will unlock specialised profiles for that role, or you can spent your points in different things.

I personally had a knee-jerk reaction at first. "Removing classes? Load-outs? Is this call of duty or something?!" But after reading other people's reactions and reading up on it a little more, I'm not that sure any more. More freedom in skill choices and such sounds good. Bethesda did something similar with Skyrim. But at the same time, being able to change your load-out on the fly...why have profiles at all if you're going that route? Why not just straight-up turn ME:A into a third person shooter? As that's what it feels like they're trying to do.

Either way, I'm not that excited for the game. I'll wait it out for sure, as I don't trust EA, ME3 left me sour, and the game so far looks like it won't be the mass effect I loved/liked in the past.

Wha do you guys think about the game's direction in terms of 'classes'?

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

It can go one of two ways. Either it will make the game insanely easy because instead of real game design they opted to let players be anything and do anything, like in all those dumb Ubisoft games with zero thought put into actual game design. Or it could be a really fun mechanic allowing you to explore different builds without having to start a new game. Which could be optimal considering that Andromeda seems to be Dragon Age Inquisition in space and on steroids. Remember Dragon Age Inquisition? It was huge and filled with boring fetch quests. There's no way that most players got to experience any other race or class after slugging through 100 hours of that. And this looks way bigger! So why not let players experience every class on their first playthrough?

 

[Jandau]

The one thing bothering me here is Biotics. As far as I recall, Humans in the ME universe can't use Biotics unaided. This is mostly handled with various implants, most of which are fairly invasive. Basically, Biotics aren't something you can "spec out of" as it were. They aren't something you can put down and pick up as the mood strikes you. So will they be providing some sort of lore justification for that or just quietly retcon it? Or just pretend it doesn't exist?

I'm guessing it'll be the last one, which would be sad. One of the things I liked about ME lore is that they tried to provide pseudo-scientific explanations for how the universe works, instead of just being "LOL SPACE MAGIC!!!"...

 

[Saelune]

Why not just make you able to do everything? Why do you need class loadouts? I say go full Skyrim with class. Would be better than pretending anything but soldier is supported.

 

[Hawki]

What do I think?

I think it's kind of redundant, because I've never heard anyone say "I want to replay Mass Effect to try a new class," more "I want to replay Mass Effect so I can make different narrative decisions." The combat of Mass Effect has never been its selling point.

But, if anything, I like this decision - allows for more variety and whatnot.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

What do I think?

I think it's kind of redundant, because I've never heard anyone say "I want to replay Mass Effect to try a new class," more "I want to replay Mass Effect so I can make different narrative decisions." The combat of Mass Effect has never been its selling point.

But, if anything, I like this decision - allows for more variety and whatnot.

I replayed to try out new classes. They became rather diverse cool 2 and on.

 

[iwinatlife]

eh just a little further in the progressive death of mass effect as an RPG.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I think it's kind of redundant, because I've never heard anyone say "I want to replay Mass Effect to try a new class," more "I want to replay Mass Effect so I can make different narrative decisions." The combat of Mass Effect has never been its selling point.

Well, now you have.

I replayed Mass Effect to try a new class.

My first time through the series was as an Infiltrator. The second time I went through the series as an Adept because I wanted to see how Biotic combat worked and if it was actually on-par with just shooting stuff. No regrets.

Anyway, on topic, it's probably not going to bother me. It's just not a feature I'm going to use. I actually like having a class identity and sticking with it, through thick and thin. So I'll probably just pick whatever is closest to Infiltrator for my first playthrough, and that'll be my character for the long haul.

 

[Saelune]

eh just a little further in the progressive death of mass effect as an RPG.

It stopped being a real RPG starting with ME2.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

... There were classes in Mass Effect?

 

[Erttheking]

Meh. I only ever played as one class in Mass Effect because I didn't want to have to restart if I didn't like the one I had picked, so I don't mind this. I see some people saying it's less like a real RPG, but if ME1 was a real RPG then real RPGs are clunky and boring affairs that we only benefit in getting away from. If ME1 is the marker we're going by, I need to emphasize.

 

[Saelune]

... There were classes in Mass Effect?

Im guessing you are being snarky/sarcastic, but I will answer at face value anyways.

There were 6.

3 specialist classes, Soldier (Combat), Adept (Biotics), and Engineer (Tech)

And 3 hybrid classes, Sentinel (Biotics/Tech), Infiltrator (Combat/Tech), and Vanguard (Combat/Biotics).

 

[Saelune]

Meh. I only ever played as one class in Mass Effect because I didn't want to have to restart if I didn't like the one I had picked, so I don't mind this. I see some people saying it's less like a real RPG, but if ME1 was a real RPG then real RPGs are clunky and boring affairs that we only benefit in getting away from. If ME1 is the marker we're going by, I need to emphasize.

What aspects were boring? I liked the non-combat of ME1 the most. My favorite parts was everything but the actual main planet missions. I had hoped that stuff would have been expanded on and improved in 2, not removed almost entirely.

ME2 pushed it into a shooter, and I can only assume 3 pushed it further into that. ME1 still had heavy traces of old school RPGs and KotoR.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

... There were classes in Mass Effect?

