About Mass Effect Andromeda not getting any more SP content

[Guts66]

Hello everyone, I'm pretty sure a lot of people are upset about Andromeda not getting any more SP content (Including DLC). But I got an idea, you guys are familiar with how Vampire: The Masquerades-Bloodlines went right? I see the situation with Mass Effect Andromeda as being similar to V:TM-B. The idea that I have is, why don't we try to provide some unofficial support for the game, stuff like fixing up the animations, adding in new weapons, making touch ups on character faces, an ME:A extended galaxy mod, etc.

 

NOTE: The only real downside is that Frostbite is a pain in the ass to work with and the modding tools are limited. The layout that I have in mind is that we introduce something into the game, then we spend some time with hotfixes, maybe add in a weapon with the hotfixes, kinda like warframe. I'm also aware that fixing the animations is probably the most challenging aspect about fixing up the game. I also don't have very much experience with modding, let alone with the frostbite modding tools, so the most I could do is advise.

 

Thoughts?

[Tydeous]

As we discussed previously, I'm 100% behind the idea of keeping Mass Effect alive through mods, whether its ME1, 2, 3, or Andromeda. My suggestion is to focus on one aspect you want to mend, fix, improve or add to and work towards that. As texture modding is already somewhat prevalent in the ME:A modding community, my suggestion would be to do some fixes to textures to both improve them and make them more loreful as your first step. Here are my suggestions:

 

- Turian plate textures look quite soft and spongy which is rather unlike how they look in the original trilogy. I'd recommend attempting to fix those.

- Removing barefaced turians, there are snippets of lore that suggest that turians without facial tattoo's are highly stigmatised, so there really wouldn't be many around. There are lots of facial tattoo designs to be found in the original trilogy and the concept art for the trilogy.

- Kandros has different facial tattoo's than his cousin Nyreen from the Omega DLC. As these markings are colonial there is a strong chance that they would share them but for some reason they don't. I'd suggest a switch.

- Krogan are too colourful, its established in the books (and I believe ingame) that krogan skin tones grow dull as they age and that they have vibrant skin tones when they are in their younger years. Due to the genophage there wouldn't be many young krogan, but there are many multi-coloured ones in New Tuchanka. I'd suggest dulling the textures for many of them.

 

I'd suggest starting with something like that. As that is complete then look ahead, as each new addition or fix is made then it gets added to the mod, eventually forming a large content mod in the process. Something like this requires a team, though.

 

Feel free to accept or disregard my suggestions, entirely up to you, I'll be interested to see what people think.

[nightscrawl]

Hello everyone, I'm pretty sure a lot of people are upset about Andromeda not getting any more SP content (Including DLC). But I got an idea, you guys are familiar with how Vampire: The Masquerades-Bloodlines went right? I see the situation with Mass Effect Andromeda as being similar to V:TM-B. The idea that I have is, why don't we try to provide some unofficial support for the game, stuff like fixing up the animations, adding in new weapons, making touch ups on character faces, an ME:A extended galaxy mod, etc.

 

NOTE: The only real downside is that Frostbite is a pain in the ass to work with and the modding tools are limited. The layout that I have in mind is that we introduce something into the game, then we spend some time with hotfixes, maybe add in a weapon with the hotfixes, kinda like warframe. I'm also aware that fixing the animations is probably the most challenging aspect about fixing up the game. I also don't have very much experience with modding, let alone with the frostbite modding tools, so the most I could do is advise.

 

Thoughts?

 

"The only real downside is that Frostbite is a pain in the ass to work with and the modding tools are limited."

 

This pretty much sums up everything and is the great barrier to any kind of work to be done on any Frostbite game. Right now, whether it's Dragon Age: Inquisition or Mass Effect Andromeda, you can only replace assets in the game, or change existing assets, not add anything new. Working these things into the tools takes time. The longer it takes, the more time that passes, the more interest in modding the game and making those changes will wane.

 

As talented and brilliant a coder as Ehaml is, the limitations of Frostbite itself, as well as the way the game is put together, likely means that we will never be able to have the same kind of depth provided by the DAO Toolset, able to add scripted scenes and such. Even then, you will need modder interest to create those mods. I'll hazard a guess that the modding community for MEA is going to be nowhere near as extensive as it was for DAO. The game just isn't that popular, and it doesn't help matters that Bioware has abandoned it. Even the much-maligned DA2 got item DLC and two decent story DLC. Don't underestimate the effect that has on the will of the playerbase.

[Ehamloptiran]

As talented and brilliant a coder as Ehaml is, the limitations of Frostbite itself, as well as the way the game is put together, likely means that we will never be able to have the same kind of depth provided by the DAO Toolset, able to add scripted scenes and such. Even then, you will need modder interest to create those mods. I'll hazard a guess that the modding community for MEA is going to be nowhere near as extensive as it was for DAO. The game just isn't that popular, and it doesn't help matters that Bioware has abandoned it. Even the much-maligned DA2 got item DLC and two decent story DLC. Don't underestimate the effect that has on the will of the playerbase.

