1. Don't overreact: BioWare has a history of overreacting with this franchise. People complained about the Mako and inventory in Mass Effect 1 so rather than improve them they just removed them. People complained about the (fine) ending to Mass Effect 3. Instead of standing by our choice we will just release an extra scene and try to make everyone happy. Point is there are good ideas and mechanics in Andromeda that weren't polished or fully realized. Don't just cut them or completely alter them based on fan feedback, especially feedback this close to release. Trust that given adequate time and resources you can execute on your vision.

2. Make every quest matter: The Witcher 3 did this better than almost any other game. Even small "go here, kill monster" quests had some narrative hook to them or a twist that made them interesting. People always complain about fetch quests but The Witcher 3 was full of them and it didn't get the same scorn because they took the time to craft them. You can fill the map with those kinds of objectives as long as they aren't just cookie cutter quests repeated across each planet.

3. You can build an open-world without open on-foot areas: I would argue that Mass Effect 2 had an open world, it was on a galactic level, rather than a planetary one. You can give the player plenty of options to explore and choices on where to go and what to do without building self-contained open-world areas. Crafting missions and quests around smaller linear levels lets you better control pacing and allows you to put more resources into making a few areas really memorable.

@meteora3255: We'll have to agree to disagree on that ending. I thought Mass Effect 3 fizzled out real bad.

As for constructive criticism:

1. Less can be more. I know that sounds like the start of a lewd joke, but there's no point having a massive amount of square mileage if you have nothing substantial to put in it. Yeah, there's probably a hundred plus hours of content in Mass Effect: Andromeda for completionists to go through, but most of it is insipid, bland, uninspired fetch questing and padding. Skyrim only had 16 square miles and had much fewer dungeons than its predecessor Oblivion, but it traded some quantity for much more quality. Side quests had decent stories, better locations (the wolf queen dungeon was spectacular), and some meaning. Go for that. At least for me, I'd rather have 50 hours of decent quality stuff to do than a hundred plus hours of ho-hum rubbish. It would also mean less animations to fuss over and less voice acting to direct and get right (as opposed to this game, where most animations are ghastly and the voice acting... oh man).

2. Dump the soft cover system. Soft cover systems can work... on shorter, linear games where each level is very meticulously planned and refined with the system in mind. With the amount of terrain in this game, that wasn't the case and taking cover is an unreliable affair to say the least. I feel like I'm playing Russian roulette each time I try to sensually press up against a part of the game world in the hopes that Ryder will hug it. Go with a hard cover system and bind entering and exiting cover to a button. Might take the randomness out of things... hopefully.

3. Write less like Joss Whedon. Quip machines are all the rage right now, but quip machines only hit the mark if the writing is superb. As is, most attempts at Whedon-style humor in Andromeda fall flat. I would go back and replay the original Mass Effects. Note the tone and what worked there. Try Witcher 3 (seriously) and take notes on what worked there. Then take those notes and apply them to your next game (since this one is done).

4. Study UI designs in other games. The UI design in Mass Effect Andromeda is unwieldy and cumbersome.

5. If you aren't going to allow manual saves during missions, create mission checkpoints less than 20 minutes apart. This is especially important if you're shipping a buggy, partially broken product that occasionally necessitates reloads.

6. Don't fall into the Ubisoft trap of basing as many games as possible off a singular, central design model that eventually becomes old and stale.Not every game has to be Dragon Age: Inquisition. IF you have to make every game like Dragon Age: Inquisition, improve the things that eventually turned people off that game. Positive initial reviews and opinions gave way to scorn as people trudged through hours of ho-hum, banal, uninspired fetch quests and game padding. There was a two month or so grace period for that game where it had great reviews and positive community praise, and then tedium set in. Now it's muttered about like some red headed stepchild of 2014 (if you'll pardon the old expression).

7. Remember the 8 heads rule of body proportions. Ryder and the other humanoid characters have stubby arms and legs attached to a regular sized chest and head. It just adds to the bad animations, shoddy voice acting, and dead eyes / bad facial expressions to create some truly noticeable uncanny valley. Is this what the synthesis ending looks like?

8. Get away from the "Savior of the Universe" trope. Not every character has to be Commander Shepard, aka Space Jesus. People call Ryder a "Pathfinder" like they're talking to a demigod. It's frankly odd. Now if he had a glowing green arm and was the Grand Inquisitor of Doom Keep, I'd probably be less incredulous. Oh, and "ancient technology from old ones as a plot device" was a Mass Effect trilogy thing. You're retreading a cliché.

