Thoughts on Multiplayer?

Thought I would start a thread to see what people thought of the multiplayer in Andromeda compared to ME3.

I was a huge fan of the multi in 3 and sunk way too many hours in it doing gold and platinum runs with a small, dedicated group.

I feel like I'm in the minority but I've really enjoyed the new auto cover system, I think the freedom of movement it gives is excellent.

Originally, after seeing gameplay I was a little concerned that it would be a Quake fest, run, jump and gun affair but after playing it myself I've found that still falls well within the "hunker and hold" camp.

I see a lot of potential in it and think it could be as good as 3's multiplayer, it's a shame that we can't create a custom character and get armor drops, etc but I'm ok with that.

Some more maps need to drop quickly as 5 is pretty low for now but I've got faith that this will be as much of a fun and addicting lootgrind as 3.

What do you guys think?

Really excited to hear this!

Everyone I know personally who adored Mass Effect 3's multiplayer has thus far really, really liked Andromeda's as well. It's a good sign for a game otherwise getting pummeled in the court of public opinion.

I loved it in 3. First impressions here are not great. Something about it feels off but I don't know what (even though I enjoy the single player combat a lot).

That said, I have only tried it with a turian soldier which is far from how I play Mass Effect. I only really enjoy Vanguard and even charging in on Platinum in 3 I could do well so maybe I just need to get the Krogan Vanguard class to start enjoying it.

I am having a whole lot of fun with it and I never played the multiplayer in 3.

Seeing your characters progress is really fun (and gives you that progression fix over and over since you can switch characters match to match). Everything about the character and weapon/item progression and how it works with the chests feels perfectly fine and balanced so it does not feel cheap on EA's part (because of course you can buy chests). It has a mix of consumable stuff and long term unlocks and I think both work. The consumables are fun and life savers that aren't so hard to find and have been nice to use.

The basic gameplay is just very fun in this game and working together with others is great. I think each class has felt quite unique.

My only issues are the game has crashed a few times in multiplayer and the small number of maps is definitely a factor. Some tougher enemies can be annoying like in other co-op modes of this ilk but nothing as annoying as say the boss characters in the Uncharted 4 Horde mode levels of bullet sponge, if anyone has played it. I also save the consumable RPG for the toughest enemies of the ME:A multiplayer so far and it's satisfying to blast them. If your team also combos abilities it can be a huge factor so teamplay matters.

After getting a bit into singleplayer, I decided I wanted to remake my character anyways (not feeling the default Nathan Drake esque guy) so I have just been playing the multiplayer (that will all carry over so feels more useful). I've been playing for about 6 hours and it's been great.

If some guys on GB want to play when this comes out I definitely should be on PC.

This is good to hear because I know I have a few friends that are grabbing it with mindset of playing the multiplayer a bunch.

Is there still a feel of competitiveness to it to score the most points? Is the XP still divided across the team?

I downloaded 3 on pc and the gamepad mod and after comparison the new multiplayer is definitely an improvement. The 2 button special move is still bad though and i hope that i can somehow just map it back to Y, and just map melee to the right stick or something. The cover system isn't great though, often times it would put me facing the wrong way so it's impossible to pop out and shoot which led to some frustration. I could it causing major problems when at the higher difficulties when one or 2 shots means instant downs. Movement and stuff is better though and the shooting is snappier but it's a bit jarring with the added verticality especially when playing infiltrator. I'll chop that up to me needing to "git guud* though lol.

@dispossession: It is not. Everyone gets the same accumulated XP of the entire team.

This was the exact same problem I was running into. Other than that its really fun though.

I really enjoy the dodge and jump in this game too, as well as the float. I actually wish the game was a bit more vertical as I play it more because that gets pretty interesting. My favorite map is the one that is the complex where you can hang out up on the roof if you like.

It makes the Charge awesome to use at the end as you're floating. The dodge is awesome on the ground and really useful I have found as a way to quickly get into cover as a guy is shooting at you. In moments with the charge and the jump and boost it actually gives me Vanquish vibes.

