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

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

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!!!"...

They just have to make the character a biotic by default. And if you don't want to use biotics you just don't use biotic class skills.

 

[CaitSeith]

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.

Me too. Vangard gameplay was particularly fun on ME3. It's a shame they are getting rid of it (different classes). They have been treating this spin-off as part of the main series.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

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!!!"...

It isn't like that hasn't happened before in the series. When an imported Shepard is resurrected at the start of ME2, the player can still choose Shepard's class, irrespective of what they were in ME. Thus a Soldier in ME could be an Adept in ME2 and vice versa, despite as you say, the lore precluding it.

The biotics came about relatively recently when we start ME. In fact, the First Contact war was recent too. It's eerie just how recent these monumental events in human history are to the events portrayed in the first game. In fact, Kaiden Alenko as a child was one of the earliest adopters of the implants, a so called "L2", powerful but fewer safeguards meant higher "spikes" but nasty side effects. I believe a Biotic Shepard begins ME as an L3, a fact Kaiden comments on. Presumably L1s were an early model/prototype utilised by the first humans with potential Biotic capabilities, perhaps those already children/young adults. L4s I think were Alliance Ascension only and L5s were Cerberus tech. When Shepard is reborn Biotic in ME2, I don't know exactly what they implant him/her with, but I assume it's L5 since Lazarus was no expense spared, cutting edge tech, etc. (Arguably it could also be L3 since they wanted Shepard to be brought back "the same" as before.) I believe, but cannot say for certain, the Miranda, Jacob and Jack all begin ME2 as L3s, and Jack can upgrade to L5x (L5 retrofit) during the game.

Asari and Protheans we learn are/were naturally biotic as a species. Other species can develop biotics similarly to humans, by in-utero exposure to Eezo, but unlike humans don't need implants. Of the Krogan we meet, Wrex is a biotic while Grunt is not (he is tank bred to be "perfect" genetically). We only meet one biotic Turian (and that in a DLC) and apparently it's looked down on in Turian society. Also IIRC Red Sand the drug can temporarily achieve the same effect as implants in humans (and other species), awakening biotics for a time.

 

[Tayh]

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

It stopped being a real RPG starting with ME2.

Let's be honest (and because I'm tired of seeing this), ME1 was never that great of an RPG either.
Just because it had level-ups and skill trees doesn't make it a good RPG.

The series has never been anything more than a sort of cinematic shooter, with glorified RPG elements tacked on. ME2 and 3 just refined that first part.

 

[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.

Let's be honest (and because I'm tired of seeing this), ME1 was never that great of an RPG either.
Just because it had level-ups and skill trees doesn't make it a good RPG.

The series has never been anything more than a sort of cinematic shooter, with glorified RPG elements tacked on. ME2 and 3 just refined that first part.

The combat was what I had to get through to get to the fun parts. ME2 decided to make the not fun part the main part. If I want to shoot aliens, I will play Halo. If I want to actually interact with them in greater depth, ME1. I was hoping the sequels would delve far further into that. Nope.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

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

It stopped being a real RPG starting with ME2.

Let's be honest (and because I'm tired of seeing this), ME1 was never that great of an RPG either.
Just because it had level-ups and skill trees doesn't make it a good RPG.

The series has never been anything more than a sort of cinematic shooter, with glorified RPG elements tacked on. ME2 and 3 just refined that first part.

The combat was what I had to get through to get to the fun parts. ME2 decided to make the not fun part the main part. If I want to shoot aliens, I will play Halo. If I want to actually interact with them in greater depth, ME1. I was hoping the sequels would delve far further into that. Nope.

You role-play in the ME sequels more than you shoot aliens. Thus, ME is one of the few games that are actually RPGs because most time is spent role-playing (regardless of how good or bad you feel it accomplishes that). Whereas almost all video game RPGs, you spend more time in combat than anything else, thus they are mainly combat games (and usually have shit combat on top of that) and I don't consider them RPGs. I don't consider Witcher 3 an RPG for example as Geralt is a set character and you have little character and story choice throughout the game, and of course the obligatory shit combat. Don't get me wrong, there's SOME RPing in Witcher 3, but it's hardly the focus of the game.

https://www.gnd-tech.com/content/949-Role-Playing-Games-A-Dying-Breed/view/3

OT: Until anyone really plays the game and sees how its systems work, it'll be pretty hard to know if no classes was a good/bad decision. Classes aren't something an RPG needs either. You can make an RPG about role-playing as a ninja and only a ninja, that's an RPG. I'm most concerned with how good the questing is going to be, I'd rather have fewer more quality quests over lots of boring quests. I don't want shitty sidequests being the majority of the game. I also hope you continue to have as much dialogue and story decisions. That's Mass Effect to me, not whether there's classes or not.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Considering my "class" was always Gun, I'm probably not going to notice much of a difference.

But yeah, "Ryder is a biotic and has implants but you don't need to use them" makes sense to me.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I was hoping I'd be able to cross class. Like sink enough points into intelligence to unlock the tech class skills, the fitness tree to unlock the combat class skills and maybe find some way to tie dexterity to biotics or make it a feat.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

At this point, my expectations are so low I'm not even surprised. I fully expect non-shooting based mechanics to be so stripped down that it won't even matter.

