Why MEA did not work for me

I have been a Bioware fan since I first got my hands on KOTOR back in 2003. Bioware to me was always the vanguard of non-JRPG style RPGs but now for me that is no longer the case as I now believe that title goes to CD Projekt Red but that is not what this thread is about. Instead, I want to give my opinions as to why MEA does not work for me and how I now have lower expectations for future Bioware games. Mind you I am not saying MEA is a bad game because that is purely subjective. Everyone hates on Man of Steel and Batman v Superman but those happen to be great movies IMO.

Anyways, this is why MEA does not work for me:

The Open World is lifeless

When I run around the hub areas and the open areas, I do not get the immersion that I am in a living and breathing world like I do games such as Red Dead Redemption, GTAV, and The Witcher 3. Instead, MEA's open world feels like a movie set with props placed around various places just waiting for me to interact with. When I walk into Novigrad in TW3 or a town in RDR, I feel like the place has a life and is going on without me. With MEA, it feels like I am in The Truman Show where everything is set up specifically for me to interact with or talk to. People have no routine or purpose.....they are just....there and for a 2017 AAA game, that really kills the immersion. DAI suffered from this as well. 

Another aspect that places into this is the lack of passage of time. Again, when I goto places in TW3, GTA, or RDR, it can sometimes be day, night, dawn, or dusk. It can be clear and sunshine or it cane be rainy and stormy. It all adds to the feel that the world has a life and isn't just this "stuck in time movie set" feeling that MEA has. It is just so hard to take the world seriously and immerse into because of the way Bioware goes about it. If there is a MEA 2, the game should take the ME2/ME3 route and be a bit more linear. Or perhaps look at the way DAO did things by having open environments. They were linear but they were large enough to give you the illusion of things being open. Perhaps a MEA2 and even Dragon Age 4 needs to go that route because obviously this open world thing is not working for Bioware.

I am tired of being so special

I will keep this short, I am tired of being the "center of the universe" type of character who solves everything. Yes, I know this is the formula for Bioware but in a lot of ways, it is very archaic, especially the way Bioware does it. This is what I like about TW3 and even RDR in that they were more focused personal stories. Geralt was simply searching for his daughter. He could careless about the state of the world because of who he was, (A witcher) it really does not matter. When he made decisions, it was regarding what is the best benefit for HIM, not the world. Same with Marston in RDR. He was just a former bandit trying to do right with his life.....not save the world and make it a better place for everyone. Okay, we saved (or destroyed) the galaxy in the Mass Effect trilogy with Shepard, so can we take a different approach now? I look forward to the day where I can play a character in the ME universe (Milky Way or Andromeda) that is more like John Marston or Geralt in terms of seeking their own agenda's and not being some special snowflake trying to rid the world/cluster/galaxy of evil. How about a MEA2 game where we play as a former outcast who is trying to get back at those who wronged him/her? We can still scrounge up party members, have romances, and all that jazz, but the story would be more focused on YOU and what you are doing for YOU....not the galaxy. At the end of the game the Helius Cluster will be in the same state as it was in from the beginning, but that does not matter because you exacted your revenge on those who wronged you and thats all that matters. The DLC could then explore other objectives for the new protagonist to take on in the same way Blood and Wine, and Heart of Stone did for Geralt in TW3. But something is telling me that Bioware will never do this because that is not their style of games. Bioware likes the hero who is at the center of the universe type stories and again, perhaps in 2002 that was the special thing but videogame stories have become more mature, more advance and complex than the simple and safe style stories that Bioware likes to tell. 

The Kett was introduced too early

Perhaps I am nit-picking here but I believe the Kett was introduced to us too early. There should have been some sort of lead up to their reveal the same way there was a lead up to the reveal of the Xenomorph in the 1979 Alien film. Yes, the Geth and Collectors were revealed on the first missions in ME1 and ME2, but the Geth and Collectors were already known to some extent to the general population of the Milky Way. People may not have seen them and in the case of the Collectors, just rumors, but they were known. With the Kett, nobody (Other than the Angara) knew about them. For a game that is supposed to have a heavy emphasis on exploring and being in a place of unknown, Bioware really threw a lot of stuff at us too early which sort of cheapened the actual reveal. This is why seeing the Kett in game for the first time seem more like, "Oh...okay....bad guys...." and seeing the Angara for the first time in game was really meh. But again, maybe I am just being nit-picky here. 

Andromeda does not feel like a foreign galaxy

I always felt like playing Andromeda would be like playing a videogame version of the movie Interstellar where you go off into the unknown with this empty feeling in you that you are in true unexplored territory and just the fact that you are in an unknown place where no other human has gone is enough to incite fear and dread within you.  Mass Effect Andromeda from the early parts just felt too.....familiar. Eos could have easily been some random desert planet in the Milky Way with all the humans already on there. I wanted to feel like I was in this distant galaxy where no man/woman has gone before but everything felt familiar and safe. A lot of this has to do with the fact that the Milky Way was represented more than Andromeda. I mean look at this;

Andromeda races:

Angara
Kett

Milky Way races:

Humans
Krogan
Salarians
Asari
Turians
*And now there is theory that the Quarian ark along with the Elcor/Volus is on its way.

