What Did We Play Yesterday?

Last Reyes post, I swear. I've been so fixated on the pacing for this romance. Heart eyes mother fucker.

So it was back to Kadara to finally wrap up the settlement questline. I just unlocked a SAM memory where Scott's mom tells him to fall in love, and to live his life, and it really clicked for my RP and Scott decides he's going to accept he's fallen for Reyes and quit ducking the feels, and he returns to Kadara to take care of outstanding business.

Poor Scott.

I tried very hard to complete this romance, but I couldn't. It was too OOC for my Scott to stand by and watch Sloane get shot in the back, howevermuch they butted heads, and the dialogue options in the aftermath (breakup OR acceptance) didn't quite work for me. Even though I think the Charlatan is probably a better choice to run Kadara, and I agree with Reyes' broader point that Sloane has a high probability of causing serious issues down the road wrt violence and turmoil, the way it goes down was impossible for my Scott to accept.

I think what it boils down to is Reyes' romance is so incredibly satisfying to fail. A++ would fail again. Scott let him escape (IIRC my previous Sara gave him a parting shot). Immediately after my heartbroken Scott triggered the PeeBee Zero G scene and uh, well, she did say no strings so.

The past few days I have been absolutely fixated on how well the failed Reyes romance works for me--and timing it so you can rebound with PeeBee is an AMAZING bonus, let me tell you--versus how completing romance doesn’t quite click. I like that Ryder says they accept Reyes for who he is, and they understand he'll keep many secrets. But something about the cave make-out scene (I can't stop thinking, WHERE IS MY CREW? lol) doesn't quite work, and I like the dance scene conceptually--and really enjoy the idea of Reyes actually being somewhat old-fashioned in a romantic sense--but it's so odd to me to see Ryder slow-dancing in full gear. The game assumes a Ryder who completes the romance has a certain hardness, so it all felt too strange coming from my Scott. Maybe the reason the failed romance works is there IS no dialogue. It just happens and it's over, he's gone, and you can headcanon whatever you like.

If you refuse Reyes' offer of friendship, he calls you a dick. As I mentioned before, Scott DOES have a bit of big dick energy to their banters, but this comment feels out of place if you've had a flirting relationship up to that point. I believe not-flirting-and-betrayed is the only scenario in which Reyes explains himself in greater depth--in an email no less--and if someone want to dig into this character they could probably crank out a whole meta post on what Reyes says in emails vs. what he says face-to-face. (Cue obligatory aside that Reyes' one-liners (("I have better taste in men than I do in women" and "I've never known a man like you" and "I'm not a very good [friend], but I'd rather have your friendship than nothing at all.")) somehow manage to say volumes). They could have written a few more of those, spaced out at regular intervals, or even given the option to chat with him regularly about current events, and his romance would have felt a lot less MIA but I digress.

Part of the pacing issues may be because the romance was originally a side thing, so the remaining content is one more scene. I understand they've since added a bit of end-game content. But ultimately, after seeing all the outcomes, failing the romance and letting him go has been my absolute favorite way to play this. If I ever wanted to make it stick, I'd have to RP a Ryder where the dialogue specifically works for me and I don't know if MEA even lets me do that TBH.

Two ideas that really interest me and have occupied my thoughts these past few days:

1. Ryder feeling guilty for letting Sloane get shot in the back, and angry at Reyes for being put in the position but really more angry at himself for letting it happen, and that sentiment bleeding into the relationship with Reyes and affecting way Ryder perceives himself. Lots of self doubt, lots of regret, and consequently, avoiding Kadara and even sending envoys to deal with Reyes (which fails, so eventually Ryder has to go themselves)

I'm certain solid fic somewhat along these lines has been written, so I don't know what I have to add here. Coming to the party years later for a popular ship on AO3 has me like, eeeh. This might just live in my drafts forever.

2. After the fact Reyes comes back around to a Ryder who has come to regret Sloane staying in power. He says, look, I'm killing Sloane. I've decided to tell you the truth this time. And Ryder is like, uh, no you aren't, because (diplomatic/political/logical reasons)-- and Reyes is like yes actually I am, I love you, bye. And this. Keeps. Happening. Reyes keeps popping up just to say, "Hey, wanted to keep you in the loop, we're doing Y and you can't stop me, also I love you bye," and it becomes a sort of farce where the good guy is in love with the bad guy, and is chasing him, and falling even more in love, even as he wants to strangle him, and it's doubly problematic because Reyes keeps angling it so he's always, in roundabout ways, technically helping the Initiative's situation, even if he's still managing to do that in the shadiest ways possible.

I don't think anything like this has written, and this dynamic is so funny to me, but I would need to at least, oh, I don't know, beat the game? to even get a handle on how to plot it but it has been very fun to think about.

I can't get over how BIG Mass Effect: Andromeda is starting to feel, especially compared to previous games in the series. howlongtobeat puts a completionist play at 94 hours. I've been focusing entirely on story, only complete quests that seem to have significant story content--bog-standard fetch quests are helpfully marked as Tasks, so I have ignored those outright, and I also sometimes skip planetary quests that seem too back-and-forthy or too low-stakes for a Pathfinder. I have ignored research/perks and the entire subsection of the game related to gathering resources and crafting items, and yet there is still so much stuff to read and do. I just figured out forward stations have their own message boards. I'm constantly finding new things to read. There's so much freaking stuff!

This game is so big and sprawling just about any playthrough that isn't bare bones is going to be a significant time investment. Look at howlongtobeat comparison for Mass Effect. For the previous games, you finish the core content in 20-25 hours, and if you do main + extras (which to me means things like companion quests, big quests that aren't necessarily required but significantly enrich the story) you add about 10 hours. In MEA however "main + extras" is 45 hours of additional content. In terms of content volume, MEA is more on par with a Dragon Age game than a Mass Effect game. I have no idea what an 18-hour main PT even looks like in MEA because if planet viability matters at all end game you will be fucked, and if planet viability doesn't matter then you have 40 hours of "choices that matter" that Actually Kind Of Don't(tm), which has been a major source of contention for these games in the past.

