Mass effect andromeda multiplayer tips. Mass Effect: Andromeda Multiplayer Tips. It is not necessary to change the composition of the team

For the stalwart Apex forces, Mass Effect: Andromeda's new galaxy is a spiral-shaped suburb full of Kett to kick off their new lawn. Andromeda's multiplayer elaborates on Mass Effect 3's wave-based co-op format with jetpack-fueled mobility and more freeform ability use. Enemies hit harder and seek you out more aggressively as a result, but if you achieve extraction, you’ll reap some nice rewards for both your Apex personnel and Ryder’s journey.

This multiplayer guide will help you get started with the fundamentals on survival and an analysis of each enemy type. To dig deeper, check out our, too.

general tips

Stick to your class strengths. Some kits, such as the Engineer or Sentinel, excel at locking down areas or hunkering with bolstered defenses. Others take advantage of Andromeda's heightened mobility—Vanguards, Infiltrators, and other similarly movement-heavy classes mesh exceptionally well with rapid jet-boosts to dive behind cover or dash to a flank. Pick the class that pairs the best with your playstyle, and your suite of abilities will greatly enhance your combat effectiveness.

Shoulder-swap your view as needed. With a tap of the default Alt key, your viewing angle behind your character switches between their left or right shoulder. This is crucial for orienting yourself correctly if you’re peeking around a corner, tracking enemy movements behind cover, or funneling a target in a certain direction.

Use the “right-hand advantage” to shoot safely around corners. Here's how it works: side close to the corner of a leftward turn. Angle your crosshair so it covers the area beyond the turn while your character sits behind cover. It looks slightly goofy, but your shots will still land where you"re aiming—bullets have a hitscan effect instead of exiting from your gun's barrel. This works on a rightward corner, as well, but not as reliably. (Watch from ME3 for a visual example.)

Bind the “Last Used Weapon” command near your movement keys for faster weapon switch.“Q” is the traditional quick-switch key cemented from shooters past, but any key you can comfortably strike will serve as a trusty alternative to the possibly slippery mouse wheel during tense moments.

Keep moving—especially up. You"ll probably fail if you or one of your teammates shoves themselves in a corner and refuses to budge. The enemies in Andromeda's multiplayer are quite aggressive and will constantly attempt to flank and blitz your area. Constant repositioning—don't forget to jet elevateds atop rooftops and elevated walkways for the height advantage—is key for preventing overwhelming situations, particularly in the challenging Silver and Gold difficulties.

Your equipment weight affects ability cooldown rate. Your abilities begin at a 100% rate, meaning they'll refresh at their base speed with no penalties. As you load up more armaments and gear, you’ll weigh down your character and eat into your cooldown percentage. At a 50% rate, for example, your abilities would take twice as long to refresh. Gauge how much firepower you’ll need in exchange for power viability—power-hungry classes such as the Vanguard or Adept might have to carry a single weapon, while brawnier kits such as the Soldier can typically carry two weapons at no penalty. Higher-rank weapons and attachments found in supply boxes can help offset weight penalties.

Some abilities can be charged for an enhanced effect. Simply hold down the ability's key for a few seconds to amplify its output. Check the tooltips for your powers to see if any sport a charge alt-fire and their effects, such as Overload's multi-target chain attack.

Keep consumables stocked. Medkits and revive kits have self-explanatory importance, but don't forget about the Cobra RPG's emergency decimation, handy for clearing a room with a single click.

Get familiar with abilities that can prime and detonate damage combos. Combos occur when a primer and detonator power fire off in quick succession in the same area, causing immense burst damage. Look for either the plunger or explosion symbol in a power's icon to determine if it helps with combos (or just read for a complete mapping of each combo ability).

Prioritize weaker enemies first before focusing on stronger cohorts. They're hard to miss. Whether floating with biotic power, shaking the ground with metallic stomps, or barely fitting through a doorway from sheer size, these boss-style foes can endure plenty of pain from either deep shields or armor (or even both), so focus first on culling the herd of accompanying weaker enemies. When the big baddie is all who's left standing, you won't have any minor annoyances getting in the way of your team's concentration.

Kett enemies

Fiends and Ascendants are tough spawns in later waves especially if they box you inside enclosed areas. They can both eliminate you or a squad member in a single hit if they get too close, making it tough for teammates to revive you. Damage the former's orb first to bring down its shield, and target the latter's gill-like vents behind its arms or on his back to deal bonus damage.

The bone-like plate jutting out from the Wraith's head can be blown off to expose the soft flesh beneath. They'll go down quickly afterwards.