 

 

Dont bet on it, Frostbite is actually a reasonably nice engine to work with, limitation wise, its all fairly extendable, the main issue is resolving the unknowns, and then writing tools to accommodate the end user, actually make it easy to mod, rather than having to require a degree in game design to know how to use the tools. Yes its going to take time, yes most of the scenes will be dead by then, but new games are always coming for me to work on (which i will continue to work on the older games as well). And if anything over the last couple of months, ive learnt that even a seemingly dead modding scene (eg. SWBF) can be reignited by the presence of decent tools.

[Guts66]

 

As talented and brilliant a coder as Ehaml is, the limitations of Frostbite itself, as well as the way the game is put together, likely means that we will never be able to have the same kind of depth provided by the DAO Toolset, able to add scripted scenes and such. Even then, you will need modder interest to create those mods. I'll hazard a guess that the modding community for MEA is going to be nowhere near as extensive as it was for DAO. The game just isn't that popular, and it doesn't help matters that Bioware has abandoned it. Even the much-maligned DA2 got item DLC and two decent story DLC. Don't underestimate the effect that has on the will of the playerbase.

 

 

Dont bet on it, Frostbite is actually a reasonably nice engine to work with, limitation wise, its all fairly extendable, the main issue is resolving the unknowns, and then writing tools to accommodate the end user, actually make it easy to mod, rather than having to require a degree in game design to know how to use the tools. Yes its going to take time, yes most of the scenes will be dead by then, but new games are always coming for me to work on (which i will continue to work on the older games as well). And if anything over the last couple of months, ive learnt that even a seemingly dead modding scene (eg. SWBF) can be reignited by the presence of decent tools.

 

Like I have said, the most I could possibly do is advise or set out a plan for what needs to be worked on, for right now, it seems the most people can do is add weapons from MP into SP and modding textures. Have people added in weapons at all or is it not quite there yet. Another issue I wanted to work on was the whole Asari Clone issue, because I know that was an issue that a lot of people had.

[Guts66]

As we discussed previously, I'm 100% behind the idea of keeping Mass Effect alive through mods, whether its ME1, 2, 3, or Andromeda. My suggestion is to focus on one aspect you want to mend, fix, improve or add to and work towards that. As texture modding is already somewhat prevalent in the ME:A modding community, my suggestion would be to do some fixes to textures to both improve them and make them more loreful as your first step. Here are my suggestions:

 

- Turian plate textures look quite soft and spongy which is rather unlike how they look in the original trilogy. I'd recommend attempting to fix those.

- Removing barefaced turians, there are snippets of lore that suggest that turians without facial tattoo's are highly stigmatised, so there really wouldn't be many around. There are lots of facial tattoo designs to be found in the original trilogy and the concept art for the trilogy.

- Kandros has different facial tattoo's than his cousin Nyreen from the Omega DLC. As these markings are colonial there is a strong chance that they would share them but for some reason they don't. I'd suggest a switch.

- Krogan are too colourful, its established in the books (and I believe ingame) that krogan skin tones grow dull as they age and that they have vibrant skin tones when they are in their younger years. Due to the genophage there wouldn't be many young krogan, but there are many multi-coloured ones in New Tuchanka. I'd suggest dulling the textures for many of them.

 

I'd suggest starting with something like that. As that is complete then look ahead, as each new addition or fix is made then it gets added to the mod, eventually forming a large content mod in the process. Something like this requires a team, though.

 

Feel free to accept or disregard my suggestions, entirely up to you, I'll be interested to see what people think.

Interesting touch right there.

[Tydeous]

It might be worth approaching some of the modders on the mod page directly to see if they want to get involved.

[Almostfaceman]

I saw the Mass Effect modding scene revive years after the games came out, it is possible to keep the modding scenes alive and folks who own the games on PC can definitely be interested and support mods.

[Tydeous]

I guess someone has to decide where to begin. We need a first step, before diving in and fixing everything. And something like this needs people to rally behind it, to contribute to a greater mod rather than for their own ones. That won't be easy to do.

[Guts66]

I guess someone has to decide where to begin. We need a first step, before diving in and fixing everything. And something like this needs people to rally behind it, to contribute to a greater mod rather than for their own ones. That won't be easy to do.

One place to start is, like you said, try to rally people to this.

 

 

As talented and brilliant a coder as Ehaml is, the limitations of Frostbite itself, as well as the way the game is put together, likely means that we will never be able to have the same kind of depth provided by the DAO Toolset, able to add scripted scenes and such. Even then, you will need modder interest to create those mods. I'll hazard a guess that the modding community for MEA is going to be nowhere near as extensive as it was for DAO. The game just isn't that popular, and it doesn't help matters that Bioware has abandoned it. Even the much-maligned DA2 got item DLC and two decent story DLC. Don't underestimate the effect that has on the will of the playerbase.

 

 

Dont bet on it, Frostbite is actually a reasonably nice engine to work with, limitation wise, its all fairly extendable, the main issue is resolving the unknowns, and then writing tools to accommodate the end user, actually make it easy to mod, rather than having to require a degree in game design to know how to use the tools. Yes its going to take time, yes most of the scenes will be dead by then, but new games are always coming for me to work on (which i will continue to work on the older games as well). And if anything over the last couple of months, ive learnt that even a seemingly dead modding scene (eg. SWBF) can be reignited by the presence of decent tools.

 

Do you want to help us with this? Nightscrawl said you were talented so we'd appreciate the help.

Side note: Are there any sort of groups on Nexus Mods?