 

[IceForce]

Meh, I for one really hate getting into that all-too-common situation where I'm part-way into a game, and I realize I've made a mistake during character creation. So I have to start the game ALL over again from the beginning just to re-spec my character or make some other minor (or major, for that matter) adjustment. Looking at you, Oblivion.

So really, I'm fine with games being more flexible with character classes and such, and allowing us to mold our character as we play.

(Also; ME1: Infiltrator, ME2 and onwards: Vanguard. Anything and everything else is wronger than wrong.)

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Meh, I for one really hate getting into that all-too-common situation where I'm part-way into a game, and I realize I've made a mistake during character creation. So I have to start the game ALL over again from the beginning just to re-spec my character or make some other minor (or major, for that matter) adjustment. Looking at you, Oblivion.

So really, I'm fine with games being more flexible with character classes and such, and allowing us to mold our character as we play.

(Also; ME1: Infiltrator, ME2 and onwards: Vanguard. Anything and everything else is wronger than wrong.)

In ME3 a very strong case can be made for the Engineer class too. Aside from making Cerberus look like even bigger chumps by turning their own turrets against them (which will never stop being funny) you also get that cool interrupt in the Omega DLC.

 

[aozgolo]

By itself I don't see this information alone being enough to really make a judgment call, more about the rest of the game needs to be known first.

Many games now with classes or skill trees offer a "re-spec" option, typically for a modest sum or available in limited quantities, often both. This seems to just be simplifying that by removing any penalties for changing things up. I just hope that it doesn't devolve into making every character a jack of all trades, I much prefer having a party made up of unique roles that compliment each other, and not everyone able to do everything just not all at once.

 

[sanquin]

I was hoping I'd be able to cross class. Like sink enough points into intelligence to unlock the tech class skills, the fitness tree to unlock the combat class skills and maybe find some way to tie dexterity to biotics or make it a feat.

I don't know what skills there will be in Andromeda, but it seems like that'll be exactly the case. As in, you can put points into different skill trees. And depending on where you spend points new profiles unlock. If you specialise you unlock specialised profiles, if you mix and match you unlock hybrid profiles. At least that's what I've read so far.

 

[jklinders]

More flexible player options are always a good thing. I'll need to see how they handle it in order to see how it lines up with lore but I'm all for this. An infiltrator sharpshooter who could not train in assault rifles? How arbitrary is that? An N7 candidate that somehow does not know which end of a shotgun to hold? C'mon now.

Classes have ALWAYS been arbitrary for nothing more than the purpose of "game balance." ME is a single player game. Do away with the damn things and maybe hold them over for whatever bolted on multiplayer they decide to do.

 

[WeepingAngels]

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.

The quality of the combat has little to do with replaying a game to try different classes. It's about the progression system in that case.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I was hoping I'd be able to cross class. Like sink enough points into intelligence to unlock the tech class skills, the fitness tree to unlock the combat class skills and maybe find some way to tie dexterity to biotics or make it a feat.

I don't know what skills there will be in Andromeda, but it seems like that'll be exactly the case. As in, you can put points into different skill trees. And depending on where you spend points new profiles unlock. If you specialise you unlock specialised profiles, if you mix and match you unlock hybrid profiles. At least that's what I've read so far.

Oh, that's basically how Kingdoms of Amalur worked: a certain amount of skill points in the three main categories - STR, DEX, INT - unlocked the available class profiles and allowed them to be swapped basically at will.

More flexible player options are always a good thing. I'll need to see how they handle it in order to see how it lines up with lore but I'm all for this. An infiltrator sharpshooter who could not train in assault rifles? How arbitrary is that? An N7 candidate that somehow does not know which end of a shotgun to hold? C'mon now.

Classes have ALWAYS been arbitrary for nothing more than the purpose of "game balance." ME is a single player game. Do away with the damn things and maybe hold them over for whatever bolted on multiplayer they decide to do.

Yeah that's why I preferred the load out system from ME3: Shepard is an elite, experience military operative and should be able to use any of the weapons blindfolded.

 

[Cette]

Given that the games have been slowly including more ways to use skills and weapons off class as it went and ME3's use of a weight vs cool down system for weapons this move makes sense.

I'm more curious what this is going to mean for the multiplayer characters after how shockingly good ME3's was.

 

[wings012]

I don't mind this so much. It's more fun being able to switch classes on the fly. And it's not like Mass Effect had a whole dealy do with discrimination against biotics or anything. While this might be a bit dodgy in Dragon Age due to lore implications, I don't see too much a problem with ME.

And honestly, I don't care if it removes a progression/leveling system altogether. I think so called RPG-fans put too much weight in these archaic systems.

Just let me make choices, let it effect the story and let it have tangible consequences, or at least a pretty damn good illusion of it. Isn't that in essence what an RPG should be about? Aren't stats and all that jazz just remnants from the tabletop era where you needed to simulate your actions? We got the videogame to do that for us now.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

I'm upset but hardly surprised. Bioware on the whole have been moving away from traditional RPGs since Mass Effect and Dragon Age Origins, they're now balls deep into Action RPG and clearly that works for a lot of their fans.

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!!!"...

They've been doing the same thing with Dragon Age. Having recently replayed through Origins and II to have a full World State for Inquisition, the amount of retconning and redundant lore piled up in each entry. With the full on erasure of certain major choices from Origins and Awakenings in the canon, Bioware have come to show their own lore is as malleable as they need it to be.