9. Fix the animations and pauses between dialogue bits. If you can put laugh tracks between dialogue bits with no effort whatsoever, something is amiss.

Just a few thoughts. Bought the Super Deluxe version out of a show of support to Bioware and... ugh. Probably will wait for reviews on the next game they make. No offense intended to them, but this is at a level beyond Dragon Age 2. All the patches in the world won't fix the game pacing, bland quests, writing, story, or voice acting.

1. Ditch the loot system. The armor/weapons that do drop don't make sense lore-wise (initiative stuff dropping from Andromeda aliens,etc). There isn't enough variety to warrant a loot system, and picking up a ton of salvage isn't fun.

2. Ditch the research/development tier system. ME3 had a system that worked just fine. Here it's too much busy work, with no upgrade path for existing equipment. I can't be bothered to craft the same-looking armor more than a couple times (N7 chest has 10 levels?!?!)

3. Ditch the scanning system. In theory in a new world, with the aid of powerful AI, this makes sense as a lore device. However walking around, turning 360 to not miss anything red isn't fun. It also highlights how empty key story mission areas are--in the middle of kett or remnant bases, you'd think there would be more to understand.

4. Ditch the 4/6 wheel switch. I can understand moving uphill being slower, but going back and forth adds very little. At least have researchable upgrades to eliminate the annoyance.

5. Ditch on land mine scanning. As if scanning a globe wasn't annoying enough, now it's even more of a chore with less gain.

The above points definitely feel like Bioware looked at survival games popular the past few years and went in that direction, poorly.

6. Add back more control on squad members. This includes when abilities are used, new armor sets after loyalty mission, and some control of weapon selection.

7. Add back renegade options, or at least something that is more distinct. The renegade options weren't perfect, but one could at least play Shepard as an asshole with little patience. Now Ryder is either joking or serious, that's about it.

8. Less SAM and less space magic, because we sure loved those parts of ME3 (flashbacks to all the synthesis ending discussions...)!

I didn't need more aliens, just more ALIEN aliens. Reapers said a destitute galaxy would be the consequence of their absence, so it's fine this galaxy is empty. But the survivors should be CRAZY weird. I'm hoping the dark energy thing pays off.

Combat needs the pause mechanic back. I wish this game was either way more desperate colony building or a bit more TOS Star Trek exploring unknowable ancient relics from dead civilizations and encountering the rare god aliens that could survive galaxy wide apocalypse.

I think maybe they should have figured out a way to bring a couple original trilogy characters onto this story. It helped DS9 to have a couple familiar faces and I think it could have helped here, even if ME3's desire to be the greatest hits makes it hard to think of a person that could be available. I'd also make at least part of the reason the Initiative leaves is to escape the Reapers, and thus open up some ME2 characters to be available.

What Would Brad Say?

@bartok said:

I'm guessing it would start with the hearty "Disappointed Brad Moan" he has. That "MMMmmmmooohhhhhhhh" you hear on podcasts and quicklooks sometimes.

This is a relic of Bioware Montreal trying way too hard to be like ME1. Gear went from I to X in that game, and it had loot. Finishing up my first playthrough with tier VII gear (just like ME1, look at that), the difference between the top and bottom tiers was barely noticeable. I didn't feel any stronger in the endgame than I did at the beginning, except I had way more abilities to fling. The majority of the socketable "mods" during the crafting (the scifi setting makes the rune/gem crafting look really dumb) don't add anything meaningful beyond +3% this or that. You're not going to feel anything less than 10%, and even that borders on too subtle. It's telling that the skill tree upgrades are 50-100% improvements in damage/cooldown compared to what you get with the crafting. You really get the impression that a cautious multiplayer-balance-focused team designed that system.

1. Go back and consult with the devs who did it right. What deliberate choices did they make to bring the ME universe to life?

2. Go back to basics and find out what makes a good science fiction story. Would the great explorers of history with an entire colony's survival at stake really have the attitude of "we got this"? Going from meat popsicle to "leader of the free world" in 5 mins doesn't really give me any confidence in my character's abilities if there is no prior experience of hardship and challenge. A literal Deus Ex Machina doesn't help much either.