I wonder if a game with this volume of content can be satisfying as a main-quests-only PT. I was going to do a "mostly main" run until I realized just how much story detail and content I would miss, and expanded my efforts accordingly. I wonder if some ME fans dislike MEA because they tried to play it like a 20-hour ME game rather than a 60-hour game.

One issue I'm starting to encounter is the game assumes I'm going to do things in an order I'm evidently not following. For instance, on Havarl, Jaal comments that I will now get Evfra's trust except... I already got that? I helped on Voeld and saved the Moshae. While doing Jaal's loyalty mission, which I'm POSITIVE I did before but I remember fuck all about, I got a message from Eos. I felt sure this must be related to the Kett thingybobs near Black Rock, but nope, it's Roekaar stuff. When I drove out there the first time I kept getting comm chatter that assumed I was on a mission, which was why I turned back as soon as I got the memory, I didn't want to break anything. None of this is game breaking per se the inconsistencies just mess with immersion. Like, there are MASSIVE kett installations just outside Podromos and I'm sitting around waiting for someone to say, hey. MAybe.... we should take care of that? Sooner rather than later? Eos isn't 100% viable yet so I assume that will be the last mission to solidify our chances on the planet.

Speaking of Evfra, after you meet Reyes you have the option to call Evfra a hypocrite for being unwilling to trust Ryder when he was already working with Reyes. (Evfra counters he didn't trust Reyes either.) This confirms that the exiles made first contact and bolsters Angara skepticism when Ryder shows up and is like HEEEY just wanna help so got any vaults?

I made a fraps video of Scott "going to steal yo man" on Kadara that exploits MEA's funny sprint/left-right animations but Tumblr actively despises my video uploads so just picture my large and sexy Scott in his purple jumpsuit going to steal yo man.

After experimenting with different choices on the Reyes date scene, I reached a few conclusions:

• There is only 1 version of rigging for the surprise kiss. I'm certain they used female Ryder based on the way Ryder tilts their hip and gets up on tip-toes on one foot
• When running out of the warehouse, Reyes will grab Ryder's hand if they've flirted before, regardless of whether they've kissed, however
• As far as I can tell, after "you are someone" Reyes will not initiate a second kiss if Ryder does not take the surprise kiss action, and talks about their relationship in terms of friendship at the close of the scene even if flirts have been used before
• Favorite line: "I work best one step behind." Reyes, I know this isn't what you meant but FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

The romance guides are predictably lame, they always just tell you to mash the flirt option all the time. It seems like this romance is pretty granular in terms of RPing but I think the surprise kiss is the romance confirmation action. I wanted to check one more dialogue sequence to confirm but I messed up my saves so that's that.

A while ago I started a Sexymann Life-Preserving Corporate run, to see what was possible, and I got side tracked. I posted all my play notes on Tumblr which makes them annoying to read and hard to find anything, so I am creating this DW masterpost to remind myself of what I was doing with the RP so I can decide if I want to complete the expansions with Sexymann or roll a new character.

I did my best to give the Tumblr notes some semblance of order but be assured this is a personal reference post and will likely be a dumb wall of text to anyone else. I originally attempted to rewrite/streamline but gave up halfway through and started copypasta so eh. If you are unfamiliar with my TOW runs be advised I like a) lulz and b) trying to break stuff.

Sexymann is an over-achiever who isn't above intimidation but mostly just wants to impress the Corps and have a beer with buds after work. They're in favor of preserving life because You Can't Work for the Corps If You're Dead!(TM) So this fellow walks a line between Captain Murderino and my original Pacifist Captain. My goal is avoid killing any non-mob NPCs, Marauders are fair game because they're slackers and a drain on the exquisite Corporate system.

Emerald Vale

I made a point of putting Adelaid in charge of Edgewater because I knew, thanks to my Murderino game, that this would put Sexymann in's Corp-loving ass in a tough position later on and might result in some interesting events with Pavarti. I have talked down Reed Tobson before, but this was the first time I recruited Vicar Max before I did so. Reed asks for guidance and Max gives it: move on. Tobson is the quintessential Spacer’s Choice man, but Sexymann has come to regard himself as something of a corporate fixer and decided poaching Adelaid was the best thing for matrix synergy.

For some reason it took me forever to get a freaking hunting rifle, I eventually looted one off Cotton. I took Max with me to collect that last bounty and after I shot down Cotton he said something about it all being part of the Plan, and I know that’s one of his post-battle barks but considering Cotton was the previous vicar/priest/whatever it was rather timely.

I have grilled the Edgewater Constable a bit about Marauders before, IIRC this is one of the few places in the game you can discuss them in any depth. (Now that we’re getting DLC maybe that will change at some point.) When the connection between Adrena-Time and marauders comes up the Constable notes everyone loves Adrena-Time, because it was manufactured to be addictive. I guess I’m still a little annoyed that Zoe can barter with marauders but I don’t have some type of barter->xp ability as player, because on my total pacifist run I absolutely would have made the attempt.

Groundbreaker

The last time I tried to sell out Welles at the Groundbreaker I insulted Udom Bedford A LOT and this locked the persuade option to learn why he pawned his stuff, which was a nice detail. Well, Sexymann Corporate was super nice to him and we learned Udom writes illegal fanfiction.

We’re not too far into this third play, having just arrived at the Groundbreaker, and yet I find my thoughts wandering to things like, “Vicar Max has such a soothing voice when he’s not screaming,” and, “Wouldn’t it be nice if he read contraband literature to me until I fell asleep.” So that’s where we’re at on that.

I don’t know if pro-Board Yesman (uuugh missed opportunity! THAT should have been the name!!) Sexymann would help on the Groundbreaker at all. I’m going to poke my nose into that questline, but from an RP standpoint Sexymann is Lawful/Corporate “Good” so I’m not sure where we’d fall in that questline.

