Learning from Andromeda, Lessons for the Future.

Sometimes a game deserves to mocked. And sometimes that's more constructive than any criticism. Such is the case for Andromeda. In my opinion of course.

But we don't have to think in terms of Andromeda Initiative. BioWare could have come up with any number of premises that places far fewer single-minded altruists on the arks. And hell, do think most people will stand on principles of equality and kinship when they're running dangerously low on resources?
And a good thing too. Can't have anything interesting happen in the actual game.
And what a monumental first contact that was, full of diplomacy, intrigue, and moral debates over imperialism. Oh wait. It wasn't. That's what I'm saying: first contact was a plot point, not a focal point. It was an obligatory thing that needed to happen, but BioWare barely dug into it.
It would have been easy to keep the same feuds and make no extra commentary, yes, but if they used the feuds to heighten the tension and then use this infighting to re-contextualize a dubious alliance with a new alien species? That would have been a challenge. 

But yes, it's much more bold to make mostly bland characters with very few, if any, strong opinions and appear to have very little connection with their home or cultural history. Far more risky to write a tale where the plucky, morally unambiguous heroes save the natives from the space Nazis.

1 - I think related side quests are always good, I don't think you'll find anyone realistically arguing that disjointed side quests are desirable. it was part of the reason why ME2's loyalty quests were so good, it was why Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood line walked all over it's main questline, the list goes on. Tbh I'm not sure it was a question of Andromeda not having 'enough', it felt to me more like it squandered and opportunity with most of its planets to treat them as full blown mini-quest lines. Elaaden was a good example of this, Voeld could have done with a bit more focus, Havarl needed to be longer, Eos just.... it either should have just been a tutorial planet or extended into a quest planet, rather than try doing both.

2 - Tbh the Dialogue Wheel was one of those things I never understood the hate for. I mean, I was pretty happy with Ryder's responses, I guess it could have had more options but... eh. It didn't strike me as hugely different to the OT.

3 - So... look, I say this as someone who genuinely enjoyed the story and just signed off their 200 hour completionist run - Andromeda's story was far from the best story Bioware have ever done. Personally I think they were hamstrung by the need to introduce a whole new setting and new cast - ME1 did well largely because it's story was simple and well written and had no real starting baggage. However, the whole stuff about the Jaardan, the Benefactor and the unresolved situation back in the MW should make for a decent story in any further game. They certainly can't do any worse then ME2. On that matter, I still can't quite believe there are people out there who name DA2 as the best story bioware have ever done... with that Act III? I guess even Alien 3 found its audience too.

4 - This was something else I didn't get the hate for. IIRC the vast majority of people who played the ME series apparently did it as a Paragon and a lot of the Renegade decisions were just Chaotic Stupid. I personally don't see any improvement coming with just having the ability to act like an edgelord.

5 - I think Bioware need to strike a balance between listening to the fans and what works. Sometimes the fans get it right, and sometimes they have no idea what they're talking about. The reason we didn't get planet exploration in ME2 is because of all the nuts screaming about how the Mako made them self-mutilate or whatever the fuck the issue was. Same went for the loss of Heavy Weapons after 2. The community don't seem to be able to make minor criticism - everything is either so bad that all the devs need to be murdered or it's fine.

I had my own issues with the game, but collectively they fall to the lack of darkness. Mass Effect has always been primarily a Space Opera with a darker side to it and I don't think MEA ever really paid enough attention to this. There were flashes of it - mainly in the main quest - but at no stage was Ryder required to handle the stuff like Indoctrination, or Husk Conversion, or Noveria's Hot Labs, or the Collector Ship, any of the other billions of creepy situations Shep and co found themselves in. IMHO you can't seperate that from ME without it hitting the overall game, and I think MEA proved that.

To put it crudely, MEA needed it's own answer to the Flood. If your going to have ancient robots vs space nazis and fill in the rest of the gaps with ME2's mercs, you kind of take any chance to work the horror angle off the table.

He was quite prominent in my game, as I intertwined the Kadara arc with the main story. It worked very well. I liked seeing more focus on the protagonist-independent characters like Reyes, Avitus, Sloane, Raeka, Efra, Akksul overall. I hope to see more and more of that tbh.

The setting and story is not all contained in cutscenes and codex. Some of those other issues were addressed by sidequests and comments from the crowd. First contact is a process, not just an event.

The snark is uncalled for.  And since this discussion isn't offering much in the way of constructive criticism, I likely won't respond to you again.

Great!  So we've established you're just another "mocker" instead of bringing truth and reasonable criticism.  Glad we're on the same page!  

^^ With all the personnel (especially lead) changes throughout development, it's pretty amazing that it turned out as cohesive as it did.