3. Less is more. Generic side missions that don't expand on the lore are worthless. Allow the player to obtain resources in other ways.

4. Make exploration more than just a side quest or minigame. The background lore forms a crucial part of this.

5. Hire a fucking competent cinematographer.

1. Do not release a game in this unfinished state ever again.

2. If your side-quest doesn't have a story as engaging as anything found in the primary quest do not include it in the game and do not gate story content behind the same mechanics as well (Peebee's loyalty quest was such a run around mess... I'd be playing WoW if I wanted to go do MMO fetch quests, never make the player backtrack ever again.

3. Take your time build up the PC. If you want to tell a sole savior hero story atleast make the character earn it instead. Show dont tell.

To be fair, your number 1 should really be directed to EA, not Bioware. I think the first patch Bioware released and what they outlined for the next month or two makes EA look bad (when you look at the bigger picture), since they probably asked for the game to be delayed or further back, but due to March being the last possible opportunity for MEA sales to count for 2016, EA denied it. Bioware should've stayed independent rather than selling to EA and the guys who are responsible for that decision are no longer there.

EA probably killed Titanfall with the dumbass decision to release TF2 a week after BF1 and now they've hurt Mass Effect by not giving MEA to a bigger, more experienced team and not giving them enough time to add more polish. I'm not saying no one at Bioware is at fault, but if Bioware was independent with a better contract/relationship with a publisher or owned by someone like Microsoft, I doubt MEA would've released like it did.

The problem is in the premise.

As the game starts to set itself up it never takes off and there's never really a hook. There's highfalutin speeches about exploration but it raises more questions than it answers. We can't just, in the context of Mass Effect, skip galaxy to "explore" without further notice. The logistics are off. 100k people or however much it is joining up for no further reason than "to explore" is not good enough. How did they end up agreeing to this in 2185? It's akin to us wanting to fly to the moon the second Colombus discovered America.

But okay, "we can go with that". I know I did and I know you did. But there's more.

While the premise is a bust so was it in ME3 yet that game went on to produce highly effective storytelling during its middle as the subplots took over. In this one we have new aliens, a new protagonist who fits neatly into the "let's explore the unknown!" premise but all of these introductions aren't handled very smoothly.

Ryder is supposed to be younger than Shepard, less experienced which it shows when we see his dad use all the crazy abilities you can get later in the opening. But, the story doesn't let him be inexperienced or insecure in the cocky "I know what I'm doing! ;)" kind of way. It never confronts him with his hubris if you go that route and it never shows him growing. This problem begins when he's assigned as "pathfinder" due to nepotism. Initially it sparks potential for intrigue when Cora didn't get her rightful role but instead her squadmate and the son of Alec gets it at her expense basically. This however turns out to be a nonflict. It makes for some playful romance but it never gets under your skin because it doesn't dare to make it serious but there were potentially human truths hidden underneath this idea. Themes like envy, overcoming doubt, learning to be friends etc. it skips over this for a safe and comfortable resolution that never had any drama. The same goes for Ryder in general.

He just powers on the whole game. He never learns, never grows. He just arbitrarily gets better and that's because SAM does everything arbitrarily for him. Detail used to matter in Mass Effect at least until ME3. With the existence of SAM and the way he's used in the plot to activate vague things with vague abilities and give Ryder every power of any squadmate and any class as an all-in-one Mary Sue character is pretty much the undoing of the Hero's Journey this game was aiming for. The details are lost under flashy, cool gimmicks and because the story is tailored around the game-design and vice versa these two components kind of groupthink the game to death as a story and it hurts the IP big time.

Another "introduction" problem is the Kett. You just bump into the bad guy the first time you're confronted with him and suddenly he talks english. Never mind how un-alien this feels, if they had went with this from the get-go then I'd have said "fine, let's go with it", but they just spent the first mission trying to establish the Kett as truly alien. They didn't speak english and it felt alien because of that. Then we meet the Archon and suddenly he just taunts Ryder who acts as if he couldn't be less surprised if he tried - it's almost as if something is missing here like some bridging scene to this moment that was cut from the game because the plot basically disappears for a moment. Ryder flees with a bunch of risky ideas and they suddenly meet the Angara who also have the most casual introduction ever as if it's "just another new race". The game never relishes in how unique and new some of its new insertions to the fiction are and that's a huge problem considering that we have seen newly introduced species before with ME2 but Andromeda was supposed to sell itself as a new beginning for the series as an IP with aliens that aren't just new to players but new to the universe itself. I refuse to believe the way we meet the Angara is how the writers pictured the meeting with the Turians during First Contact before ME1. I imagine they would be truly alien too at first and after several years they'd start to lose that sense of being different from each other.