Roseway

partner: …did you name your character Sexymann?

me: um

I wanted to see if I could shake things up at Roseway. Ratting out the Auntie Cleo shennanegans doesn’t do much, it turns out, except cost you reputation. Anton doesn’t give a shit about Orson. If you rat out Vaughn, then tell him about it, he freaks, which is kind of entertaining, and immediately starts obsessing about how he can avoid getting canned.

If you have 20 medical after you give anton the research you can talk to Anton again and discuss the dangers of suppressing the appetites of manual laborers and he actually has a crisis of conscience. I saved Jameson but didn’t see him around Roseway after the fact.

I don’t think there’s any benefit to getting Auntie Cleo faction beyond the vendor bonus (and uh not getting shot on sight, of course). This is the only place you can get in with them and the effects appear to be limited to the immediate zone. I guess this makes sense as it’s technically an optional area, you could feasibly shake down enough people, or steal, and find a way to skip the distress call mission.

Byzantium

I fixed SAM (”THANK YOU CUSTOMER”) and gave Udom his badge and let me tell you, we are practically BFFs at this point. Next stop Byzantium to talk to Sophia Akande, one of the most interesting characters in this game. One of my goals was to complete the Lockwood quest without any murder. This particular quest, which is given by Sophia when you first arrive, was what inspired me to attempt a “good” or at least “less murdering” corporate run. The trick is not keeping Lockwood alive, but rather keeping the other hired gun from aggroing. I tried tried pickpocketing Sherman Bradshaw and stealing his gun, but he still shows up at Lockwood's hideout with a gun no matter what you do (outside shooting him of course) so I settled for chatting with him about the options, which opens up an opportunity for Lockwood to pay you both off.

Sophia was pissed I let Lockwood live but accepted that I did what she asked me for and obtained the maps. I'd somehow forgotten Sophia is really into romance serials, which is a nice touch.

Monarch

I will be siding with Stellar Bay, which I have never done before. I brought Ellie because I never use her and found she actually chimes in quite a bit and even got into it with Everett Gill, which was enjoyable. I also brought SAM, and they will arbitrarily pop off about GREASE or STAINS and whoever I’m talking to is always like WTF IS THAT THING which is just… really enjoyable, excellent quality thank you Obsidian.

I think I mentioned this on a previous playlog but Nyoka is the first character I cannot lie to about my identity, I cannot introduce myself as Hawthorne only as Sexymann. This annoys me because I get a real kick out of introducing myself as Alex and having characters say, uuuh no you’re not, but anyway.

I actually explored Fallbrook pretty thoroughly because I became interested in the Sublight storage vault and how to get into it (you get it from Nelson's silly sprat quest). I got a domicile which... is fine? There is some loot, not sure why else you'd want it. I picked up an ID and -- I couldn't believe this -- easily managed to pickpocket Marin's terminal key and used it to access the terminal right in front of her. Unfortunately the terminal just tells us that an unknown client, probably a corp, has requested drops. This is just a way for the player to be informed of the UDL presence if Marin is dead.

I picked up an interesting tidbit that Byzantian socialites tend to slum it at Fallbrook. Ellie actually chimes in a fair bit here. I was examining her outfit (I put it on Max, NICE) I realized Ellie really is a tourist. The clothes, the hair, the way people on Monarch talk to her. It's subtle and interesting. I'm glad I brought her to this planet. I'd swapped out SAM for Max at this point, to handle Max's quest. SAM's ongoing commentary on this planet is how disgustingly filthy everything is.

I gave Stellar Bay what they wanted, the BOLT and the corp blackmail, and Sanjay said he'd stop his side of the transmissions. It was time to figure out how to get rid of the Iconoclast broadcasts. The Pro-Board thing to do is probably kill them, but this is a pacifist run so

Companion Bits

Two interesting bits last gaming session.

First, Felix pulled me aside and questioned me about sparing Lockhart. He hoped this meant I was going to betray the Adjucant. I assured him I would do no such thing, but also told him just because I was loyal to the Adjucant didn't mean I would follow her orders blindly. He respected this. I was looking around in his room and found a collection of anti-corporate essays that "doesn't appear to have been read" or something to that effect, which I thought was a nice touch.

Second, Orson Shaw calls me up out of the blue--I'd forgotten I gave him his weapon blueprint. Turns out Auntie Cleo didn't want the weapon, and Orson being Orson decided it was better off in my capable hands than the junk pile. Well, thanks.

I helped Vicar Max with his personal quest my first game, but I didn't visit the hermit until I was near the end. I decided to go ahead and do that quest sooner this time so I could hear his positive-resolution banters. I took Nyoka as well, which was an excellent choice. I was going to take Sam, but decided to just YouTube it instead and I was glad I did because Sam's reactions aren't as funny.

And... I guess because I'm still Murderino at heart... I killed the Hermit afterwards just to see what would happen, with the intention of reloading. As is typical in the Outer Worlds, my companions gleefully joined in the slaughter and did not comment on it. Something I've learned about this game when I did my murder run is if you want a reaction you have to do things BEFORE the linked quests resolve. (If you kill the hermit before his quest is resolved Max gets mad for about 5 seconds but then immediately gets over it.)

Screw You Graham

A very fruitful gaming session!

First, Max being nice and empathetic to Felix is.... warbling heart-eye emoji

I finished Felix's personal quest for the first time. It is buggy as shit but WHATEVER. Sexymann Corporate has come to view Felix as a son, and as soon as I got a whiff of bad vibes from Harlow I decided I would expose him, show it to Felix, and allow him to figure out the rest. I pushed Harlow a bit too hard on the controntation scene and he aggroed, so I reloaded and went a bit easier on him--I pressed him to admit his duplicity, but then pointed out I too was a Board agent so we're cool here right? The quest is either bugged or the devs didn't expect anyone to do this, so after Harlow and I acknowledge we are both Board members Harlow starts acting like we never had that conversation. Fortunately, Felix chose to stay with me anyway. I think the quest is bugged because as I was leaving Felix triggered banters that acted like we hadn't even met Harlow yet. And... now that I think of it, I seem to remember some wonkiness when I entered this zone with Murderino, too.

