Oh man, I could literally go on for pages about what I think BioWare needs to think about for the next iteration (if there even will be a next iteration at this point) of Mass Effect. But here are the highlights:
1) I would seriously consider going back to the Milky Way at this point. I feel absolutely no attachment to Andromeda and after getting through the game, I'm frankly not interested in going back. Nothing about it is as compelling as the original trilogy and I don't see how they can make it so at this point. The things people loved about the series all exist in the Milky Way, so go back to that well. And while I'm very aware that there are "issues" doing that given how the trilogy ended I honestly think it isn't as big a deal as people are making it out to be. If you tell a good enough story, you could recon the fuck out of the events of ME3 and people won't care. Now is the time to do it, too before you get too deep into a story people aren't invested in. Just let Andromeda be this weird little side story that gets forgotten over time and let players go back to where the action is.
2) Less is more. I don't think going open world was a very good idea and it certainly didn't add anything to Andromeda. It's an issue of both story telling and game quality. On the story front, it is difficult to maintain any sense of momentum when you can literally go dozens of hours dicking around between main quests. There were too many time in Andromeda when you'd get an email from someone saying "remember me?" and the answer was "Nope. I don't remember you. You were one generic NPC out of a million and I last talked to you 15 hours ago." It leads to an unfocused story with no sense of urgency or forward progress.
One the game quality front, well, if an open world means side quests of the low quality of the ones in Andromeda, then it just isn't worth it. I know "linear" has become something of a dirty word in RPGs these days, but it would honestly help a lot in Mass Effect's case. I'd rather play a great 30 hour game than a shitty 100 hour one.
3) Better companions. I really disliked most of the companion characters in ME:A. At best, I found them boring. I think the difference is the ME:A ones felt like walking tropes while the original trilogy characters felt like fully fleshed out individuals. While part of that is that the original squad had three games to grow on you, another large part of it is how they were written. One of the major differences is how the companions are structured between the games. In ME:A, you get one big exposition dump initially where that character describes their "thing." Vetra wants to protect her little sister, for example, or Cora is all about the Asari. Then you don't get any more about it until their loyalty mission down the line. In other words, they don't offer very much about themselves. Instead, they talk tend to talk about events. The problem with that is that, one, most of the event they talk about just happened, so you don't need the recap, and two, most of the loyalty missions fall flat because you don't really feel like you know the person.
By comparison, the original trilogy characters tended to have a personal story they would slowly tell you about, like a little serial. For example, in ME1 Garrus would initially discuss his life in C-Sec. Then he starts talking about Dr. Saleon and how he was this criminal that got away and how that bothers Garrus. But he doesn't tell you the whole story up front. Instead you get things up to a point, then he breaks off. Once you complete a major mission, he gives you the next "chapter" so to speak. And so on until you get the mission to take Saleon down. By talking about something personal over time like that, it gives the impression you are building a relationship with this person and that they are gradually becoming more comfortable with you. And the serial nature of their story reveals makes you eager to know what's next. One of the first things I would do in ME1 after a main path mission was talk to all the companions to see if they had anything else to say. I stopped doing that in ME:A, because I knew it was pointless.
4) Better villains. The Archon is lame. I'm sorry, but he his. He isn't threatening in either design or behavior and he has no personality beyond stock villain monologues. He feels like BioWare pulled him off the Saturday Morning Cartoon scrap pile. By comparison, the original trilogy had a lot of great villains. Saren was badass and kind of pitiable at the same time. Sovereign was scary. And the Illusive Man was a great villain even though he never really fought you. A good villain has got some interesting angle to them. Either something that makes them relatable (i.e. Saren genuinely thought he was trying to save the galaxy), or charming and magnetic (i.e. the Illusive Man) or just downright fucking terrifying (i.e. Sovereign). It helps if they've got an interesting visual design - the Illusive Man and his Star Chair or Saren and his glowy eyes.
The ME:A villains didn't have that. The character design was boring (what's with the dull cow eyes?) and didn't have any agenda beyond wanting to destroy you. Because evil.
5) No More Chosen Ones and Ancient Aliens. If your plot point is on the BioWare Bingo card, just don't do it. No, you don't have a "fresh perspective" and your "twist" isn't that clever. Don't do it. Get out of your comfort zone and try something original for a change. I had nearly every major plot point in Andromeda called out well in advance because things were so predictable. If I can do that, it's bad.
6) Overhaul the Conversation System. I could write an entire blog post on this point all by itself, but I'll try to summarize here: I can understand wanting to move away from the paragon/renegade system, but what they replaced it with was just lame. The p/r system, for all it's flaws, at least let you respond strongly to things. You could have an opinion and express that opinion and even (gasp!) disagree with your squad members. It helped to give Shepard a defined personality. By comparison, the ME:A system lacks that same strength. All your conversation choices boil down to two categories - times when no matter what option you pick you get a varying level of "politely milquetoast" or a situation where what the blurb says in no way matches what comes out of your mouth. I didn't feel like my Ryder had a defined personality. Or leadership skills. Or even that he was discovering either one of those things.
I kinda don't know what they need to do to fix that. They might need to move away from the wheel system entirely, or maybe offer the player less conversation options, so you only have a choice at critical story moments. I don't know. But they need to do something because what they've got going now is pretty bad.
7) Details Matter. One of the things I felt was sorely lacking in ME:A was attention to detail. When you're getting emails from dead characters or emails talking about events that haven't happened yet, it's jarring. And none of the new races or locations had nearly the same level of detail as they ones in the original trilogy. The Angara are supposed to manipulate bio-electric energy, but when do you actually see that in a meaningful sense? You hear about how large families are critically important to their culture, but you never see them doing things as families. You discuss their cultural rules when you arrive on their planet, but they aren't enforced in any way. I know that can be a lot of work for something that maybe most players won't care about. But for the people who are really into Mass Effect, it matters a lot. One of the reasons people got into the original trilogy was the level of care that went into establishing that universe. The codex didn't just tell you stuff about the universe, it was actually reflected in what was going on.
I feel like this was something that started to slide with the ending of ME3, but really became seriously noticeable in ME:A. They've got to get back to that level of detail.
8) Bring Back Pedantic Codex Guy. Seriously, worst omission of ME:A
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