The problem of the three introductory screwups I mentioned is that the game never has a hook. Every time it tries to establish one premise within the story it falls flat so when you're midway through the game you have this feeling of not really knowing what you're doing. The idea of colonizing planets is also treated as a metagame. It actually ends up being one of the most rewarding features in terms of having a game-story feedback loop. Terraforming a planet, then scouting for an outpost is presented visually and mechnically so you can feel a natural sense of progression which ties into the story of settling down in an uncharted part of a new galaxy so this is a win... pretty much except for one nitpick I have. Good stories have a nice narrative structure. This one did not take this into account, perhaps because BioWare is sold on the idea of "emergent narratives" these days which is one of the wildest misconceptions I know of. If you had any kind of sacrifice in settling an outpost or some sense of gameplay-moments leading to a definitive "low-point" aside from constantly growing it would better create a sense of ebbs and flows to the story but this does not happen because we're constantly winning. It's Inquisition all over again:

The main plot; the crit-path, is ineffective in structure because its low point is when you have to choose between two factions in a poorly established Ash vs Kaidan on Virmire moment. In a nutshell this game has a problem with setting up the context for its narrative beats before it tries to execute on them and with no context the story becomes unclear to you as a player. You cannot make a choice if you cannot tell what the ramifications are or why it matters in relation to what you have been doing thus far. Choosing between a significant fraction of two Milky Way races is somewhat contexualized and we understand the impact it could have but we have no emotional attatchment to either because unlike ME1 there has been no Wrex to tell us about the plight of Faction A and there has been no recurring theme about Humanity's place in the galaxy (or in this case, Salarian) to tell us how Faction B's survival matters personally to us. It's all fast and loose and doesn't put in the effort to set itself up before going to the "dramatic" part. This is classic Show-don't-Tell problems, and as I said, the would-be "low-point" in the story has no impact so we're left with the actually effective part of the game's story which is making worlds habitable and resolving conflicts on them, which turns out to have no sense of structure. That could've been avoided if there had been some sort of sacrifice to make in settling a world. "Do you set up a an outpost for your people on the Nexus or do you let the Krogan who are struggling have their world". This is a choice in the game at some point but the preceding story that happens on that specific planet where settling the outpost leads to the choice isn't really that substantial either but most significant: It doesn't affect the larger story in any way so it lacks the impact it should have.

A lot of these problems can actually be remedied with DLC. All we need to feel is that our premise of exploring Andromeda and settling in on it has consequences that lead to dramatic ups and downs and something to confront and challenge Ryder's hubris. He's so cocky, straight or passionate or all of those things without ever bumping into a character flaw which really doesn't sell him as the 4-dimensional character he is according to the story's mechanics (silly). You cannot make me emotionally invested in the story of a Mary Sue. You have to show me that they're not always going to beat the odds or that there's some kind of inherent struggle in beating those odds. Shepard had his council against his visions and the aliens against humanity but proved he was bigger than that by the end of ME1. In ME2 he had to prove he was capable as a leader and most importantly the ludonarrative of the game allowed the player to fail in this struggle by not making every team member survive. ME3 put Shepard through the test of having to be the tip of the spear for an entire galaxy and he could potentially fail half the way through by betraying or letting down the Krogan or not being strong-willed or charming enough to make peace between the Quarians and The Geth. Ryder is a flat, unremarkable protagonist because the plot never allows him to be anything but. That is all a result of a hackneyed premise, weak writing and a bloated game-design but it can all be remedied or salvaged via DLC as long as BioWare is able to identify the right problems and tackle them at the right angle.

Build a time machine, go back in time, don't sell out to EA.

Consider an art style. Chasing realism is hard enough for much shorter games. It's never gonna look good for you. A different art style that's technically unimpressive can look so much better.

I think the problem with MEA is that it is open world. ME1, 2, 3 every battle, every mission, even the main quests are like you start at one end of the tunnel and proceed past all the obstacles to emerge at the end. The tunnels themselves are all well crafted, storylines to battlefields. Miranda's loyalty quest explores her personality alongside the Citadel. Grissom academy you start at the office and work your way through a set of rooms and vantage points overcoming cleverly entrenched Cerberus operatives to exit leaving an empty path in your hard won victory.