Overall I think the cover is an improvement but at times is a little janky. Certainly not the best system I've seen in any TPS.

Haven't played it yet, but the improvements to basic combat seem tailor-made for multiplayer. I'm personally disappointed that you can't get tactical with your squad in the campaign, but I'm all for a better playing ME 3 multiplayer component.

Spent all of my trial time on the multiplayer. Seasoned Vet of ME3 Multiplayer. Two big differences for me are that leveling a character actually takes a very long time now (it took like 1.5 hours in me3) and the game is much more difficult. Both points sort of go hand in hand though. I appreciate the leveling process though because you kind of figure out your character better with different teammates.

Bronze difficulty is actually challenging. Silver is damn tough and I haven't even tried Gold yet. I've spent probably 5 hours just on my Krogan Vanguard and he is level 13. I can't give a full review of it because I pretty much only did gold in me3 and I can't even try it yet in Andromeda. The game requires a bit more teamwork or at least good teamwork makes the game smoother and better. Still possible if you are a loner jerk. Already met an Indian guy who appreciated how many times I picked him up and invited me to his party.

I don't like the level of jank that there is in the movement especially the jetpack. I get stuck in areas that I shouldn't be in too much. The jank is not that big of a deal to me because a lot of the time it's influenced by lag. Speaking of lag, I don't have much playing as not-host. Never got disconnected from a game so far. The only thing affected by lag is dashing which can be frustrating at times.

Objectives. Easy ones are hack, and target. HARD AS SHIT ONES are devices disabled and the three hack area ones. I just wish they were a bit easier. Maybe just 3 devices and two hack areas. They are so incredibly difficult sometimes. Really appreciate that multiplayer is now 7 rounds instead of 11. Games just took too long in me3.

COMBO EXPLOSIONS ARE THE BOMB! They look great, they feel great, they are great. I appreciate how much work they put into telling you with abilities prime and detonate. They even put a little icon next to your powers so you know which do which. Tech explosions leave behind a pool of electricity at the target. That's pretty neat.

The enemy types (palettes as they call them) are really good. As a Gears of War horde fan, I didn't like the new enemy is Gears 4 so horde suffered for me. Just didn't like Gears 4 as much as 3 because of the enemies even though it was a bigger and better horde. I actually like fighting all three in Andromeda. I thought I'd hate the robots but I really like fighting the Destroyer. Reminds me of a small Brumak. The Outlaws feel like you are fighting PVP. They use powers against you which feels really cool. The Kett are terrifying. Terrifying.

The multiplayer in Andromeda is not a huge improvement. It's about the same as ME3 and that's fine for me. My opinion is not fully formed yet. I need to play and unlock more. The reason ME3 multiplayer was so replayable was because of the hundreds of customizations of characters (and big, impacting, free dlc). This guy with this spec with this gun with this team. It was so so so big and I hope Andromeda is still that big. I think it's on the right path.

I only played a match with an Asari sentinel and it was really fun. It's a lot more of the same but the new movement system makes zipping around the maps a blast

Are you sure? I thought XP was per-character based on performance, but everyone earned the same amount of credits. XP being how your character powers get stronger, and credits being how you unlock new characters, weapons, and attachments.

Either way, the game is definitely still competitive in that it ranks each player by their performance at the end of the match. You can also earn medals for things like 25 headshots in a match, or most revives. I think those might also give bonus XP.

This doesn't sound surprising, seeing as there's no longer an option to 'prestige' your character for a small bonus at the expense of resetting their stats. I kind of expected leveling would take longer now. Can you easily respec, then? Once a class is unlocked, can you create several characters with it, and put different points into different powers with each? I could probably guess how that will work, but it's been a long while since I played ME3 multiplayer. I'm betting it's the same, but I don't remember.

It's pretty similar to ME3 but the combat is hugely improved so naturally it's better. I've only played a match or two but I can see myself digging in deep here, the combat just feels very fluid in this game.