After that I decided to finish up Zora's quest, because I wanted to see if I could get her to overthrow Graham before the weapon ship crashes on Monarch. Well, you can't do that, probably so the devs don't have to do a second cut of the "DID YOU SEE THAT?" radio scene. Zora wants some time to think. I decided to confront Graham anyway and I have to say... the way this character is written is truly masterful. I pressed him hard on the massacre and he CONSISTENTLY dodged like a boss.

I can't remember the exact details on the truce option, so I don't know if going down this path with Zora will block off siding with MSI. I fully intend to side with MSI but I'd like to see how far I can get with it and if I can turn up anything new.

In Which I Realize my Pro-Board Run is Fucked or WHY SOPHIA WHY

Before I get to spoilers, let me just say that while I'm happy for Max now that he's enlighted and free I kind of preferred his crotchety banters to zen!Max where he says lots of nice things and sounds vaguely stoned. I mean, they've both enjoyable but I think I like my Max with a little tooth.

I'd forgotten that you technically don't have to side with the Iconoclasts OR Stellar Bay, so when the weapons ship crashed I hoofed it out there to get the goodies first, because there was no way Sexymann would let the Monarchians get their mitts on it, and then it was off to Sophia's.

...And Man oh man these fuckers got me good. My pacifist pro-Board run has reached an impasse due to one of the very first decisions I made!

I knew from my Murderino run that I would probably be asked to do a very bad thing (kill Edgewater) on my Board run. Well, apparently you only get asked to do the bad thing if you get rid of Reed! In that case Sophia decides the dissidents at Edgewater are too dangerous to keep alive and she will order you to kill them. You can argue to no avail. If you tell her no in her office, she pulls a gun on you, so I acquiesed to keep everyone alive until we could figure something out. My companions were very upset by this, but I told them to trust me and they did. (Well, mostly, Felix is understandably skeptical.)

Back on the ship, Vicar Max remarked that if the colony's big reveal had happened before his enlightenment he would have questioned his faith. As it was, he asked me what my plan was. I told him I didn't know. He looked me in the eye and said he had my back and let me tell you, Sexymann really appreciated that, because while they act the strong, stoic type they are in fact quietly losing their shit. Sophia is trying to keep everyone from starving, and she maintains Welles' plan to bring a bunch of people out of hibernation will only exacerbate the issue. She's not wrong, that's actually a problem I had on my pro-Welles run, but I assumed Adelaide's sustainable farming techniques would make the difference here.

Anyway, back in the Vale I explored the town and the plant, and as far as I can tell, there's no getting out of this one. Either you wipe out a whole damn town or you double-cross Akande. There's no way to warn the citizens or sabotage the robots. I even tracked down that robot nerd and, yeah Ludwig IS technically right about robots killing everyone but he's right by accident, he can't help me out here.

This is.... ooooh this is annoying, because it's top-notch RP fodder and in that respect I love it but the whole point of this run was I wanted to see the pro-Board ending! I am way too attached to this Captain and their relationship with their found family to do this quest. I can't believe Obsidian has put baby in a corner like this!

I'm not the only one bummed about this. People were speculating there would be a patch but clearly that isn't happening.

Sexymann Chafes at Their Burden

bugs and weirdness aside, i think it’s a testament to the outer worlds writing and rp ability that i am actually resigning myself to YET ANOTHER playthrough of this game because i’ll be damned if i don’t get a full board run at some point and

(clutches pearls)

Sexymann would NEVER do this!

a lot of reddit is convinced obsidian made a mistake with the foundation quest but i’m not sure the dev choice is an oversight or unintentional here. i think it’s telling that a certain captain, by a certain player–one who likely has foresight of the colony’s food shortage because they have already beaten the game one–is more likely to find themselves in this situation. i almost feel like the devs said, “you had a Grand Plan? how’s that working out for you?”

a lot of felix’s conversations foreshadow this. Sexymann explicitly told him, “I’m loyal but I don’t follow orders blindly.” felix even says, paraphrasing, “you’d never kill a bunch of innocent people, right boss?” those fuckers set me up!

and sophia! what is this, some kind of test? she can’t actually think killing edgewater is going to make a difference. when i told her about the farm stuff she completely blew me off. does she respect me or not?!?!?!?!?

oh, Sexymann. Sexymann helped Max through his crisis, now its time for a shoulder to lean on

a burning need for fic, i have

TOW Despair

ssssssssooooooooooo last night was very unproductive but I confirmed my options, or lack thereof :\

the outer worlds assumes that if you agree to That Quest, you are absolutely going to do it. My goal was to slink off to Welles and come clean, but there is no way to discuss the tracker with him (cue theme song THATS WHAT FIC IS FOORRRR to the tune of the Rizzo company jingle).

This is an area where, as a game that puts RPing first, I feel like the Outer Worlds sometimes fails me. I’ve had similar issues with past runs because TOW allows you to play both sides all the way up to the end of the game, but sometimes doesn’t seem to flag or acknowledge a given path.