MEA the tunnel is gone and you are left with blobs of activity. Camps where it is difficult to find a vantage point to hunker down and enter from. And once the camp is cleaned out there is no further depth, no tunnel to further explore, just move away to find another blob of activity. Occasionally the blobs extend to tunnels such as rescuing the Moshai. And those aspects of the game are enjoyable, but there just aren't enough of them.

And the same problem infects the characters. They are just blobs. Personality replaced with light humor or canned laughter. They lack their own tunnel. There is no Qara (nwn2) who is going to jump ship because she has her own agenda and you failed to co-opt her to your program. Even the bickering between the characters lacks the robustness found between Miranda and Jack, or the class and sensitivity to the underlying politics found between Tali and Legion, or the wit of Neeshka upbraiding Khelgar and Elanee after reaching Neverwinter. And never do the characters involve you in their disputes then take umbrage and revenge for not siding with them. Again, it is like it is an open world and so the characters have to be bland enough to accommodate the player choosing any option without that option having any consequence that finds the character walking out and thereby risking closing off that option.

The jump jet is cool. So too is the Nomad (please patch ME1's Mako). And this is the first cover system that I have not spent hours cussing and swearing at, in fact its the best cover system I have come across ever. But limiting each profile to three quick buttons I find too restrictive. Limiting the number of quick keys is sensible, but I do that anyway; on DAI I generally use four with maybe two more auxiliary, I don't need to be forced to do so.

As an open world however, if it gets opened up to modding like NWN2 was it would, to my mind, eclipse Fallout 4. With the right set of tools the potential is amazing.

Yeah. I feel like this is a problem in western media in general. So many good stories started, and then beaten into submission via repeated iterations. A good ending makes a good story even better, but no, we have to repeat the same stuff over and over until it becomes banal. Just like when someone says a word over and over until it loses all meaning.

Ignore the hate, keep trekking. Lets see this turn into a 3 part trilogy. By all means don't invest the same marketing budget, put that back into game development.

Those of us who like games like this only get 1 or 2 a year (and sometimes 0). I know this game got all kinds of bad press and fan-hate. But some of us are perfectly happy we bought the game. Yes, it could be better, and yes we want them improving animations and bringing this up to the standards they have reached before.

What I want most of all, is a fun narrative experience, with interesting characters and meaningful drama, choices and consequences. I've yet to beat this game (persona 5 having something to do with that) so I've yet to judge fully if it meets that criteria or not, but I've enjoyed the hours I've put into it.

Constructive Criticism though? Realize you messed up, fix your mistakes. Don't be discouraged or dissuaded from pursuing future plans for the series (assuming it sold well enough to let them).

To those calling for this series to die, I'll be happy to put my vote in the extreme opposite end. I want more games in this genre, not less. Mass effect Andromeda 2, animations still an issue, story progressing properly vs No Mass Effect andromeda 2, here's a new game bases purely on the multi-player, Free to Play! vs "This studio is closed down. We are EA are exploring other options for the Mass Effect franchise (Cue mobile shovel ware) or "We are proud to announce a new series, in the very popular Moba genre, Mass effect is something we may come back to in the future(I.e. dead and buried) but is not our current focus".

The only scenario where "let this series die" i'd be ok with is "We decided to make a different, better rpg. "And really..I would miss the space-opera/science-fantasy genre being explored in gaming via rpgs very much even then. If thats what they do, ok I'm on board. But it won't be..

I don't want the series to die, but if they let Andromeda as a setting die, I'm not going to complain. I would be exceptionally unlikely to purchase another game set in Andromeda. Go back to the Milky Way. Forget the We-Got-This-Space-Hipsters ever existed.

Agreed. 100% this. I still want to see another Mass Effect, but I've had enough of Andromeda to last a lifetime. This is a terrible foundation to build a trilogy upon.

