Jumpy Plot

Yeah I was talking with a friend earlier about how it feels like the game is three or four plots just kinda smashed together. Some stuff is good but other bits feel way too generic. Other parts here and there like "Well... we wrote it. Sure just toss it in... there!"

Then that led to chatting about the stuff about writers leaving mysteriously through the game and theorizing on bits of story we've come across and what feels artificially bigger versus what may have been the first intent, some of our theories based on heresay, trailers, etc.

The story just doesn't feel like it flows. Like a lot of the game, it feels unpolished. Like it just needed to have another once over and then a quick final touch up.

Same as Inquisition. The priorities are on everything but the plot and it ends up being really barebones, but I think for the amount of scenes they have, with good writing it could've easily worked. Too bad they hired Schlerf.

But yes, this is practically not a plot. Same issue as Inquisition. It does not establish its setpieces with enough context before just throwing you into a new chapter. The Archon is not properly introduced and apparently he can speak english whereas we hadn't previously understood any of his kind and Ryder isn't even confused about this. As far as I'm concerned this is a gaping plot hole

Then it jumps again when we land to meet the Angara because now the plot just assumes our goal is to help them defeat the Kett. The kett being the villains is never properly established in terms of theme. They're just bad guys that happen to be wherever there's Remnant Tech. The Remnant tech is interfering with our Golden Worlds, but for no good reason, as soon as the Archon is introduced to Ryder in person, the plot starts assuming without rhyme or reason that the goal of the story is now to defeat the Kett and the Archon even though Ryder's job is to find worlds to settle. The scenes in particular are contrived. You just meet the Archon and then it goes all over the place tonally as we escape from his Derp ships.

Sometimes it does not feel like a plot because there's no cause and effect. It's like Batman Vs Superman, where there is no throughline and the premise is never properly established. "We're going to Andromeda" is not a premise, that's just a starting point. "We're going to Andromeda to settle golden worlds" is too basic a premise because it has no clear conlfict, so what is it? The game never explains before we bump into the Kett and Angara and it just moves along assuming that this is our new premise. Stitched together it becomes "We're going to Andromeda to settle golden worlds which aren't as golden as we thought, so we'll help the alien race to defeat the evil Kett and...", and then what? A plot cannot progress like this. It's a big fundamental flaw. You have to establish the premise, motivation and a clear-cut premise (aka a goal or destination we're striving for) by the end of act 1, which would be once we've settled Eos and met the Archon. It just doesn't work.

The plot of Andromeda is broken as much as the ending to ME3. There's lots of other good stuff but the plot is simply broken before it even begins.

Like I said, this feels more like someone pasted together some E3 demos and called it good. 

There's a lot of exposition missing.

It feels like the game's plot was written by 3 different people, oh wait it was! The writing is all over the place, ranging from pretty decent to god awful. I swear the intro, and the first time you are on the Nexus feels like something that Bioware never wrote. After that i feel the writing does get better and better, but a lot of things are hand waved because of Rule of Cool, which is unfortunate. Also the tone is off so often. There are so many attempts to be humorous when it doesn't fit, its not earned. Its the Marvel effect. If they do a sequel, well fix it!

"Writing" when I say it is an umbrella term for
- Plot
- Pacing & Structure
- Characterization
- Dialogue
- Prose & Word economy
- Theme & Message

I usually specifiy if I mean specifically dialogue or plot is an issue but it can be hard for most people to know right away what it is about the writing that doesn't work when they notice it isn't well done.

It's a genre-problem, and as you say it comes from the inconsistency of plot, structure and pacing and on top of that the tone isn't compatible across the entirety of the journey. Imagine if Andromeda was a book. It would be impossible to read this thing to the final page because you can't follow it. It keeps changing its focus every 10 pages and you cannot predict anything. People like cause and effect and clarity. Not to mistake clarity with "spoonfeeding exposition" but we need a clear-cut premise and a relatable motivation revealed somehow for the protagonist and a sense of what drives him and why we're going there. Andromeda just does whatever the hell it wants at every turn. It's a classic example of "then this happened, and this happened". It's not how you tell a story.

Dunno about the last line, I mean, whatever, it's nothing preachy and it's just one side-character. Proportional to the size of that audience compared to the total players active (but of course the cons BioWare attends shows a different demographic ratio).

It's just... you can play this game if you like the atmosphere and inspiration from the areas you can walk around in or some of the squadmates but it really feels like if you cut out the plot and some of the better side-quests from ME1. Like, cut out Ilos and the Ash/Kaidan part of virmire and the Noveria and Feros. That's what this game is like but just with more side-quests and all of the Citadel stuff.