I decided to try to salvage this run in-character by having Sexymann just flip Sophia a bird and ignore her questline entirely and go on to help Welles and do absolutely everything they can to get on Sophia’s nerves, because Sexymann, much like me, becomes a righteous pain in the ass once they’re a company man scorned. And I do this understanding the flags in TOW are a little wonky so my companions may not ever acknowledge I switched sides–that is, my son Felix may never look up to me–but again:

*cues Rizzo *

Sexymann's Midlife Crisis and Return to the Groundbreaker

back on the outer worlds, sexymann corporate is going through a midlife crisis and it is not fueled by drugs it is fueled by sophia akande treating them like an automechanical instead of a person and demanding cold-blooded mass murder from a human who has ONE line they cannot and will not cross, and it is that line. sexymann, who has so many talents and skills, has been relegated to piece of meat with a gun. sexymann is clearly NOT appreciated, and sexymann has way too much charisma and style to not be appreciated.

it’s a beautiful, messy breakdown, which includes screaming FUCK!! into a canyon, and culminates in barging into the garage and demanding that pavarti “clean the grease off” because they’re going to the groundbreaker

the doylian reason for putting off most of the companion quests is that i’ve already seen them, and the only ones i did (felix and max’s) were to see something new (max’s post-drug trip dialogue, and felix’s I’ve never completed because Murderino killed everyone). the watsonian reason is sexymann was too busy being a corporate blue flamer and the next board superstar to pay much attention to their crew’s needs and took for granted that the crew would do whatever they said with a spring in their step

so, sexymann introduces pavarti to junlei, something they promised to do actual months ago, and then quietly dies inside when a romance sparks because sexymann maaaaay have been slightly in love with their mechanic

i’m trying to remember if sexymann could have reasonably intuited that pavarti would fall head-over-heels for junlei. i don’t think they could have predicted it, but after the first meeting it’s clear and sexymann just bucks up like a buckaroo and does the right thing. good on you, sexymann.

i took felix down to the groundbreaker bays for the first time and enjoyed the extra dialogue, since macready and the guys know and love felix. doing the groundbreaker quests after the fact is ridiculously simple when you are nearer endgame stats (i’m at level 25) so it’s very much like taking it easy, doing a little bit of charity and trying to help sexymann take some consolation in being AWESOME AT EVERYTHING while trying to distract themselves from their failures as a human being

ellie observes this all with a slow headshake and makes a point of coming along to keep an eye on her emotionally-unraveling boss. felix is still giving his captain the cold shoulder and stink eye and sexymann is increasingly desperate to repair their relationship and is taking him EVERYWHERE. because when they’re in the middle of some crisis… it’s like old times. felix is a son again. but when they return to the ship, felix remembers his anger, and is like a hostile teenager.

(sexymann has an entire backstory about leaving a youngish son behind to join the crew of the Hope and Felix has become a surrogate.)

now on the rebound, sexymann decides to careen into cascadia to take out aggressions, having decided the only thing better than annoying sophia by allowing msi to return to the board is annoying sophia by allowing msi to return to the board AND keeping the iconoclasts alive to be a nuisance.

i briefly considered the sublight questline but i think sexymann would turn their nose up at sublight for the most part. one of the (apparently many) future replays might be a captain who does every quest in the game as messily and murderly as possible (not necessarily a murderino, but someone who enjoys a high body count) and that person would be a good fit for the subline quests since i know how the last one turns out if you take the pacifist route. so i will be skipping boarst as well.

next up: finish helping nyoka and boker peace!

This PT is Officially Ruined, Now Murdering for Science, Also Bugs, Also Collectibles

vicar max and felix seem to be the overwhelming fan favorites for romances, and they’re great characters, but i think if i could pick it would be nyoka or maybe ellie. i LOVE nyoka. i REALLY LOVE the idea of one of my captains on their knees paying, um, tribute, followed by excellent pillow talk.

my first run i didn’t take ellie with me often, but i did finish her personal quest, so i developed a bit of a dislike for her, but this game i took her with me often and i’ve actually come to appreciate her quite a lot. sexymann does still consider her a bit of a ‘tourist’ which is unfair, she does have a lot of lived experience as a spacer, but as a player i love how often her byzantium shows.

anyway last night we did some things For Science since Sexymann’s run going off the rails has spoiled a bit of the RP magic and made me amenable to What Happens If. There was (is?) a debate on reddit as to how to make certain companions leave, and the theory on Nyoka is that if you kill Hiram she’ll bolt. I tested this one before with Murderino and got no reaction, but I hadn’t activated her personal quest yet.

So when she sent me to Hirim to find out information I decided to shoot him in the face.

Unintentional hilarity ensues. For one, Sexymann went out of their way to keep C3 alive and they’ve been hanging out in Hirim’s tower for months now. So while I’m running around chasing Hiram and his robot guards with a shotgun they’re all just chilling out like nothing ever happened. They are the most worthless corporate mercs ever.

After I killed him Nyoka was furious and told me off but her quest didn’t fail! Instead, it updated to , “Wait for Nyoka to find out information.” I thought this was pretty interesting. I talked to her immediately after that and actually LOLed because she’s like “HEY CAP :)”

Oh, Obsidian. You will never change. Anyway RELOAD OBVIOUSLY, but that will be another angle to explore on a different run.

One last tidbit. When I was in the old OSI Church I found a Book. I’ve picked it up before, actually, because I’m a loot fiend. It’s notable because when you return to the ship it says, You Acquired a Book or something like that. I got curious because, well, what does this mean? Fashionably late to the party as always but I learned in addition to getting collectibles from quests you can also find collectibles in the world and they end up on your ship. I’ve found some of these, like the OSI prayer beads, before but I didn’t realize the connection between them showing up in Max’s room (I assumed those were already his and not a found collectible, you get them pretty early on the Groundbreaker and I guess I hadn’t visited his room before then).

Slow on the uptake? You know it! Reddit thread for those interested. There isn’t a cheev for it. Researching this I looked into the tossball cards and was disappointed to find they are just flavored junk. After all the time I spend railing against collectibles my reaction to real-world collectible junk, which is sports cards (I watched a documentary on the baseball card bubble/scam that was both interesting and depressing), is WHY CAN’T I COLLECT THESE? oh well.

Early Retirement Program and Also Obsidian WTF

Sexymann and I discovered the Early Retirement Program last night. Suffice to say Sexymann has now been radicalized.