It's basically the same MP as ME3, which I liked a lot and put time into (I had every character). My only problems with it would be that biotics seem to be a little lame now, since they used to be anti-armor and that's no longer the case because they got rid of warp, reave, and dark channel. I'll have to get used to playing as a tech character, since I used to prefer biotics. Also, the UI at the character select screen needs some work, grouping the characters by class made more sense and looked better in ME3.

All I can say is all of the above is making me happy..I actually only bought ME:A for the multiplayer, Its the only game this year im really psyched for (Ive even told my Overwatch buddies that they may have to find a new Rein!)

Are there still resource crates you purchase with in game currency and is that the only way you acquire new characters and weapons? To this day, that was the only micro transaction that I fell for.

Yep, that's pretty much how the game is designed. I'm a strong believer that you should never pay for a CHANCE to get anything. I'd pay 20 dollars for a single in-game weapon before I would pay 50 cents for the chance to unlock that weapon. But really, I won't be doing either. I played ME3 for months, and never spent a dime after buying the game itself.

The multiplayer really is looking good, though. It's ridiculous that so many reviews barely mention that it exists.

Here's a gold difficulty match from someone who is new to the series:

I'm honestly very disappointed by it. I mean, it's good that it's like the old Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, but it's too much like it. It's been 5 years since Mass Effect 3 came out (five years!!), so I hoped they could have addressed the many problems Mass Effect 3 had. But they didn't.

The larger structure and issues are almost identical. The blind boxes and consumables were my least favourite part before, and they still are now (especially with colour customisation options locked behind blind boxes). The UI is still nigh unusable, maybe even worse this time around. For one, having a couple seconds of "connecting to server" wait-time at every little change you make to your loadout is simply insane. The netcode is... boy. When it lags, it really lags. At least host migration works, I guess? And there is still no text chat. Jeez. It's also even more difficult to identify who's playing what class, which doesn't benefit the combo system when everyone's jumping all over the place. The in-game scoreboard thing even looks identical. To this day, I still don't know what those score numbers are supposed to mean.

These are just some of the major issues I have with it, off the top of my head. It's so heartbreaking, since the game's actually still very fun to play. I just can't do this again. After five years, the Mass Effect multiplayer deserves better than this, dammit.

I want to like it but it is absolutely mind-blowing that they don't have a functional way to party up with friends. I just want to be able to party up and quick match together with a friend and it's basically impossible. Did nobody think this would be a problem?

We want to play together often but they way the matchmaking works it's an abysmal situation to try and find another two players to get a game going. Custom games should hypothetically work but you can wait hours and it will never match people into your lobby.

Plus, when we manage to luck out and match together, it lags every game. I'd say that eight times out of ten I boost jump or dash, the server lags out on me and I rubber band pretty severely. Might be exasperated because my Internet isn't that great, but my friend lags frequently as well, although not as much, and he doesn't have the same Internet problems that I do.

I don't like how tough bronze is now, it's pretty shitty to spend more time playing the low level to get low level loot. Enemies in bronze take way too long to go down, especially the kett and the xp/credit rewards don't adjust to this. Second the Kett, holy shit they are unbalanced. The only time a squad I join loses in bronze is when the kett are the enemies. They hit too hard, take too many hits, and those wizard dudes are ridiculously op. Honestly they shouldn't even spawn but one at the last wave on bronze.

Lack of quick leveling by being stuck on bronze with low level characters fucking blows, and sadly multiplayer is the main reason to own this game (IMO) and that takes a lot of wind out of it.

@jjbsterling: I am on pc this time and none of my IRL friends game on pc, so i have no clue how to group up etc but back in the day it was pretty easy with xbox live in 3. Seems like that is a big issue that would have been ironed out if they just had a fucking beta. Same with this terrible balance and game progression.

THIS is an enormous point, and one that hasn't received a lot of airtime in the conversations I've seen.

The jetpack almost feels right. It almost feels snappy enough. It almost works as intuitively as it needs to. I quite like jetpacking around, both mechanically and practically, so it ends up being pretty frustrating to experience the dash's weird hitching, or to clip geometry you aren't quite clearing but can't quite see.