Im guessing you are being snarky/sarcastic, but I will answer at face value anyways.

There were 6.

3 specialist classes, Soldier (Combat), Adept (Biotics), and Engineer (Tech)

And 3 hybrid classes, Sentinel (Biotics/Tech), Infiltrator (Combat/Tech), and Vanguard (Combat/Biotics).

I actually wasn't. I played Mass Effect 2 a couple of years ago and I could only vaguely remember that test the black Cerberus dude gives you after you escape from the hospital. I couldn't recall actually picking a class.

 

[Saelune]

... There were classes in Mass Effect?

Im guessing you are being snarky/sarcastic, but I will answer at face value anyways.

There were 6.

3 specialist classes, Soldier (Combat), Adept (Biotics), and Engineer (Tech)

And 3 hybrid classes, Sentinel (Biotics/Tech), Infiltrator (Combat/Tech), and Vanguard (Combat/Biotics).

I actually wasn't. I played Mass Effect 2 a couple of years ago and I could only vaguely remember that test the black Cerberus dude gives you after you escape from the hospital. I couldn't recall actually picking a class.

ME2 made most classes irrelevant.

 

[Erttheking]

Meh. I only ever played as one class in Mass Effect because I didn't want to have to restart if I didn't like the one I had picked, so I don't mind this. I see some people saying it's less like a real RPG, but if ME1 was a real RPG then real RPGs are clunky and boring affairs that we only benefit in getting away from. If ME1 is the marker we're going by, I need to emphasize.

What aspects were boring? I liked the non-combat of ME1 the most. My favorite parts was everything but the actual main planet missions. I had hoped that stuff would have been expanded on and improved in 2, not removed almost entirely.

ME2 pushed it into a shooter, and I can only assume 3 pushed it further into that. ME1 still had heavy traces of old school RPGs and KotoR.

Well first of all, I think very few people will argue when I say that the combat was a clunky mess. Second of all, there are massive trees of skills to upgrade and I think I remember around three that were important. Thirdly, the Mako sections were ambitious but rather samey. And also rather clunky. Though I do agree that I would've liked to see the Mako sections expanded upon, and one thing I'm somewhat interested about in Andromeda is that they apparently brought that back. And just a random stream of unrelated thoughts, way too many items cluttering everything up while you look for the one that has higher numbers than the other, too many QTEs, you can get a huge amount of abilities but using a single one causes them to all be put on cooldown so what's the bloody point, and it just didn't entertain me the way ME2 did.

 

[Saelune]

Meh. I only ever played as one class in Mass Effect because I didn't want to have to restart if I didn't like the one I had picked, so I don't mind this. I see some people saying it's less like a real RPG, but if ME1 was a real RPG then real RPGs are clunky and boring affairs that we only benefit in getting away from. If ME1 is the marker we're going by, I need to emphasize.

What aspects were boring? I liked the non-combat of ME1 the most. My favorite parts was everything but the actual main planet missions. I had hoped that stuff would have been expanded on and improved in 2, not removed almost entirely.

ME2 pushed it into a shooter, and I can only assume 3 pushed it further into that. ME1 still had heavy traces of old school RPGs and KotoR.

Well first of all, I think very few people will argue when I say that the combat was a clunky mess. Second of all, there are massive trees of skills to upgrade and I think I remember around three that were important. Thirdly, the Mako sections were ambitious but rather samey. And also rather clunky. Though I do agree that I would've liked to see the Mako sections expanded upon, and one thing I'm somewhat interested about in Andromeda is that they apparently brought that back. And just a random stream of unrelated thoughts, way too many items cluttering everything up while you look for the one that has higher numbers than the other, too many QTEs, you can get a huge amount of abilities but using a single one causes them to all be put on cooldown so what's the bloody point, and it just didn't entertain me the way ME2 did.

Sure those are issues...issues I had hoped ME2 would have fixed.

Except that last one. It was 2 that put all abilities on a single cool-down and the cause of my major criticism of it as a Sentinel player. ME1 each ability had its own cool down, so I could use my shield, and then do all the other stuff. Eventually my shield became so good it would finish cooling down before it depleted as Im swirling everyone around in the air.

 

[meiam]

Probably not a great things and mean the gameplay will probably take a step back after the major leap that was ME2 and the small improvement of ME2. We're most likely looking at the kind of step back that plague dragon age: origin to DA2 or maybe even the massive cliff dive that was DA:I.

By giving the player any power they want they just open the door to completely overpowered build, balance is almost certainly going to be very poor. By letting the player be whatever they want you can't actually predict what kind of power they'll have available, so you need to design the game around the idea that some people will have absolutely awful load out, while in actuality most people will have extremely strong one. By letting the player be whatever they want the dev are ironically tying there hand and limiting what they can do. I'm even wondering if the shield/armor/biotic shield each with there own strength and weakness will even survive, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to make them all synonymous just in case some player didn't have any ability good against armor or something like that.

 

[distortedreality]

I played through each ME game as a vanguard, and I imagine I'll spec my character in the new game similarly. This news doesn't bother me at all.