As soon as I got out of there (after destroying every piece of Board property we could find, natch) I went to Akande’s office. You can’t talk to her about this program. You can’t tell anyone except the quest giver.

There are some lively discussions on reddit about this small quest with tremendous implications, and the general consensus is Obsidian ran out of dev time and wasn’t able to develop it further but… jesus, Obsidian, what the fuck? You can’t drop something like this into a random side quest and then just be like, “okay, well that’s it, bye!” I think about all the silly quests that have dialogue and callbacks and it’s like… seriously what the fuck? This was the one you left partly on the cutting-room floor? Assuming that’s what happened, I cannot imagine leaving it like this was anyone’s choice or intent.

The quest implies that “problem” employees, be they dissidents or low producers, are sent to early retirement by the way they emphasize the randomness of the process. This seems like an incredibly inefficient way to get rid of “waste” when Corps hitherto have had no compunction with doing things like leaving people stranded on inhospitable planets or sending automechs to murder everyone.

I had this whole fic scenario where Sexymann returns to Akande and is like, tell me about ERP, and she won’t do it. She’s like handle Emerald Vale and I’ll take care of everything. Sexymann says, Sophia, tell me about ERP, and she just won’t budge, and Sexymann leaves so thoroughly shellshocked they pretty much just lie on their bunk staring at the wall for an hour. Anyway they won’t be seeing Sophia again until the very end of the game.

After that, Sexymann went to see Clarke and waltzing into the Chairman’s office is easy when you already have the Board’s trust (thanks Sophia!). Killing all their robots netted me a fun description, understanding, which was something like “the Board understands even great employees sometimes make a few mistakes” and I was thinking yeah just you all wait you’re gonna love this.

More Griping about Foundation and ERP

Thinking about how anti-climactic the Foundation quest and the Employee Retirement Program are in current implementation.

Solution:

On a pro-Board run, if the Captain declines to do the Foundation Mission, instead of going aggro Akande (who is much smarter than that I think) thanks them for their service and gives them a ticket to the Early Retirement Program.

Once you leave the building the fast-travel is hub is disabled and if you reenter all security is hostile. So if/when the captain makes it back to that office Akande is (understandably) aggro at that time.

I will accept fic in lieu of formal game modification.

BUGS

i am starting to get a little a n n o y e d with how buggy this game is in terms of dialogue fires and whatnot.

i’m also noting that is seems every run around this point–say maybe the 80% completion mark–i am kind of over it and ready to finish up.

i skipped the hope and FINALLY got felix to stop giving sexymann the stink eye. i still see dialogue wonkiness (he’ll say “i need to talk to you” then nothing triggers)

my crew’s on-ship scenes keep replaying (at first i thought it was because i finished max’s earlier, i’ve seen the “ellie and calm max” scene and “felix and calm max” about 4 times, but i’ve also seen nyoka&pavarti and nyoka&ellie multiple times now)

edit: there was a banter that made me laugh. nyoka was complaining about someone being in the can. i barged in there and max was calmly washing his hands (good job max), and when i activated him he started going on about the Fibonacci spiral. it was just funny to me.

welle’s arrest takes on a new meaning this game since sexymann is directly responsible, they planted a bug and then progressed the board line too far to warn welles about it. so they are pretty torn up about it and very committed to fixing the mistake.

and i said i wouldn’t but after skipping the hope, which is the only way to formally fail the foundation (kill edgewater) mission i went back to akande and her dialogue is unchanged, she acts like nothing has happened. you could argue the board might take a minute to realize the chemicals or hope have been stolen, and you could argue she doesn’t trust sexymann enough to reveal they arrested welles, but it still kindo sucks

i heard an interesting rumor about felix so i am going to power through tartarus tomorrow with him in tow, i raised a few of my stats so i should be able to do whatever. my first pacifist/sneak run i ended up having to kill akande and fight the robot which royally sucked.

Tartarus & End

I appreciate that you can either fight your way through Tartarus and revel in battle alongside your allies or run like hell. I always run like hell, partly because this is a point-of-no-return and partly because I'm way more interested in the dialogue battles than the corporate skirmishing.

Chairman insulted my robot, how dare! If you bring SAM he also reveals that his staff talks about the Captain and crew like... all the time? Which makes sense, as the player is either Akande's superstar or a thorn in the side. But it's a little disconcerting HOW MUCH the Chairman knows about your crew when you finally meet.

Despite all my grousing about Foundation and other elements of my hacky Board run, I have to say that convincing Akande to stand down on Tartarus was very satsifying and really worked for my RP. I also felt her ending slide was really appropriate.

I'd somehow forgotten Felix bails if you spare the Chairman, so that appears to leave Nyoka and Max as the two companions that won't leave you no matter what. I realize now this happened to me my first pacifist run as well. So this time I took Felix for the persuade boost, LOST Felix, and had to find another way to convince Akande. Real men admit when they respec for the final level.

Weirdly, I think this was the "best" ending I've gotten so far by the slides, and it's because Sexymann was willing to kill the test subjects to steal ALL the chemicals. My True Pacifist Captain was unwilling to do this.

The other day I realized Nintendo Switch doesn't even have an accounced date for Peril on Gorgon, so I went ahead and got it on Xbox. Felix and Ellie came along simply because I forgot to change my loadout, but it was a good choice because Felix is gushing about how all this is just like a serial.

All the corps are really shitty, but I'd say going into this my opinion of Spacer's Choice was definitely the lowest because of the automechanical incident at the Geothermal plant. So at the mention of "chemicals" and "people losing their minds" I prepared for the corp to somehow sink to even greater depths of depravity. Stay tuned.

Reading through the notes, this was a pretty awesome run from an RP perspective even though some things broke or were buggy. Sexymann's story does feel closed, however. I don't know if completing the expansions the first time with a Dumb Run is necessary a smart choice, but it certainly is a Spacer's Choice.