Shoot, even running in a straight line in a multiplayer match produces this uncomfortable frameskip-like phenomenon. I've mostly been host for the matches I've played, and for the most part I'd give the movement tolerable-but-not-great appraisal. In the few matches I haven't been host, I actively dislike the fundamental task of traversing within the map. Lag and connection issues only exacerbate this problem, and other general issues regarding enemy hitboxes and enemy movement. It's to the point where I'll see things, like the jittery behavior of a particular creature, and I'll not know if it's something scripted into the AI routines or a reflection of an unstable peer-to-peer connection.

EDIT:I forgot to mention one goofy anecdote. I happened to jump-dash into a flying enemy (Observer?). The camera proceeded to spin out of control like it'd been hit with a hockey puck. I lost all bearing, had no idea what was going on, no idea if I was being shot, shooting, dying, already dead. When the camera stopped spinning I was standing facing a corner in a completely different section of the map. I'm talking rooms and rooms away, through multiple solid walls. Jump-dashing into an enemy had teleported me through the geometry to someplace where the game no longer had to compute the collision.

It was amazing.

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Other things:

• Bronze feels too difficult and/or the characters take too long to level up. This is basically just in agreement with @oursin_360's assessment.
• The Ascendant either needs a cooldown on its ability to use its Orb, or the Orb itself needs a significantly reduced amount of hit points. As it stands, that enemy is disproportionately hard to bring down.
• Hacking Multiple Areas is ridiculously punishing in the right circumstances.
• As an Xbox One player, the game is fucking hideous by default. Turning off Film Grain and Chromatic Aberration makes a noticeable difference.

I'm enjoying it! It's more or less ME3 multiplayer. Jump in with some others and shoot stuff with Mass Effect powers and all that.

@inevpatoria The thing that bugs me about the jetpack is the little stumble you always do when you're landing. Really stifles the momentum of the combat.

Playing on PS4 and I've not been impressed with the connectivity I've had with other players. I've had one game so far where things have went smoothly, most matches are buggy messes where enemies are dying seconds after I shoot them.

Not sure what the issue is. Is it Peer2Peer or server?

The lack of maps and it is a bit too grindy for me. I definitely don't mind it taking a bit to level up characters (more than ME 3 from what I see) but it gets to be a grind.

@haxdax: I jumped into a gold game and got mauled, I can tell you that for sure.

I am running a krogan engineer right now, think i am about level 14 or so and my damage output is laughable. I have the boost to combination damage and both incinerate and overload at level 5, but even with full fire explosions can't seem to kill most regular enemies in one hit even on bronze.

Am i just doing this wrong or have they nerfed the damage output for everything you do and buffed the enemies? Also not being able to get to negative recharge speed sucks, in 3 you would just put a light weight smg on an engineer/biotic and just be a pure caster but that doesn't seem viable (at least not with the krogan engineer even though he has abilities that should allow for that)

@artisanbreads If it's like 3 they will add in some more maps over time, i feel that did a real good job supporting multiplayer in that game. My issue is the maps don't seem great and don't suit your traversal abilities that well. Sure you can get on top of stuff, but it's always clunky with the possibility of getting stuck and shot to death. I kind of wish they didn't give everybody a jet pack, and only had it for a couple classes like in 3(same thing with the dash move).

I's a laggy janky mess, there is something solid in there but it's burried so deep I am not willing to spend more time on it. They made no real improvements from the last games in multiplayer (even the movement feels bad online and they re-used the maps so they are not really designed to take advantage of the jetpack). Maybe I'll try it later, but even in the good (connectivity wise) games everything seems to react half a second late.

@inevpatoria: Speaking of accidentally getting into places you shouldn't be. I was fighting Remnant and a Destroyer was walking between the two main rooms in the building on Firebase Zero? (the Asteroid one). On my Krogan Vanguard, I charged one of his turrets while he was in the doorway. It threw me up into a room above the rooms. Was completely stuck there for a while but was able to charge another enemy that walked by the wall in the upper platform in the middle of the map. It was a mostly complete room with one wall being rock and the rest furnished. I could probably recreate it.

super laggy, guess people still use dial up internet.... but once there's a good host it's super fun to be honest.

