Cortyn complains a bit about Mass Effect: Andromeda. The multiplayer has some small issues that tarnish the enjoyment.
Let’s keep it short and painless again today: Yes, it’s about Mass Effect: Andromeda. No, it has nothing to do with the facial animations or the voice acting or specific quest issues.
This time it’s solely about the multiplayer.
Since my circle of friends has slowly overcome the initial “hype” phase and has been able to detach themselves from the single-player campaign of the game for longer than half an hour (for nourishment), we have been increasingly playing the multiplayer mode in recent weeks.
The multiplayer mode is fun, no doubt. However, some things become noticeable the more you play it.
For instance, there are several “protection mechanisms” that keep players from dying prematurely. A character has shield and health energy. When the shield energy is depleted, health points begin to decline with hits – nothing new there. However, what bothers me significantly are the protective barriers that have been erected within this system. When the character’s health points shrink to an inch, all enemies stop shooting at our character for 1-2 seconds.
The player gets a second chance – no matter how silly it is
Sure, this is a game mechanic intended to give the player another chance to take cover. But it’s silly. If I’m surrounded by 5 Kett because I positioned myself foolishly, I deserve to hit the ground. It’s just absurd that all enemies show mercy for a brief moment to allow me to escape. This massively disrupts the enjoyment of the game.
With the exception of execution animations of certain enemies that mean immediate death, the character also cannot be directly sent over this threshold.
An example: Our character has 20% health left and no shield energy. The next shot from the enemy is powerful and would normally deal 50% of our maximum health as damage – we would be down immediately. This protection mechanism now ensures that the shot does not directly kill our character but only brings them to the brink of death, where we again have 1-2 seconds of grace to take cover.
Mission objectives trivialized
A second point is the nerf that took place last week. With the highly acclaimed patch 1.05, there were also some balancing changes to the multiplayer mode. Most notably, weapons and the damage of enemies were adjusted. In summary, enemies are somewhat less threatening, and the players’ weapons are stronger.
What is frustrating, however, is that some of the mission objectives have also been trivialized. For the objective “Devices”, four devices have to be activated in order. Activating takes time, so one player sits at the device while the other three protect him – at least that used to be the case. Now activating can be done within 5 seconds, which at the difficulty “Silver” means that even heavy fire cannot stop you. Cover from teammates is no longer necessary.
In a multiplayer mode that is so heavily based on cooperation, I would wish that both mentioned mechanics did not exist.
But hey – ultimately I play the multiplayer endlessly anyway – it’s just too much fun.
What patch 1.05 brought for Mass Effect: Andromeda, we have revealed in this article.