Normally these types of posts end up on Tumblr, but I've decided to make a concerted effort to post my vibeo game rambles to DW so they don't get lost in the Great Tumblr Maw and I can actually find things.

I'm starting to wonder what the hell I even did the 65 hours (checked old saves, actually 50 hours/60% completion) I previously played Mass Effect: Andromeda because I keep finding new stuff. (howlongtobeat averages a full PT at 63.5 hours).

I think I must have spent a lot of time on Eos early game (like, taking out EVERY Kett base and Remnant thingy), then did the core missions on Voeld, Kadara, Havarl, Elaaden, finished the companion quests, and put the game down before going to Meridian. A significant portion of that playtime could have been idling. So I guess I went "everywhere" but in a surface way that left out a lot of details. Returning to the game a few years later has been very rewarding because I'm constantly encountering something new, or remembering something I'd forgotten about.

I decided to get the memory triggers after all, and there's one on Eos in a place you originally can't go (I think the rad dose is too high). So I go out there and about fell over because THERE'S A HUGE ASS FIELD OF KETT DOOHICKYS just over the ridge from our Settlement, W T F. Seems there's no way Podromos would survive if this wasn't taken care of and I think I would have remembered that if I'd seen it the first time.

There's a whole subplot about a mysterious benefactor for the Initiative which I think I vaguely remember, but I'm pretty sure I didn't get around to following up on it. I think I explored the apartment but I don't think I examined the VR holo.

I started some kind of subplot of Voeld about the Kett that I think is tied to sparing one of the Kett generals in order to save more Angara. It's temporarily on hold but I'm sure it will start back up when I get farther along.

On Kadara I just stumbled across this whole water filter mess and figured out Mallox's role and ended up wiping out Charybdis Point. I also found this datapad about a person named Semaj and that name SEEMS SO FAMILIAR but I couldn't find anything online.

Last night I started working on Havarl. Compared to the other planets this map is pretty claustrophobic, which is the point, and I don't mind running from point to point rather than hopping into the Nomad but it seems like I'm also getting banters far less often, so I still have yet to trigger the infamous Angaran/Asari banter between Jaal and PeeBee.

I am intentionally putting off Scott's date with Reyes, but after Havarl that's next. I feel like I need to get another colony going before I go after the next ark, so I can't put off the romance indefinitely. I'm genuinely not sure how I'm going to play it now.

In 2004 the film Napoleon Dynamite came out. I grudgingly went to see the film because my coworkers wouldn't shut up about it and I didn't like it very much. In retrospect I suspect the non-stop chatter set the film up for failure. The film became a cult hit (today I feel like we'd call it a meme) and my coworkers STILL wouldn't shut up about it, so I ended up seeing it about 4 times. By the fourth time, I loved Napoleon Dynamite, and I harbor genuine affection for it to this day. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again but I certainly wouldn't protest.

For me, Breath of the Wild has become a little like Napoleon Dynamite. Everyone telling me to play BOTW made me resistant to BOTW (see also, the Witcher 3). When I finally played a few years ago, I liked it ok but it never quite grabbed me and I sort of resented the hubbub. When I returned to it more recently, because my kid wanted to watch me play it, there were a lot of things I didn't like about it. Some of my gripes were based on the starter area, which is one of the weaker parts of the game, but there were just a lot of disparate elements that really rubbed me the wrong way. I reached a point where I low-key hated the game, but now...

Now, finally, I truly like BOTW. I have reached the stages of acceptance and peace.

Being me I still dislike certain aspects, of course. I don't like the physics puzzle shrines. I invariably get passed the controller for all the shrines and I just find navigating the puzzles annoying. The only shrine I ever liked was one where I just walked in and took something (a "Blessing", which granted me climbing boots). The voice acting is a little annoying so far, maybe partly because most of the dialogue is unvoiced so it always throws me when someone actually speaks.

The game really opens up once you get past the starter area. Sometimes in not great ways (I die a lot), but I've come to appreciate and look forward to exploring the world and . After somehow making it to Zora's Domain, we decided the area was simply too difficult for us at that time and we backtracked to the main area. We've since picked up armor, found Great Faeries (which are AMAZING omg), opened up a few shrines. I thought the memories quest, where you revisit locations from pictures in the camera) would be tedious until I realized they were marked with shining beacons and I wouldn't have to memorize the pictures. We're getting the hang of food and potions, and figured out pretty quickly we could make a lot more rupees by selling those. We've learned to tame spotted horses. I'm actually over weapon decay, which really annoyed me the last time I played, I've just accepted I need to carry weapons and pick up new ones and getting some big new weapon doesn't mean anything to me.

I wasn't going to make a Reyes post, but then something happened I really liked.

And since I'm so goddamn crabby about everything all the time I thought, you know what? Let's embrace this moment. Let's fan.

I feel like bisexual male romances are often heteronormified to protect biphobic players from "bicooties." It seems like whenever male bi characters have a past romantic partner, the partner is female. In the case of Anders in DA2, they actually went so far as omit Anders talking about his past relationship with Karl if Hawke is female.

I love that they updated Jaal's romance to be bisexual, but Jaal feels v e r y straight to me. Characters in Aya talk about his attraction to a female historian, he mentions a previous girlfriend, and he flirts with two female crew members (Cora and PeeBee). And the flirt banters actually are what get me, because we joke around about Jaal being into aliens but he does seem to prefer women regardless of species. I have long pushed for bisexual romances on principle and I have maintained there should not be straight romances because it gates content, but this is the sort of thing that happens when writers don't consider the character as bisexual up-front. My plan was for Scott to romance Jaal this playthrough, I'm not feeling it yet. That could change as the relationship progresses (I haven't gone to Havarl yet), but Reyes certainly isn't helping.