If we are on the topic of glitches, i got the infamous under the world glitch, where i somehow got stuck under the map for a few secs lol. Last time this happened was in arkham knight...

I think the dog type enemies are glitched somehow, as whenever they bum rush me i often get trapped in the geometry or teleported around. Also melee is so bad in this game, i think 3 was actually better at it.

From bad netcode, to glitches, to anything else that makes the multiplayer objectively worse than it could be, those would be the last things that I would worry about remaining broken. BioWare / EA is financially incentivized to make multiplayer the best experience it can be. If people stop playing because they're not having a good time, that's ultimately lost income.

I'm still enjoying my time with the single player too much to play multiplayer right now, anyway.

After playing it some more I still like it, but there are at least certain aspect of ME3's MP that were better. Leveling up being a big one since that feels too slow now. They should've kept leveling up by class, not by the specific character like it is now. Now I'm FAR less likely to tryout new characters, since I don't have the time to get a bunch of characters to level 20. Now I'm going to find 2 or 3 characters I like and stick with those. In ME3 I bounced around a lot, since if you got an adept/soldier/engineer/etc to a certain level, every character of that class would be at that level. Maybe they'll add more powerful characters later, but ME3's characters would beat the hell out of the ones here if they somehow got into a fight with each other, since the characters here don't have impressive powers like a N7 Fury, Asari Adept & Infilitrator, or N7 Shadow.

I've only lagged 2 or 3 times, so I haven't really had a problem there.

I'm having a surprisingly good time with it. I liked ME3's multiplayer back in the day, but it didn't stick with me that long. This time around I'm kinda hooked. I love the character leveling. It's a great way to test out combos you may or may not like and take that knowledge back into the single player. I started off in biotics early on in sp, but after some time playing as a engineer in mp I realized I liked the tech options much better. Saved me some time stumbling through the abilities in the main game.

I enjoyed ME3 MP on the PC well enough, but I felt the difficulty spike was too high.

I'm playing Andromeda on the PS4 now and I plan to get to the MP soon. This is a bit weird, but it doesn't seem like it makes sense to do the MP right away since it ties into the story. That's just me being weird about the roleplaying aspect of the game, though. I do plan to get to it after I'm done on Eos!

Yeah this has been kind of true for me. Although I kinda stick with Biotics per usual for ME but I love being able to explore the Engineer side in multi a lot. The Angara Insurgent is so much fun to play and fits the defensive style I like for the Multiplayer mode (vs Singleplayer where I am much more based around charging into the thick of it). It's a fun switch up for me that shows how much fun there is to get out of the different possible play styles.

Nothing like beating a tough bronze wave and then getting a ctd before you get your shitty rewards...

Carnifex seems nerfed in multiplayer as well, finally got my favorite pistol and realized it was shit(havent checked but the one in single player seems to hit like it should)

Multi is exactly what I wanted. I played a stupid amount of ME3. The reduced number of waves is nice in terms of saving time, but man EA servers are still a disaster. There can still be really crazy lag and it is awful when you get through an entire match and lose connection to the host, getting nothing.

The chase for premium packs is totally back for me - constantly improving classes and your loadouts, while doing some solid horde mode cover shooting. Definitely noticing the difficulty increase and time to level up characters but it hasn't bothered me yet.

@oursin_360 I was waiting to get a Carnifex and I'm sorry to hear that :/ Favorite pistol to use with the Adept classes.

Seriously this sucks. In multiplayer it is hardly better than that Phalanx pistol which fires WAY faster than it. I have both and there is no reason to use it.

I just got it in singleplayer and it still crushes it, super fun to use. Pretty lame that this is the case right now.

@artisanbreads: @nickhead: Yeah it is bad, at least at level 1 but maybe it scales better with each level?

Also, did they take out head shots? Or atleast dudes heads exploding lol.

Just got my first widow but haven't tried it out yet, i am finding automatics in this game to be much better than manual guns so far (which was kinda the opposite in 3 for the most part) need to try my mattock on my turian though as i remember that being a go to in the last game. Asari sentinel is my favorite class so far (that i have tried) i am still getting wrecked on silver so no level 20 characters yet :-(

The most fun i have had with this entire game so far, is joining a match with all Krogans(different classes) and just running around headbutting every thing in sight. It reminded me why i like mass effect lol.