So tell me what is wrong with this picture? Personally, and I may be reaching with this, but I think Andromeda would have been better in my mind if only the humans left for Andromeda and ran into 4-5 Andromeda races. Hell, if only having the humans go is stretching it, then they could have included the Asari to tag along as well. Even then, it would still be 2 MW races to about 5 Andromeda races. That way we feel like we are alone in a new and different galaxy and we have to learn everything from scratch again. With MEA, I felt safe because I had the Krogan, Salarians, Asari, and Turians to my left and right. In ME1 we were introduced to the galactic community, it's government, and the varying cultures and conflicts. We got NONE of that with MEA other than Kett=Bad and Angara=Good. 

And with the prospect of the Quarians/Elcor/Volus coming, that now brings us to 2 Andromeda races and 8 Milky Way races.....in Andromeda.......yeah. 

Side quest are still lacking in quality

I gave Bioware a pass with DAI because it was their first entry into open worlds but after the feedback from DAI, I figured that the side missions in MEA would be of greater quality....I was wrong. Yes, in some regards it is a step up from DAI but when compared to the quality of side quest in Witcher 3, MEA just did not meet my expectations. In many cases, I did not want to continue the story because the Witcher contracts and many other sidequest were just so engaging and fun and really fleshed out the world/lore in a way that the main story did not because it was so focused on You and your quest to find Ciri. In MEA doing side quest felt like a chore.

The lack of maturity

This is a big one for me. The premise behind MEA was perfect for the story to dive into some mature themes, but Bioware being Bioware likes to play things safe and not offend anyone. I wanted for the MW races to have somewhat of a more.....conquering attitude towards the Angara, especially since they were in a weakened state; or at least have the option to do so or see other NPCs talk about it. But no, the game forces us to make nice with them so that we can take down the big bad Kett. Games like Horizon and Witcher 3 are not afraid to "go there" on certain issues but Bioware seems very adamant feature such content. A game like Horizon: Zero Dawn or The Witcher 3 would not only "go there" but actually cross the line a bit just to bring the player out of her/his comfort zone and think about things. With Bioware games, and with MEA, that never happens. Again, everything is safe. Maybe that works for a game like Zelda but for a M-rated game that is really aimed at adults, I expect more. I am a 31 year old adult, not a 12 year old kid who is not really to talk about certain topics and needs controversial stuff in the game to be white-washed for me.  

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I really wanted to like this game and if any of you hung out at the spoiler-free thread prior to launch, you'll know just how excited I was for this game. However, I really cannot bring myself to play this game again. The only way I see myself playing it again is IF there is a MEA2 that looks more promising than MEA1 and only then would I go back and play MEA1 with all the latest patches and DLCs just to freshen up for MEA2. I am not trying to bash the game because I know that a good 90% of the people here enjoy the game or at least is able to tolerate it until DA4 comes out, but I just cannot do it and I know that I am not alone in this. Honestly, I think it is just The Witcher 3 effect. I really want there to be another MEA because I want to see if Bioware will implement any feedback from MEA into MEA2. However, something is telling me to lower my expectations. My expectations for a Horizon 2 is much greater than that of MEA2 or DA4. Not because Bioware makes bad games, but because Bioware for one does not understand open world games and two, are still stuck in the archaic simple approach to the "hero's journey" type of story-telling where the player is so special and solves all problems with many controversial themes being white-washed in order to not offend anyone. 

For those who enjoy MEA, thats great! I hope your enthusiasm is enough for EA to see that Bioware should be trusted to make another MEA game and for the DA4 team to feel confident in their product. However, just know that MEA is not seen as a critical success and I am not sure if it was a financial success either. I remember how EA was saying how DAI was the fastest selling Bioware game and has done great sales wise but they seem a bit mute in regards to MEA. With that being said, despite your joy for the game it must be known that it did not live up to the quality for A LOT of people and this could very well mean that MEA might just be the last ME game we ever get. It is sad but perhaps it is for the best. I hope this Dylan project can bring Bioware back and I hope that DA4 blows everyone away gameplay wise, story wise, and graphics wise. And I hope that the DLCs/Expansions for MEA are very indepth and up to par with the quality that we got with Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine because THOSE expansions are the standard now.

I will continue to lurk here and offer replies, but my love for MEA has long diminished. 

1) Let me remind you that The Witcher 3 and even Horizon: Zero Dawn to some extent were personal stories.....and yet those were critical AND financial successes. The main complaint for DA2 was that it felt rushed, too linear, and too streamlined. 