Getting back to constructive criticism, maybe make the choices less binary. I get it... the player gets to have a "massive effect" on things in Mass Effect. Very clever and all, but how do you have any canon building for your franchise with stuff like this? How do you set the stage for the next game if you offer so many radically different conclusions to major quests? There's a reason this game couldn't take place in the Milky Way galaxy. It's color coded too. *drum roll*

For example, did you keep Sloane as Pirate Queen or appoint Reyes as secret ruler of Kadara Port? Depending on your choice, the faction in power will be either the Outcasts or the Collective. What does that mean for Mass Effect: Andromeda 2? I suppose they could switch out soldiers depending on your previous choice and record duplicate dialogue (one for Sloane & Co., one for Reyes & Co.), but they won't. Too much cost for not enough benefit. You'll just never visit Kadara Port ever again. All the world building (however flawed chronologically. 8 months for the exiles to become a Mad Max gang that impales heads on spikes? They act like they've lived in the waste for decades) for a one-off setting. It's a waste.

Did you give the Krogan that Remnant power core? If not, how do you handle their integration into the Initiative's new federation of planets? It's way too much hassle to record dialogue, place NPCs, and build a New Tuchanka embassy if player chose option A and record alternative dialogue, place hostile NPCs, and build some hostile Krogan bases if player chose option B. Odds are they'll just never bring up the Krogan colony again, save some filler side-dialogue about how "relations are still strained, but we're making progress" that could apply equally to both options.

Frankly, I've always found this rather lame. In letting the player have "massive effects" on things, you effectively let them have no effect on anything. Save the council or let them die? Doesn't matter. You work for Cerberus now regardless. Broker peace between the Quarians and Geth or let them duke it out? Choose red, blue, or green? Doesn't matter, because we're ditching this galaxy completely for Andromeda. I'd rather Bioware have a story to tell and let us have "minor effects" that don't change the ultimate outcome but instead give it some personalized flavor. Maybe Sloane always wins, but we can choose whether to kill Reyes or let him fake his death. Then the next game can have Kadara Port and a spy network, and depending on your choice you have an "in" thanks to Reyes or have to do a side quest to curry favor. A small ripple that's easier to include in the next game compared to the giant waves Bioware currently favors.

My biggest gripe with the game isn't actually so much the story or the weird bugs, though those are certainly valid. It's the dumb ways in which the game's systems lock themselves up for no good reason. Making you jump through hoops to change the most basic things. For example;

• Why do I need to leave a planet when I board the Tempest?
• Why do I need to use a terminal of sorts to change my loadout in any other scenarion than being in the middle of the field/mission?
• Why can't Ryder have access to his email on the go? I don't want to have to go back to the tempest, leave the planet, read the email and land on the planet again to finish a mission.

When it comes to the story, it all feels like it lacks something. It has no real heart. The Kett and the Archon feels like cut and paste bad guys for the sake of being bad guys. The remnant feel like a catch all of someone taking the a blender to Geth and Reapers and made an artificial old ones for the sake of having synthetic enemies and a solution to both terraforming and adding some deeper mystery to the galaxy. But I feel like they could have done away with both the Kett and the remnant and maybe added a second or two more species interesting species along with the Angara and have more political intrigue between all of those and the Nexus and Exiles, rather than this constant urge to make everything into a good vs evil shit show. Actually focus on making the game more about surviving in an alien world and the complications between different species.

Hell they could have explored so many interesting facts of colonization and the issues coming from that. Maybe have an alien species that are less developed than you and the power relation there. Just something that isn't just somehow, everyone, everywhere, is at the same level of technical sophistication but with different art styles to their houses just because.

Also, whoever made the soundtrack need to go back to the OG trilogy and listen to what Mass Effect should sound like. Because Andromeda sounds like Mass Effect dragged through a fantasy filter.

I say keep the Andromeda setting but drop the character, make other races playable. Obviously I haven't and may never beat the last game but i think making a pathfinder for every race could keep things uniform and allow for other species to be playable. Do it like origins with a unique backstory but same main game, i dont feel like saving humanity anymore, lets save the salarians or krogans from humanity!

1. More than one face for alien races, especially the Asari since they're basically human faces so it's extra obvious that there's Peebee and all the rest
2. Loadouts that you can swap on the fly like Alec was doing in the prologue, changing your active skills and your Pathfinder profile, without all the clunky menu navigation
3. Balance the gun behavior modification mods, like why does changing my 1.2k damage shotgun to fire electric rounds cause it take 3 hits to kill an enemy that also dies to 2 80dmg pistol shots
4. Consistent scanner behavior, always give me the scanner prompt when there is something worth research points and don't let me scan repeat items if they don't give points each time

Those are the major things that stand out over the... ok Origin says 70 hours that can't be right can it? Holy shit.