Right now I have used a few characters but I'm a little worried I won't like going much further beyond that. If that's the case it's fine for me because I will still get a lot of time out of this multiplayer but once you get up to Silver I just do not enjoy the gameplay quite as much at times. When I have a stronger character it will be a bit better but I can't imagine having fun with Gold.

@artisanbreads: seems like higher difficulty relies on better weapons, enemies just take too long to go down and hit too hard. I guess 3 was similar but being able to level faster meant going to higher difficulty, 50hrs in i am still om bronze with no level 20 character. Bronze is way harder than single player normal, and silver feels like insane at least with mid/low level charscters/weapons. I probably wont put as much time into this, and since the forums are gone i dont see as many balance changes like in 3. I think they already had patches by now during 3's lifespan.

@oursin_360: I can see coming back with more maps and I really enjoy the Bronze. Honestly I can see a dark thought that they want it harder at first to try to get them to buy packs.

I personally just don't like bullet sponge TPS games much. It's always bugged me. I can like different challenges but that just annoys me and is tedious. It makes shooting and all your powers unsatisfying suddenly to me as well. Like with my Insurgent, my trip mines go from deadly to just damaging which is a big difference to my effectiveness. I am close to a damage and force upgrade on my mines, and on Bronze that makes them effective against bigger tougher enemies. On Silver, it's back to making them just good enough to kill grunt types.

On Bronze it's the best Horde mode type thing out there I think. I just may not get up to level 20 but that's fine with me.

@artisanbreads: yeah but i feel bronze rewarda are too low and they need to balance this better. You cant jack of all trades in silver/gold yoy have to basically go survivability or damage. They used to have classes with specific buffs to certain weapons, so a salrian infiltrator would get almost double sniper damage than other classes which made him a go to for gold/platinum. Now it aeems its all generic weapon buff(which i guess goes with the jack of all trade theme of the main game which i hate) which makes damage output weaker on average.

It also feels shitty to go from playing platinum and soloing gold in 3 to being stuck on bronze. :-(

@oursin_360: You're right the rewards will suck as it goes on but if I'm not having fun I won't keep going.

Lets hope they keep working on it.

Some of the changes feel really malicious, like certain elements of character level progression being locked behind blind boxes. It's going to be a nightmare relying on RNG to fully level the Ultra Rare characters.

I'm in the same camp with @artisanbreads and @oursin_360: The moment-to-moment play isn't hooking me as much as I want it to, certainly not enough to care about playing the higher difficulties. There's a lot to say about the general sponginess of the enemies, the weird ways in which the game doesn't provide a ton of consistent feedback for certain actions/occurrences, and the persistent server instability.

I can't help but feel a lingering disappointment here. Mass Effect 3's multiplayer wasn't perfect by any means, but even out of the launch gate it had a compelling sense of gusto and sustainable momentum. That it factor is something I'm just not feeling with Andromeda's multiplayer suite, despite liking a lot of the things the game does mechanically.

We're sure to see weapon balance patches and tweaks to the economy. But will it be enough, is the question.

Not taking any damage from enemies during the gold apex mission, the host was probably doing "something".

edit: oh, this other host seem to have unlimited RPGs.

Just like in ME3, I think the bronze tier takes too long and is too difficult to be considered easy, and the silver and gold tiers are probably equally as frustrating.

Is it just me, or is it hard to tell where enemies are coming from until they're shooting at you? Am I missing something?

I got a ctd twice today while in the middle of programing a device, didn't seem like any special mission just happened in the exact same way twice.

Bronze was easy in ME3, i remember it being easy and silver being too hard at first until i got the controls down and then gold and platinum etc. Bronze seems harder than the main game now, and silver the enemies are buffed beyond belief. I feel i have grasped the game pretty well so far and the difficulty curve is crazy, then again maybe i just don't have the right weapons unlocked yet.