I feel they played it too safe with the Andromeda Aliens

i get its not hate...and i get it Would be nice to have different effects...but i still do not view this criticism as being 'valid' and i want to. I want to understand but there is just so much more to characters then appearance. Though as a reference Kett with different abilities would be nice. But that does not fall under appearance.

The Kett are fine for me as the main enemy, because in a shooter (even if it is a RPG) you need someone to shoot back. But what I would like to have in future content are sequences out of the horror-survival segment. Encountering something unexpected - like the Rachni in ME1. That level on Noveria was soooo good. In a new Galaxy - as a pathfinder - wouldn't it be cool if we ran into a situation with a real WTF-component and then barely making it out alive? The wildlife in MEA can't compensate for that IMO (especially because Fiends are basically upgraded Brutes).

The downside of the Noveria mission: Port Hanshan looks like a dilapidated shopping mall from the 1980's.

The upside of the Noveria mission: literally everything else. Especially the Rachni.

Setting aside the fact that the content of the Kett is a weak retread of the Collectors and some other generic bug-eyed monster tropes, why don't you think they would improve an iota? If you prefer content of character to appearance, then than means that appearance does matter to you at least a little, and if appearance matters to you at least a little, then it stands to reason that you would like the game a little more if their appearance was a little more interesting.

For me, I would like the game a lot more, because I like it when visual media actually leverage their inherent qualities and show me something creative. Not doing so is a waste and a let-down. There's also the argument you sidestepped entirely: making the Kett more exotic is practically bound to make their characters more interesting as a result. A race of Kett without eyes would be a more interesting culture to explore, if only slightly, because that means their culture is unique.

I also have to question what kind of RPG you play if you genuinely believe that the most recent BioWare games are some of the best RPG ever made. BioWare are the epitome of appearance over character content. Ever since KotOR, people went to BioWare for the production value, not the literary genius. If you want deep characters, you go to Obsidian or Black Isle. Hell, even CDPR have BioWare outmatched these days.

I agree, but I've said this a lot in regards to BioWare: they seem perfectly willing to stomp over lore and reason for just about any addition they feel is necessary. If BioWare is content adding swords and hammers on the rule of cool, why not exotic-looking aliens? I get the slippery slope argument, but we're already on the slip n' slide, so we might as well have fun.

My other justification is that I think any half-decent writer would rise to the challenge if given an interesting premise to work with. Just about every premise starts out as "wouldn't it be cool if...," and the cooler the idea, the more excited the writer is to keep writing about it. That's how it works for me at least. Obviously, there's a point where ideas become impossible given a framework, but there's a vast continuum between that point and where we are now.

Shocking.

I would have liked to have been the first to Andromeda.It seems every planet we set down on there is already a base/camp or small city already built.

So for me it took away the exploration experience.

I guess it was to set up stuff to do, but yes. Makes you wonder what the pathfinders were actually for. Coming along and fixing what other people have already found doesn't fit the title.

But the arguments are connected. Looking unique is, of course, its own benefit; the Kett look like fairly generic "videogame enemies," so something new would certainly be more welcome. However, the process of making the Kett more visually unique is where the real character content comes in. By making the Kett more relatable, BioWare have denied themselves a wealth of concepts and themes that come from science fiction thought experiments. The Kett are boring because they're your average run-of-the mill space Nazis: militaristic, ideological, Aryan race-loving bug-eyed monsters. There's just not much else about them.

That's where the looks come in. What if the Kett had no eyes? What does that mean for their culture? How does that change communication? What does that mean for them as enemies? And that's just a simple biological change. What if the Kett were trans-dimensional beings? What does that mean? What kind of technology would they make? Why exist in our dimension?

BioWare could have made any alterations, eyes to trans-dimensionality and created a more unique race because of it. Visually, it'd be a neat thing to do, but any visual feature aught to be backed up with sufficient narrative depth. That's what I'm asking for.

If you're genuinely interested in character depth then I'd recommend checking out their stuff: Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition, Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2, KotOR II. These are games with their fair share of jank and very little in the way of visual spectacle, but in terms of literary merit, they're the best in the genre.