Anointed are the Kett's LMG-wielding bruisers who, like certain other Kett, can phase in and out of visibility for a short period. Seek cover or bait them around corners (try the right-hand advantage trick noted above) to single them out from packs.

Remnant enemies

The Nullifier will plop down a shield in front of its face and fire special beams that pass through cover. You can still damage his red optic peeking above the shield for extra damage. If you get close, it'll drop its shield and attempt to swat you away, leaving it exposed to staggering effects.

A towering Destroyer often appears in later Remnant waves, and it's a tough challenge for fledgling groups to combat its deep shields. Both of the Destroyer's top-mounted turrets are significantly weaker than its more armored core, and taking them out will deal damage to the entire unit. Biotics are particularly effective at chunking away the Destroyer's shields; if you lack space magic powers, send shots into the turrets instead.

The annoying Breacher lacks ranged firepower but will try to fly close and block your view by buzzing into your face. If it manages to grab you, it'll pin you in place and deal steady damage until you tap a key to break away. If you're busy with other targets and spot a Breacher closing in, jet-dodge backwards to give some distance and plug it fast.

Outlaw enemies

Target the hulking Hydra's red-colored optical cluster on its front first. Once they're destroyed, circle to its back and shoot the red electronics jutting out near its head.

Salarian Agents can pop a Tactical Cloak to evade your crosshairs and throw out a decoy hologram while attempting to flank around you. Try closing the distance and throwing out a few punches to conserve ammo and test if your target's the real thing.

berserkers will gladly attempt charging in to deliver heavy melee strikes; failing that, he'll hang close by and pelt you with shotgun blasts. He can withstand significant damage before succumbing, but be particularly aware of his blood rage when at low health; that's your cue to throw out a stun effect or two to keep him away.

Finally, you can spot the Angaran Saboteurs by their glowing gauntlets cradling a shotgun that deals incendiary or cryo damage. He boasts both armor and shields, making him a tough nail standing out from the softer Outlaw bandits. If left uninterrupted, he'll drain your shields with a slightly longer animation than similar class abilities, but it also exposes him to attack while he stands in place to cast.

Since the release of Mass Effect Andromeda, talk about her problems with facial animation has not ceased. The recent patch has improved things somewhat, but it's still a long way off the high standards set by other AAA titles.

However, behind all these discussions, one part of the game is left without due attention: the multiplayer mode. We figure out how far the creators of the game managed to advance in multiplayer with respect to the third part of the franchise.

Naturally, when it became known that Andromeda would support multiplayer games, all multiplayer community there were hopes that EA and Bioware would listen to their players, learn from past mistakes, and take Mass Effect Andromeda's multiplayer to the next level. Let's see if they succeeded.

Wave 1: gameplay

The first thing that catches your eye: the game has become much more dynamic. And it certainly did her good. Now, with a jetpack on your back, you can cover huge distances in flight, and instead of rolling, you can deftly glide along the ground, dodging bullets. With such mobility, it is much easier to escape from enemy fire and take advantageous firing positions. The third part, unfortunately, could not boast of such: in a critical situation, they often had to sit in a shelter and wait for help from their comrades-in-arms.

Shelters, by the way, have not gone away, but, according to the first sensations, they are more often used to sit out and restore shields than to hold positions and fire. The ability to shoot from cover blindly, as well as the fact that the character is no longer “glued” to him by pressing a separate button, also give the battles dynamics and flexibility.

The ability to temporarily hover in the air with the help of a jetpack also opens up new tactical possibilities: you can look around the area or smoke out an enemy entrenched in cover with fire from above. When you manage to blow off the enemy's head with one shot from a sniper rifle in such a flight, you feel like just the embodiment of coolness, bearing retribution from above.

The increased mobility has also affected the design of the maps: they have become much more “vertical”, and this is also a big plus. In general, all five maps currently available look very decent and balanced.

There is only one game mode left, and this is one of the main disappointments of Andromeda's multiplayer. With each DLC for the third part, the players hoped that Bioware would add support for more players to the game, a changed structure of "waves", story missions with transition from point A to point B (similar to those in Left 4 Dead), or at least banal PvP, but all their hopes were in vain.

It seems that Andromeda will follow a similar path: in it, we still expect cooperative shooting of waves of enemies for four, occasionally diluted with tasks such as holding a position, turning off devices and destroying individual enemy targets.

From the nightmarish tasks from the third part, in which it was necessary to accompany the drone and transfer items to the landing zone, they decided to abandon and did the right thing: on high levels the complexity of these walks under open fire was akin to suicide.