Reyes Vidal has solid bi energy. The way other people comment on the romance (usually something along the lines of, "Uh, so are you two...?") reinforces the bi-vibes for me personally because it reminds me of that thing IRL where people forget bisexuals exist, and then when a bi person is Actual Bi they're like WAIT WHAT HUH OH OK SURE--ARE YOU SURE ABOUT--? OK JUST CHECKING OK STILL BI? OK SURE

The whole scene where they go after the Roekaar is amazing. After Reyes saves everyone Ryder does this unnecessary roll maneuver to pick up an unfamiliar discarded weapon, as opposed to drawing HIS OWN familiar weapon for some reason, and I rationalized this as Ryder showing off his skills (and possibly his sexy Initiative booty) in front of the bad man he has a crush on. Ryder tends to have Big Dick Energy in their flirt conversations and Reyes is smooth as hell, so the disaster bi energy is quite strong and highly recommended.

Soon after a mission involving Reyes' ex-girlfriend Zia comes up. And I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot this is another biseuxal dude who only dated women before. And I was... honestly a little bummed, because I felt like my Scott would have been a bit thrown off by the whole thing. But after the mission Reyes sends Ryder an email.

To: Ryder

From: Reyes Vidal

In case you were wondering...

I have better taste in men than I do in women.

Reyes

And I'm like fuCK, and was of course immediately destroyed. The timing truly could not have been better. Then Reyes invites Scott on a working date, essentially, and I'm like, Scott. No. Do not. Don't you do it.

And of course he says yes. I actually have no idea if you can decline or how that works, I may test just to see but I can only assume Reyes smooth-talks Ryder into tagging along anyway.

For RPing and my personal sanity I decided Scott realizes he's about to make terrible life choices and leaves to work at Havarl a while. Normally I like to work on one planet at a time, but Kadara is kinda weird anyway and it feels rushed if you do it all in one go. One of the conditions for establishing a colony is helping Reyes, which makes sense up to a point, but when he starts asking for help with Zia and Ryder wants a cut... that doesn't make sense to me at all. You have to make too many assumptions about Ryder's character for it to really work characterization-wise. I think the idea is you're supposed to build up camaraderie and start to get clues Reyes is a bigger deal that he lets on, but every time SAM says something like, "We should help Mr. Vidal," and I'm like yeah, ok, WHY? We don't know Reyes is the Charlatan, so why are we supposed to help Reyes specifically?

I have some other issues with Kadara because it kinda muddles the First Contact timeline. Surely the exiles met the Angara before the Pathfinder did, and even if they're disconnected from the Nexus, can the Nexus truly be that clueless? (yes, lol) It technically all works out it just feels weird to me as a writer. The Angaran presence at Kadara seems like it would take longer than a few months to build. (Reyes says he's been working with Evfra a few months, we can infer Evfra decided to work with Milky Way agents after he met and worked with the Pathfinder.)

Anyway, the point is the sexy bad man is bad and we're going to uhhh go do something else now.

I decided to revisit MEA when recent discussions among friends rekindled my interest and I remembered, oh yeah, I never beat that for some reason in spite of putting about 65 hours into it. So I slapped on a few quality-of-life mods and hit the road with a brand new Scott who, as usual, came into being by cruising the face presets until I reached a character who appealed to my writerly spidey sense, then made enough tweaks so (hopefully) I wouldn't come across dopplegangers in YouTube videos(a hazard of relying on presets). Anyway, I love him, and I roleplay him as a friendly, kind dork who adores the natural sciences but is not as ambitious as his sister and never considered himself leadership material until he was forced into the role.

MEA has a really good hook. It draws you in, all my dialogue choices felt meaningful in terms of roleplaying my character. In MEA Ryder's background and training make it more of a "need to do this whether I feel ready or not, and I have what I need" versus being a fish-out-of-water in DAI where you could legitimately ask, "Why the fuck can't I run away from these people?" and be annoyed when you can't.

The first time I played this game I thought planet viability would somehow matter and did a lot of side missions to inch the number up, this time I'm just doing the vaults and the main missions or missions of interest, which seems to bump viability up to about 70-something anyway. It seems like there are less random structures scattered all over the place in 1.10, but either way I'm ignoring them.

I'm paying more attention to Jaal this PT because my plan is to fail the Reyes romance, then romance Jaal. I recently triggered an interesting banter between Jaal and Liam. Being a Dragon Age fan, I sometimes take for granted how much of those games are documented by the community. I couldn't find Jaal/Liam dialogue transcripts, but the conversation was something like... Jaal has been commenting off and on how he likes Voeld and how beautiful it is. Liam mentions Voeld will soon be a place the Initiative can live, and Jaal suggests they can go live somewhere else.

I'm making a point of having this Scott advance Nexus initiatives whenever possible, so I decided to finish up the Voeld vault before rescuing Moshae Sjefa. After resetting the vault I stopped for a chat with Jaal he gave me a bit of a cold shoulder and I realized this action may have dropped his respect/like/whatever. Then I remembered Jaal saying that the cold did not bother the Angara and in fact, they had greater cold resilience than the Kett. Resetting the vault before rescuing Moshae would have rightly been seen as self-serving, and on top of that, Jaal has already demonstrated some protectiveness regarding Voeld and is wary of aliens settling there. All this may just be my perception/the luck of the trigger but I thought it was a pretty interesting read.

I am 500% here for biJaal obviously, but I did notice he starts flirting with both Cora and PeeBee pretty early on (which is awesome btw haha) meanwhile my Scott is like, "What about me? Am I in excellent physical condition?"

Yeah, Jaal. Is Scott physically excellent? HMMMMM?

Later, PeeBee seems to try to capitalize on that attraction (trying to get Jaal to help find some relic doohickey) and he agrees to help but frames it in scientific/professional way (I'll help you if I can study it). I mention it only because I'm aware these characters flirt and Ryder can actually shut it down at some point, and I'm wondering if picking Jaal's "friendship" dialogues is altering this banter.

I ALSO wonder why Ryder's "friendship" dialogues are even marked as that rather than hearts, since Jaal is already flirting up a storm with half the crew, but whatev.