EDIT: Lol I guess 2 is already a thing guess you can still learn about a game you have played for 70 hours

"Stop making Mass Effect games. I don't even like them, and apparently neither do the fans."

@ezekiel: But... but I like Mass Effect. I just want someone who can, to make a BioWare-like Mass Effect game that isn't bad or lame. I wouldn't say Andromeda is "bad" (aside from technical issues) as much as it is just "lame". This has been an increasing problem with BioWare in general. They're too far down the rabbit hole of fan/nerd-culture and they take too much feedback from gullible fans who just want more romance. BioWare has lost whatever passion they had in regards to telling stories or that sense of excitement they had in making the original Mass Effect setting. It just feels so generic and uninspired now and the characters are way too nice to each other. I felt like ME1 was interested in its own intellectual ideas such as "what if this is what 150 years into the future looks like?" and this just goes tropey every chance it gets. It feels like the people that actually understood "what Mass Effect is" have long since left BioWare or something. There's no chance in hell you can make a game like this... in 5 friggin years, if you actually understand what the real pillairs and strengths of "Mass Effect" is.

The problems already began with ME3. Arguably there were some seeds of decreasing quality in ME2 also but for the most part the trilogy remembered its own strengths throughout (ending aside) and Andromeda just... doesn't have any of that. Even so, ME3 felt like a dumbed down Mass Effect in terms of story. I felt like that game tried to force a "WWII" theme over their amazing and unique lore and it made it worse while ME2 mostly just tried to flesh out what was already good in ME1 rather than to impose superficial "deep" ideas into it like dreams and ghost boys or moralizing speeches about "war" and "sacrifice". The writing started to suck in ME3. In Andromeda it fell off a cliff before the game even starts.

Instead of appealing to shareholders and playing safe, make something we don't expect...

I got an email yesterday from EA to take a survey on Andromeda. Check your inboxes people, this is the chance to give direct feedback to the source.

This is harder than it sounds, but write a better story with more engaging characters and existential dilemmas and discussions around them. That's what I want out of my Mass Effect. It simply must be more weight behind the narrative and the different moving pieces in it.

Music is your friend. Do not cut costs by cutting back on music.

Really think about how much idle animation you need to be doing on these characters and definitely turn it off while they're talking to you.

That is sucks and should be better? :p Seriously though:

• Don't do things just to check off a box.
  • Including multiplayer but it literally being a carbon copy of the 3's MP.
  • Having an open world just to have an open world
  • Including the "usual suspects" races +1 just like in ME3
  • A ship that is basically the Normandy and that is layed out exactly like the Normandy.
  • Loyalty missions just because "that's what we do"
• Care about your characters more
  • Writing, dialogue, romance options, etc
  • Why are there only like 2-3 times in the entire game where a "paradon or renegade" option show up? Why are they even still there if they don't matter?
  • How is it possible I can go through an entire Mass Effect game and really only like 1-2 characters, at most...and mostly because those characters reminded me of pre-existing ones?
• Include worthwhile customisation
  • I could at least get new outfits for characters upon completing their loyalty missions in 2 and 3.
  • What is the importance of being able to get every single ability when I can only ever have 3 equipped?
• Combat should be better
  • Just like Call of Duty has proven, adding a jump jet and boost doesn't matter if the core game isn't there.
  • Why can I not order my teammates around + tell them what powers to use? Why am I waiting for Peebee to pull a target by chance?
  • Why is the melee combat worse than ME2 and ME3? Why can I not melee grab characters on the other side of cover?
  • I shouldn't have to wonder if I'm really in cover or not.
  • Allow me the option to talk my way out of combat more.
• Unless I'm playing Killzone I shouldn't hate the character I am playing
  • Dialogue shouldn't suck unless I'm specifically trying to make my character stink.
  • I consistently hated Ryder, which never, ever happened in ME 1-3. No matter what I chose, he sounded like a frat boy douche or someone trying to their best to wear the big boy pants without having the ability or confidence to pull it off.
• You don't always need to be the chosen one, savior of every Mass Effect game
  • Explains itself.
• Write better dialogue and story
  • its a meme but they do use the word "Pathfinder far too much". I play the tabletop game Pathfinder and since being in the test for that game to now I've never said the worth Pathfinder as much as my character in MEA
• Let a real Bioware studio take a crack at Mass Effect.

