This big increase in character EXP level grind was "big mistake"

Aaaaand that's why I don't feel the need to level every single kit in the game to 20 or do the challenges.

I just play the kits I like, and play for fun.

...and it's still fun for me, that way.

But how do you know what kit is fun if you don't have them at level 20? And in the past with ME3mp, it wasn't like I knew which kit was fun or not right off the bat even with all at level 20 anyway.

Also in ME3mp I still couldn't stand playing with non-level 20 kits. Because it's lame. Yet that's what I've been doing in Andromeda since release.

...because I've played every ME game and experimented w/ most abilities in ME:A SP already?

In ME3MP, I can understand that you'd actually need to play many of the kits, as they used abilities and such that simply weren't available in the SP mode, but here that's not really the case.  Even the melee attacks are exactly the same as they are in SP, w/ the exception of Krogan headbutts (which I find too damn slow for too little damage anyway).

There are VERY few kits that have abilities that you can't play w/ in SP (Avenger Strike, Havoc hovering, Stealth field, Shield Boost, etc).  The rest are literally just an assortment of various melee weapons and skills that you can try out yourself in SP.

For example, before I unlocked my Duelist, I just equipped an Asari Sword and put Backlash, Charge, and Lance on my bar.  I found it fun.  I find Duelist fun.  No, they aren't EXACTLY the same thing, but it's extremely similar.  Playstyle is exactly the same, only the Duelist can blink through cover (sometimes, if lag allows).

Kromerc?  Can't headbutt in SP, but I sure can put Flamethrower, Fortify, and Flak Cannon on my bar and run around and see if I enjoy the combo.  Architect, same deal.  None of these are exactly groundbreaking in terms of not knowing what to expect from playing the kit.

Mostly, I just don't play the human Infiltrators (my aim is shit) and human engineers / sentinels.  Now that I think about it, I mostly just exclude most of the humans, since I can literally just play SP if I want to be a human.

I play MP mostly for the other species.  : )

I'm not really sure how you came to that conclusion.

More like... Bioware done different.  I don't mind the leveling, personally, but I'm not inclined to level everything in the world.

The big difference was the in ME3MP you only needed to level up one character per class to promote them. This allowed players to experiment more and just have way more fun since you could easily skip any class you didn't like until it reached level 20. It also made promotions very tolerable, unlike now.

no, there's a whole subforum here for it.

Do not forget that as a bonus they locked skill points behind the god damn character cards. So good luck on maxing out those ultra rare characters.

...and you don't think that's bass ackwards at all? That you have to go in SP to check out which "kits" you like, so you know in advance which ones to focus on in MP and which ones to ignore before wasting your time with the leveling?

I mean, I have like 98% completion in SP, but I understand that many people will never touch it, much like I understood people who didn't like the unpatched EMS requirements in ME3.

The multiplicative buff to boosters and their availability from the store are steps in the right direction, but make no mistake, they are band-aids to cope with the tepid reception one of their core design decisions has met with.

And you can blink in SP too, with the "Explorer" profile. There's no reason to ever equip that profile over literally any other one, though.

The store grind I can accept. The additional grind to unlock the skill tree not. That isn't "progression" anymore - that is more like deliberate gating. At the cost of variety I feel.

I'm being forced to play SP,just to get rid of that fucking 200 APEX pack limit message.Thanks BW....

They should have let you max the entire character tree with all character cards--that would've been fair enough, then. Instead, they take the points you would've earned with play in ME3 and placed them in packs.