Did we need the Kett?

I think the kett had good competition to the game.

The initiative is trying to establish colonies in Heleus while the kett are attempting to understand and control the remnant tech.

But I can't stop comparing the kett to the collectors of ME 2 Even the way they are portrayed kidnapping test subjects from arks to use in experiments
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I agree that for a video game to be interesting, there has to be some sort of an antagonist that the protagonist has to struggle to win against. The antagonist doesn't necessarily have to be a person or a group of people, it could be the harsh conditions, disease, plants, etc.

For MEA, I thought the Kett was just a slightly different version of the Reapers. I mentioned this in another thread, but Kett/Reapers want to exalt/convert to Kett/Reapers and in the end destroy all of the sentient races for an unknown reason. It would have been more refreshing to have either :

1. Milky Way races are the enemy. When settling EOS, Milky Way races meet and fight a hostile race, which we find out in the end that we are unintentionally killing their children (plants/spores/little eggs). When meeting the Angaran, the initial response is war, and we don't meet peaceful Angarans until later (instead of meeting Roekkar later, we meet them first). So in order to settle in Andromeda, we have to kill native species to make a home or continue searching for less hospitable lands that we have to terraform. Some Milky Way exiles are/become xenophobic and want to wipe out Andromedan species, which create conflict with the natives.
2. We meet peaceful Andromeda species but our settlements are attacked and wiped out. Milky Way races don't find the true enemy until later in the game (through quests). During the search, Andromeda species blame each other or Milky Way exiles to confuse the Pathfinders.

I'm sure there are other ideas that could have led to a more refreshing antagonist.

There's no good reason for this criticism to be leveled specifically at MEA and not the others. Combat is a central focus of Mass Effect and has been since the beginning. Even if you have options to spare a character here and there, primarily, you're destroying/killing everything else along the way. In ME2, you can't really fight reapers, so in come the Collectors on our level so we have something reaper-related to fight, and then we have droves of mercenary bands that serve as cannon fodder for each recruitment and loyalty mission. In ME3, the reapers finally arrive, but because the reapers are totally incongruous to our infantryman setup, we basically fight nothing but super zombies. But then, we need a more humanoid enemy to fight, but we can't use mercs anymore, so in comes Cerberus, suddenly more powerful than ever. Each game is going to give you some kind of reason why we're fighting lots of foot soldiers. Whether or not we like the reason doesn't matter; that's just what Mass Effect is, and always was. So really, all ME games are the "FO4 of the series", shooters with RPG elements.

Your right, but how many people do you think bought the previous MA games for the combat?  I know I never did.  Combat in the ME series has always been mediocre for me.  It was the story/characters that drew me and I know many others to the games.  Same could be said for the FO series as well.  There was a big uproar from those who place story above combat in that series as well when FO4 released.  It was clear that Bethesda streamlined the story/characters/dialogue in that game in favor of combat/world building, just like Bioware did with MEA.

I can assure you that it wasn't the combat that made the ME series one of the most popular franchises in gaming history.

They should have done this.

I'm here for the story and characters as well. If I only wanted combat and little else, I would've been gone a long time ago. However, combat is essentially the binding agent of these games. It's the only reason each character joins us in the first place, even if their joining up might not make much sense in the beginning (like Thane, for example). 

But if we're talking about streamlined, I'd argue that ME3 is probably the most streamlined of the lot. Doesn't matter if it has a power wheel or we can choose our companions' loadout. As far as story and dialogue go, it's far more linear than anything else Mass Effect's offered up until now. 

Kett remind me of Golems.

The game needed more alien races.

Remember the main point made by the Angara at the Voeld outpost (the one who calls you amazing if you meet her after doing anything to help the angara). She says they want them alive (for exaltation obviously) and they realized fighting to the death will keep them away. This is true for all species. If their job is to exalt to build their own numbers, then they have to be very cautious about what they do in terms of action because they want to grow their numbers not wage war. They will kill but they appear to want to limit casualties. The Archon goes off book in a very big way when he takes it upon himself to choose to destroy everything if they don't submit. Yes, there are times when they attack and wage war but usually in terms of their goals which is exaltation and of course using those captured as slaves to further their goal in any way they can. Also, remember they actually don't exalt everyone. They are selective. They choose the best for whatever they need or want which is why they enslave others. They also have to study how to exalt each species. If they nuke one from orbit then that shifts everything in the behavior of the group they nuke and those that are in contact with them as well. There is not strategic benefit to killing or mass killing or putting any races on the offensive that you want to study and exalt. This is why the angara fight to the death and the resistance does better for it. It's also why the Archon met the Angara and lied to them, wanting to be seen as a friend not an enemy. It gave them a chance to gain a ton of intel on the Angara by not coming in using sheer force. 

In the case of the nexus colonies, likely they attacked to get specimens. By that time enough was known about the kett in the cluster that trying to be friendly was probably not going to work. They had been there almost a century and archon was obsessed with remnant tech looking for a shortcut to exalt the whole cluster. Also, that he wanted to do that kind of implies that if there are any left alive then their mission might not be complete. Perhaps part of their mission is to exalt and enslave all or mostly all and for them there were still far too many they  had not or else they would  have left because given how many of  the angara we actually do fight that have been exalted, they have exalted thousands, possibly tens of thousands as we likely only saw a small portion of their forces as they currently are.

Was an adversary necessary? Yes. Combat is part of the game, and requires enemies. Were the Kett a poorly written version of Collectors/Reapers? Yes. As noted by others, there are many ways they could have made the adversary more compelling.

I do feel the kett were unnecessary. We could've had conflicts with the roakar and remnants instead. I'll be disappointed if they turn this new series into more war bullshit and all about action rather than what the game was supposed to be about.....exploration, diplomacy, etc etc. plus you can still have action and combat in a game with the focuses I mentioned without it taking priority over everything else (unfortunately ME1 is the only ME that really does that).

I already see the next game being about dealing with the kett senate and such so sad face

To me that is just another point of how badly written the Kett are and how their only real purpose is to stand around to be pew-pew'ed.

The Angara aren't the first civilization the Kett have exalted (supposedly), they have done this many times over.  Yet they have no means of incapacitating large, or even small, numbers of resistant beings other than blasting them with an assault rifle?  Really?  They never looked into using nerve gases to render an outpost, smalll town, or even a whole city defenseless?  They never considered some Collector type tech to seek out lifeforms and put them into stasis so they can be easily collected?  The only thing Kett know how to do is pew-pew you and hope you survive in a state still worthy and capable of being exalted?

I honestly can't roll me eyes hard enough at the Kett.