There were only seven waves instead of eleven. This is also the right decision: before, one match at the Gold or Platinum difficulty level could drag on for an hour or even more, but now it is rare for a game to last more than twenty minutes.

Difficulty levels remain the same: "Bronze" - a walk in the park for beginners and those who want to calmly throw enemies with biotics after a hard day's work; "Silver" - the average level of difficulty for regular players and a warm-up before moving on to real hardcore; "Gold" is a carnival of pain that requires serious upgrading of guns and characters, as well as well-coordinated team play. The inhuman level of "Platinum" from the third part is not yet visible - perhaps, as before, it will be added with DLC.

Wave 2: Opponents

Enemies, as in Mass Effect 3 multiplayer at launch, are divided into three factions. Only this time, instead of reapers, geth and Cerberus forces, we are confronted by alien invaders kett, representatives of the races of the Milky Way Rogues expelled from the Nexus and the ancient race of synthetics Relicts. All of them are familiar to players from the single player campaign of the game.

All three types of enemies have their own characteristics. They are not so different that tactics against each of the factions change dramatically, but the choice of character and weapons can have a serious impact on your effectiveness in battle.

The kett have a couple of powerful melee combat units, and at the same time quite aggressively provide fire support from a distance. Also, they have as many as two units capable of doing the so-called Sync-kill - a one-hit kill. Although the game is supposed to balance difficulty between factions, the kett is currently considered the most difficult faction in multiplayer.

Relics are somewhat reminiscent of the geth from the third part, and not only because they are also sentient machines. Almost every unit is protected by shields and can fire from a distance. In addition, they have flying units that can easily get you out of hiding.

Rogues have the widest range of units, many of which are protected by armor. They also have the widest spread in tactics, from snipers sitting in the distance to berserker krogan rushing forward. At the moment, they are considered the easiest faction: fights against them on the Gold difficulty level on the Firebase Zero map have already become a popular place for farming experience and credits.

In general, the AI ​​looks good and behaves more aggressively than in Mass Effect 3. The fun of the battles is spoiled only by bugs that allow the enemies to naturally cheat, but about them a little later.

Wave 3: interface and controls

In Mass Effect 3, the same button was responsible for running, rolling, taking cover, interacting with objects, and raising fallen comrades. As expected, this gave rise to thousands of unpleasant situations, when in the heat of battle it was critical to do one thing, but it turned out completely different.

In Andromeda, the control scheme has been slightly changed: now you don’t need to “sit down” with a separate click for cover, and now there is also a button for dashing to the side. Picking up a gamepad (no tests were conducted on the keyboard), it will take some time to get used to the new layout. However, you can get used to the passage of a single campaign.

Skill use has now been moved from L2, R2, Y or Triangle buttons to L1, R1, L1+R1. And although the logic of such a replacement is clear (it was necessary to free Y / triangle), the new layout seems unsuccessful. Firstly, it is not always convenient to use the simultaneous pressing of two keys in the heat of battle, and secondly, the ergonomic location of shooting and aiming on L1 / R1 was more logical: it was always possible to quickly press the middle finger on L2 / R2 to use the skill without removing it when this sight from the enemy.

By the way, skills now have individual cooldown timers. But there is a downside: the recovery time has become much longer in most cases, and it will no longer be possible to scatter enemies with a series of biotic explosions every two or three seconds.

Skill combinations now work in all directions, and this greatly encourages teamwork. If earlier, say, biotic explosions could be triggered only by biotic skills, now - at least technical, at least combat, if only it had the appropriate "detonator" property. The properties "primer" and "detonator" are now even indicated on the skill icons with the corresponding icons, which is quite convenient.

The menu itself has a structure similar to the previous part, but visually at first it seems unusual and uncomfortable. Once you get used to it a little, you start to notice that some things are really done non-intuitively: installing weapon modifications, character customization, searching for matches.

Wave 4: leveling

The first thing to consider is that the experience gain in Andromeda is many times slower than in the third part. Moreover, if earlier experience was shared per class (for example, by leveling a salarian engineer, you gained experience for a human engineer as well), now each character needs to be leveled separately. After a couple of hours of playing the same hero on Bronze and Silver, I only managed to reach level eight out of a possible twenty.

As before, initially only basic human characters of all six classes, in male and female versions, are available to players. To open other, more exotic races and classes, you need to buy sets in the in-game store. A similar story with weapons: at first you have to be content with only a basic set of five guns, then, with the opening of "boxes" in the store, you can, if you're lucky, replenish your arsenal with something more interesting.