2) If this is what Bioware wanted to make then by all means they make whatever they want to make. Whether that means it will be a financial or critical success is another story and EA is not going to continue to throw money at Bioware to make Mass Effect games if their games is not generating the required ROI. So yeah, we can take it or leave it, but if more people leave it than take it, expect MEA to be the last Mass Effect title ever made by Bioware because EA will not waste more money on a ME game that isn't a financial success. DAI was a financial success for EA which is why there is a DA4 in development. Coming off the financial success of DAI, you would have thought that MEA, a more popular brand than Dragon Age, would be able to at least match, if not top the financial success of DAI but it looks like that has not happened. After DAI was released EA always made it known. Two months after the release of DAI, EA bragged about the success of DAI. However it has been about 3 months since the release of MEA and all I hear is crickets in the background regarding any financial success for MEA. You can downplay it all you want but that is really significant considering that DAI one MANY GOTY awards (in a weak gaming year IMO) and it was the fastest selling Bioware game and DA is less popular than ME so logic would say that MEA should have been able to easily top that and yet that hasn't happened. 

Also, unlike DAI which won a slew of GOTY awards, I doubt MEA wins any awards, which is also telling considering that ALL 3 previous Mass Effect titles won GOTY awards which ME2 I believe winning the most. The fact that MEA will not win any says a lot.

So yeah, take it or leave it.....but I imagine that more people will be leaving it than taking it.

Well, all the 8 SP vanilla campaigns are pretty much SP games, and all the Force User ones are typical heroic fantasy, while the non-FU ones are not really, so... not sure if SWTOR can even be called a MMO nowadays, tbh. It really went its own strange way.

MEA is also a much worse game than DAI from my personal perspective. DAI still doesn't bore me. With MEA the steam's out. Which never happened with any Bioware, or to be more specific ME title before. It's not a the problem that it came out at the same time as other awaited titles. The problem is that it doesn't hold a candle to previous Bioware titles. It's not a bad game and other than some metacritic trolls, nobody says that. But this certainly isn't game of the year material, as opposed to DAI. The difference in quality and love for details should be rather obvious.

As for DA4, it's only a rumor so far. Who should develop it anyway, with Edmontong being busy doing Dylan and Montreal, downsized or not, just having finished MEA? Austin?

To be fair, they did give very detailed responses on other questions, and since this particular question always came late in the interviews, maybe they were tired (the interviews were extensive) or thought they’d already answered the question. Still, there’s a whiff of the lack of a common vision. It would be going too far to say they didn’t give much thought about who they were developing for.  But. . .Fabrice starts out his answer with “That’s a tough one.”  To me, it shouldn’t have been.

+1. I look for answers to very specific questions to find out if the game interests me or not. I look at screenshots and gameplay segments. After that, it's basically to buy the game if it looks good and have the features I want, and see if I enjoy it. 

Just goes to show that one can always explain things away if one is inclined to do so. The nation of Advent? We never get to see them, but they're obviously there, before the radiation cleans. Massani. He's there, before the radiation cleans.

Also begs the question, if these worlds are supposed to be lifeless, why bother creating them at alll? To explore a lifeless desert?

Kadara? Also lifeless, but obviously populated enough to drop in generic outlaws every step of the way.

No, the design just doesn't know where it wants to go. Apart from the fact that Bioware never lost it's primary weakness of creating immobile environments and NPCs. I certainly don't hold my breath for something like that ever changing. Same as I don't hold my breath for Bethesda creating a reactive environment. They just do what they can get away with. In the case of Bethesda for the last 15 years, in the case of Bioware it was less notable before the moved to create open spaces. But it was always the case.

Very well laid out post OP, and accurate on all points. I would imagine all veteran Bioware fans who have been there from when Bioware took it's first shaky steps would agree.

OP.

I know that going to catch hell for this but your first point is complete and total BS.

Did it ever occur to you that the reason why the worlds felt "lifeless" is because they are supposed to? We are told constantly that the Golden Worlds are broken, dying worlds, some barely holding together. On Havaral one of the scientists state that the planet would have lasted 2 cycles at most before Ryder fixes the vault? And Aya is half volcanic with only part of surface being able to support life and IMHO the Nexus and Aya have more life than most other cities and hubs in any BioWare game.

It would have been more "immersion breaking" if all these worlds had functional ecosystems and major towns but they're broken dying worlds than can't support life that MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE! The reason why their aren't many outposts is because the Initiative is just STARTING and trying to set up outposts on these worlds so naturally they aren't going to be active cities overnight, because that isn't how that works. And the whole day/night thing also doesn't make any sense Elaaden is tidally locked and it's always day there and Voeld is further from the sun so it's always in a twilight.

This is IMHO one of the STUPIDEST complaints about ME:A is that all of it's worlds are lifeless, well because most of them are SUPPOSED to be lifeless. Now if BioWare does make ME:A2 and it's set say 5-10 years after the events of ME:A then this MIGHT be a valid complaint. Right now it's just a stupid fucking complaint made by TW3 fans.