LET...ME...SAVE...DURING...STORY...MISSIONS!!!

The fuck were they thinking with that?

@kishinfoulux: I think it might be because their scripting breaks really easily. Saving during a scripted sequence then reloading probably fucks the whole thing up.

This is an odd thing to type, but it'd be nice if the enemies didn't spawn from the skybox and then fall into place. I've seen the big gorilla-esque fiends literally materialize in the sky and then plummet to their designated placement. I've also seen whole Kett patrols do the same (which kind of ruins a combat scenario's mystery factor when you know exactly how many and what kind of soldiers are up ahead). Oh, and a loyalty mission almost broke when some dog-monsters spawned above the battle arena and got stuck in the ceiling. I ended up waiting as their indicator dots convulsed and eventually they clipped out of the ceiling and landed on the ground. Thankfully there was an auto-save right before the fight, so I wouldn't have been too boned if they hadn't become unstuck... but ugh.

On a different but similar note, I don't mind guard alarms in bases that have to be turned off before reinforcements arrive. That having been said, it'd be nice if:

A. The security terminals were easier to spot. Many environments are covered in useless consoles and terminals that do nothing but add ambience, and security terminals look EXACTLY the same as these fluff decals. Better icons for the terminals I can actually use would be great.

B. Such said reinforcements were coming in either via "monster closet" doors or dropships. As is, I just did a Kett base on Eos and their reinforcements literally spawned in before my very eyes (sometimes at the appropriate z axis, and sometimes in the air before they fell into place). It was kind of obnoxious and... well, unpolished and sloppy. Not sure if something was glitching the heck out or if "spawn reinforcements out of the ether five feet in front of the player" is intentional. Not sure it matters at this point. *shrug* Oh, and one of them got stuck in the building itself and wouldn't budge. After listening to Drack freak out for a minute or two and do his berserker rage at nothing in particular, I just dropped down a hole and moved on.

At least the fight was crazy hectic and amusing after the fact, I guess. An entire army of teleporting power ranger henchmen couldn't bring my bro Drack down. Jaal was a different story. :-P

@lazyimperial: I personally got tired of seeing all the ambient fights in the open world start from a dropship. Like, I get that it's a fairly practical way to travel, but why are they always arriving just as I'm driving by, literally every camp on a planet is being investigated/reinforced/what-have-you right as I'm passing it, even if I just passed another camp just like it seconds ago. The Kett even had troop transport vehicles like the Nomad littered around as set-dressing, but I never once remember seeing them actually arrive in one or use it as anything other than static cover.

@freedom4556: Yeah, I've noticed that too. The scripting is not that great for the open world dropships; I think I've just about pin-pointed the invisible line on Kadara that triggers the dropship to land in the middle of the road EVERY single time I drive to the west of Kadara Port. I was expecting the dropships to be more random like the events in Skyrim or Fallout 3... but nope. Same thing every time.

Still, I'd take dropships over enemies spawning out of nothing right in front of me. I didn't enjoy that in Battlefield 4 and I don't enjoy it here. Now if this was Doom and they were warping in from Hell... that I could make an allowance for. :-P

to go back to making good games.

I wish I had access to more that 3 abilities now that you could built any class/variant.

Don't hide new dialog options behind greyed out options in the conversation trees.

Have you considered taking up farming? Somewhere, out there, away from all this "video games" business.

I've given a lot of thought about this and while I have story concerns and the like, at the end of the day, I am just completely bored by the open world structure of the game. One of the things I loved about the first three games was playing these the tight dungeons that represented missions. This also helped make the game more cinematic and fluid. Now I just spend so much time staring at a map and checking off boxes and when I get to the "main mission" of an open world, it feels uninspired and dull. I don't recall but was there really a big outcry over the structure of the previous games? Dragon Age I can partly understand because of the setting and the fact it's lineage isn't as heavily influenced by cinematic story telling. With that said, even there it felt misguided.

Instead of sticking to their strengths, Bioware decided to go in a different direction. If the next game they make takes on the same structure, I'm done with Bioware after 10+ years. I haven't finished the game yet and am going through it at a snails pace. I have to work up the energy to even put the disc in the drive after my girlfriend has left watched a DVD. It just makes me kind of sad because I was genuinely a huge fan from the start.