Comparing Andromeda to the OT as a whole is just silly...

Give it a few years. People will complain that the next installment of the Mass Effect series sucked compared to MEA. It happened after ME2 and ME3, and will happen again.

Besides, it's not unique to just this fandom.

The sad thing is that the stories were there, they just did not let your Ryder experience them. The vaults were the Deus Ex Machina that fixed everything, and the remnant in general ruined what could have been a great game.

What if it was Ryder at the first/second outposts on Eos dealing with radiation, weather and kett attacks? What if it was Ryder that had to disobey orders and shoot his superior to save everyone? All those tiny sidequests with exiles giving up piracy and stealing supplies from Podromos and begging to return to the Initiative. Meeting reps from Advent, the tension between Angarra and Exiles on Kedarra....these were all amazing tales of survival and regret that would have been amazing parts of a main plot - and I would have been the first to respect BW for creating a new game, not ME: The Popcorn reboot.

I agree with others here in that it is fair to compare the game to the trilogy. I came in on ME2 and 3 and whatever problems those games may have had (mainly 3's ending) I can see myself playing those games nultiple times and enjoying the experience. Andromeda's story and characters outside of it's character animation issues are lacking. 

I never felt involved or moved by the story that is being told in Andromeda.....which is a shame because the open world felt organic and the visuals are outstanding, but there was some opportunities lost during it's story-telling elements and character development.

I've never compared ME:A to the OT. I've always just compared the way ME:1 introduced you to the protagonist, characters, and universe to the way ME:A introduced you to them. ME:1 antagonists to ME:A antagonist, etc.

You don't even need to go outside the first game in comparison.

I'll never understand why people were so enamoured with ME1's world building... the side mission planets were all basically mountainous rocks of different colors; set up that way just to make driving the mako a PITA.  The alien species were all clearly based on human cultural stereotypes (nomadic (Arab) quarians; militaristic (Roman) turians; diplomatic (Canadian) Asari; Individualistic (American) krogan; financially oriented (Jewish) volus... etc.  I would say that ME1's charm was based a lot on people experiencing a vague familiarity with everything that purported to be alien... not that it was actually alien.

How specifically does the assorted different colored rocks on the planets in ME1 translate to "more nuanced" because, to me, it doesn't... it's the antithesis of being "nuanced."  It's like saying changing the color of the sand in the desert planets in ME:A would make them feel more "nuanced" and more alien from each other... but I sincerely doubt that's all Bioware would need to do to quell the insane amount of criticism their getting over allegedly making all the Andromeda planets seem like desert environments.  To me, they don't seem the same at all... but I'm perhaps paying mroe attention to the "nuances" of difference among them.

As for the side missions on those ME1 planets... most of them were go there and killed some mercs in one of three different settings - warehouse, mine, or science facility.  Exploring the planet translated to usually just finding a couple of minerals and a probe or two to loot.  After a short number of playthroughs... most people just wind up skipping most of them and doing the couple that seemed a little different... like Binthu (which instead had us going to 3 facilities on one planet) or Luna (3 facilities in one group on one planet) or Eletania (which had us going to one probe then a mine with pyjaks in it).  It only felt "diverse" because it was "different" from the others games being made at the same time.  Nowadays, the environments have to stack up to so much more... coloring them differently doesn't make them different.

We've had the discussion about the Elcor & Hanor before based on animal stereotypes commonly used to apply to human personalities... Elcor - sloths (a common stereotype for people who are unemotional/deliberate and who don't move very quickly; Rachni - spiders; insect-like hive minded cults (and we only ever talk to one representative); Hanor (jellyfish body model, personality typifying religious fanatics).

Also... you're forgetting that ME1 was designed to allegedly represent the diversity of an entire galaxy. ME:A represents the diversity present in a single cluster.  The potential for even greater diversity in upcoming instalments is immense... because we know we haven't even scratched the surface yet.  We have so much more left to be introduced to down the road.  However, you're stuck on complaining that ME:A isn't instantly the same as ME1; but how well really did ME1's world building represent the potential diversity of an entire galaxy... not very well, IMO.

The same resources for each "planet" are used over and over again. The same bases, the same turrets, the same base interiors, the same mine shafts and mine chambers... to say there's more nuance doesn't really work. Most of the planets felt like resource filler or paragon/renegade point mining operations. They certainly didn't feel necessary or as a logical or essential part of the "race against time" narrative. 

It's cool if you don't like Andromeda, but it's a bit silly to make stuff up about ME1 to hate on it even more. 

There's a lot of nuance in differently coloured skyboxes.

I don't really view ME2 and 3 much different from each other. Narrative aside, both are watered down RPGs with a huge focus on action, my own biggest issues with those two when compared to ME1. Both streamlined the combat, took less focus off the dialogue, ME3 especially with the auto dialogue and while powers/abilities looked cool, they got downgraded. Theyre not really different games to me at all besides narrative.

As for the andromeda comparisons to the OT: I've said people do it way to much, and I'm sure I don't need to bring up why it's an issue since others already covered it. However, one can base it off on a one by one comparison, and ultimately I'll see Andromeda inferior to them just by the bland rehashed story and reusing what's already been done in their own franchise.

In fairness, this was something some felt was ME1's major weakness. The Race Against Time objective was greatly undermined by just how far you could go running off and doing relatively trivial things across far flung corners of the galaxy, like helping Helena Blake take down some riffraff in copypasta mineshafts and bunkers. Some missions would actually be ridiculously brief if the Normandy dropped the Mako maybe a few miles closer to our destination. And to fill the space, it was largely collection quests. As much as the shards of Inquisition got badmouthed for being a cruddy collection quest, the medals, writings, data drives and such were kind of worse. It wasn't until ME3 that the writings actually meant something. Granted, some missions were more than decent, but a great deal of time was padded with Mako travel, especially if you had to climb, which was very often. 

Shouldn't the comparison really be about whether or not Bioware learned from past games and built on what worked?

I think comparing the Andromeda to the whole of the OT is a little excessive, even if BioWare does invite the comparisons (and it took me as long to finish Andromeda as it does for me to run through the whole trilogy).

The problem is that it doesn't stack up on a game by game basis except perhaps to ME1 which it is so obviously trying to emulate.