The only problem with that line of thought, is they just had exactly that, and wasted a lot which you detail further in your post. How does the next project get the green light from EA for those time & resources, if the plan b is plan a recycled, except "trust us, we'll really follow it this time"?

Well, I think a big part of that will be the change in the General Manager of Bioware (was Aaryn Flynn, now is Casey Hudson) and moving the game to one of the other studios, like Edmonton or Austin.  In that case, with a different team and a different project manager, they could make the case for it.  The good thing is that to make another Mass Effect game, that group is going to have to show EA in advance a very clear direction and clear timetable to get the green-light.  EA won't allow this to happen again, not to a very profitable franchise.  You can be sure that the next installment will have everything possible locked into place before the project starts, instead of changing direction on even the basic premise of the game as was done in MEA.

Well... yes and no.  It shows that they do have the skills if they had started with the current version of Andromeda in Year 1 instead of Year 4.  So it's a bit of praise, that "Wow, there's no reason you should have been able to pull that off, but you did!" but also the understanding that, using the essay analogy, if they had started the final essay at the middle of the semester instead of the last 2 days that the essay would have been even better, lacking many of the faults that came with the massive crunch at the end.

It's a good analogy, all told.  The wasted time is a problem, for sure.  Those in charge during that time should be chastised and potentially replaced, because it seems like everyone else was doing everything they could and it simply was almost purely management's fault for the lack of direction and shifting resources.  So for everyone else working on Andromeda, it should be praised for how the average developer was able to make a damn decent game with those adverse conditions.  For those at the top who allowed it to get that far, they are the ones that are at fault.

I hope you're right, but I guess what grates me most about it all is that the whole post ME3 fallout seemingly wasn't lesson enough for management to keep their focus for the project. I feel I suppose a bit of "fool me once, fool me twice" about it all, now it's had to take another public flogging to get a message through.

1. Quest Design

One of the issues I had with some of the quests is that there was too much travel involved for too many of them. The player can easily get to the point where they're questing by map marker instead of following the story flow of a quest. I'd like to see more of the sidequests go from start to finish inside a smaller geographical space - they'd certainly have more impact.

Also - some quests became available before they were really accessible. I'd rather not be trying to go someplace to pursue a quest when the area is not survivable due to environmental hazards that have not yet cleared.

There was a pretty big payoff to some of the sidequests we stumbled upon via exploration, others not so much. Players who don't do much exploration or aren't generally interested in sidequests might have missed some worthwhile content - there are always questions about how you separate wheat from chaff wrt side content. Perhaps the simplest solution is to eliminate the chaff.

2. Dialogue Wheel

The wheel is used for multiple purposes, which I'll categorize as these 3:
1- Expressing the character's personality. This is the part where the tones provided more nuanced RP opportunities than some titles have offered.
2- Getting clarification/asking questions. Pretty simple, really, and should be pretty much neutral.
3- Choosing an action with consequences.

The downside of the more nuanced approach with tones is that we ended up with finer control over a smaller space. There weren't many occasions when Ryder had much range, which has been described as having 4 different ways to say yes. A broader range would be very welcome.

One of the issues I've always had with "tone" systems is that response content is often linked to tone. As I mentioned in a previous post, I might want to disagree amicably instead of aggressively. Accuracy in paraphrases is also an issue; I believe BioWare's policy is that they won't include any of the words in the actual dialogue in the paraphrase. I think they'd be more successful in writing accurate paraphrases if they changed that policy.

3. Story Design

I liked the idea of the Pathfinder, and consider the multiple types of content the game offered all within her purview:
1- Improving planetary viability, establishing outposts
2- Investigating the angarans, forming an alliance
3- Securing resources
4- Managing threats, defeating enemies
5- Stabilizing and securing areas

I like the fact that there were minimal content gates. Being able to set Ryder's priorities (instead of having to follow a step-by-step outline) greatly enhances RP for me.

4. Be mean to characters/create compelling antagonist

They introduced a religious fervor with the kett terminology, and presented the idea that exaltation is a gift. I'd like to have known more about kett physiology, perhaps via more info from Lexi's studies. I think there are other threads discussing the antagonist is great detail, though, so I won't go into it here.

While some media goes overboard with the grimdark for my tastes, I think MEA could benefit from more, darker moments.

5. Stick to your guns

For my part, BioWare's biggest draw has traditionally been the characters, worlds, and tactical party-based combat.

I enjoyed MEA's characters. As a new world, Andromeda is off to a good start, with much more to learn and explore. I'm not a fan of the combat changes, however - I liked the class system, the power wheel, the mini-map, and being able to control squadmate's powers, and all of those things were removed for MEA.