All characters and weapons are divided by rarity into four categories: common, uncommon, rare, and ultra-rare (N7). When obtaining an existing weapon, it increases its level on a scale from one to ten, and its main characteristics also improve. For the characters, in this case, only new options are added to customize the appearance.

It would be logical to assume that the rarer a weapon or character, the higher its effectiveness in combat, but this, unfortunately, is not the case: balance troubles have plagued ME3 multiplayer since its launch, and Andromeda seems to be going the same way. Some barrels, despite their rarity, show themselves very badly in battle and will hardly help you save your life even on the Bronze.

Wave 5: in-game store

The local shop also deserves separate “flattering” words. Unfortunately, all it contains are sets with random items. Depending on the cost, these "boxes" can guarantee one uncommon or rare item, the other four slots in it will be filled with one-time boosts.

With such a system, you can try to “knock out” a particular gun or character for days and weeks. Not that random item drops are new in multiplayer games, but most modern multiplayer shooters offer at least some way to guarantee an item: from buying for real currency to farming in a specific location.

Here you can directly buy only some one-time items and reset skill points, and even then - this happens for a separate currency earned in the so-called Strike Team missions - missions performed by a squad without the participation of a player (similar to those that were in Dragon Age 3 and Assassin's Creed).

Separate lines deserve ultra-rare items. There are no sets in the store that guarantee the availability of such items. They weren't in Mass Effect 3 either.

According to the calculations of one user of the BioWare forum, the probability of dropping them in the most expensive sets was less than 8%. Accordingly, the probability of dropping a specific weapon or character is less than 0.3%. Considering that two successful matches on Gold were required to purchase one such set (that is, almost two hours of intense play), the investment in time for farming ultra-rare items was simply enormous.

This is what stopped me at the time from trying to “knock out” the last ultra-rare gun that was missing from my collection.

For the Andromeda store, such calculations have not yet been carried out, but there is a feeling that there are few changes: the store looks simply copied from the third part. As before, it is possible to buy packs for real money, but with such a "lottery" the value from this seems to be minimal.

Wave 6: bugs and server performance

Alas, in terms of game stability, the multiplayer has not undergone any changes: due to the lack of connection to the server, you can still be thrown out of the game on the last wave, thereby erasing all mission progress. It has long been a joke on the forums that the most dangerous enemies in the game are not kett at all, but EA servers: "Connecting to the server is a boss that kills with one hit."

In addition to the connection woes, Mass Effect 3's multiplayer was full of bugs. Some of them were quite funny or even made the game easier: for example, the Praetorians sometimes fired lasers from their asses instead of their eyes. Also, there was such a famous Cerberus Harrier rifle, which, unlike the others, gave strong recoil when shooting from cover and practically had no recoil when shooting from the shoulder. Together with the fact that it was the most powerful assault rifle in the game, not a single endgame match on Platinum could do without it.

But many bugs really annoyed and interfered with the game. For example, the so-called "magnetic hands" of the Banshee, which pulled you towards him for several meters before grabbing and making a Sync-kill. This is a sad fact, but some character builds were based purely on the fact that some of the options for developing skills simply did not work.

Andromeda, in this regard, seems to have not gone far from its predecessor: during the time that I managed to play, several times snipers shot at me right through the walls. With superpowers like these, it's not at all surprising that enemies can shoot without looking, with their backs to their target.

It also doesn't cost anything for huge Demons to grab you from a ten-meter state (or just through a wall) and devour you. You can not even mention such trifles as teleporting enemies around the map and getting stuck in the elements of the environment.

Wave 7: learning lessons

Despite all of its shortcomings, Mass Effect 3's multiplayer was hugely popular across all platforms and formed a dense gaming community around itself. BioWare has had four years to listen to the players, work on the bugs and think about what new they could offer their players in Andromeda multiplayer.

But there was very little that was new. Yes, the multiplayer mode is still fun to play, especially with voice communication and in the company of friends. Yes, the game has become more dynamic. But at the same time, it does not leave the feeling that BioWare could take it to a whole new level by paying a little more attention to it: work on balance, change the pumping system and purchase items, add new game modes.

We can only speculate what directives EA has given us regarding the development of Mass Effect Andromeda's multiplayer. The fact is, however, that BioWare had the opportunity to improve it, but instead they went with a tried and true but far from perfect formula. Perhaps future additions to Andromeda will be able to improve the multiplayer part of the game. In the meantime, it's time to return to the drop zone: mission accomplished, the shuttle will arrive in exactly two minutes.