If you were the Creative Director on Andromeda, what would you have done differently?

I've tried with people like you. Never works so I stopped trying. I'll bother with intelligent conversation with someone that actually wants it and won't casually dismiss points to try and defend an untenable position.

Actually had some great discussions on Inquisition once here and on reddit. Of course we had to stop to bury a troll a few times before moving on. Fun times. Well not for the trolls. Don't they ever recovered.

What I will change ?

1) Companions. I will resign from that Human-Asari-Turian scheme. AI is Global so other races should be involved too, "incoming" DLC should not be an excuse: so I will definitely add some Hanar, Batarian and Volus - without being funny. Batarian could be a merc, Hanar as a main scientist with Suvi as an assistant, Volus as some kind of engineer/repairman on the ship. Too many human characters. Ryder and Cora is enough, Liam will be replaced with some Drell character. Other thing is companions background, I will completely reshape their loyalty missions and their origin. In MEA everyone is looking for a new adventure... blah. What about a former assassin who is looking for a new opening, what about a fugitive who couldn't stay in Milky Way cause there was no place to hide ? I will also add some really emotional background for one of my new companions, let's call her Adira, where her family been killed by... Batarians, which will add some extra story on the Tempest, where Adira will meet my other companion - Bataria and that will lead to another side-quest... There was so much space to do it better ! Such a waste !

2) Open world. It's just too big, too many empty spaces, too much driving just for views. I will go with smaller worlds and more things to do. I will also add a lot of ancient ruins, unknown origin, even without any meaning for the main story. Just to discover. Every world has it secrets, I am sure that Habitat 5 or 7 has seen much more just only Kett or Angara in their history.

3) Nexus. Oh well, the one we got is a bit dead. Bar is a ONE BIG JOKE comparing to any from MET. Some random conversations, some unimportant stuff to do, a lot of unused space. I will definitely create much more ALIVE Nexus, where people can DO things, where people can rest, talk, drink, have a fight, sex, meet each other and much, much more.

4) Another alien race. Definitely not another human look like. More wild and scary, like Rachnii, but much smaller. Intelligent, but very alien. I will communicate with them through the gesture and deeds, not by words. I will learn a lot, and at some point, if I will really spend a lot of time with them, they will allow me to enter their home/nest, where i will discover a lot of ancient stuff from their ancestors. I got couple of things in my mind about them - shame BioWare didn't have !

5) Archon main villain ? NO. He could be one of the enemy generals, but not main villain. We shouldn’t learn main villain identity before the mid of the game. Let’s leave some surprises for later. I will create completely different villain, some real smart guy, strategist, tactician, someone who will be surprising me with every single move.

6) Ending.
I also got completely different view for the ending. I will made it BAD for all of us - AI, Angara and Kett. A shocking ending - Meridian will be not it suppose to be - in my version it will be pandora box – Scourge will be released through the whole cluster. Meirdiant will do what it suppose to, but for a price. Heavy price. Angara will be utterly destroyed, same as all of the worlds in the cluster and AI bases. Same ending for Kett and their forces. Meridian will become an ultimate golden world, but other will be destroyed. From now on AI and those Angara who are still alive /not many of them, mostly those ones on the Nexus and those one who helped me in the battle for Meridian/ will have to work together to survive. Some Kett who survived will runaway to inform their leaders what's happened. And finally, activating Meridian will send a signal through the whole galaxy… to unknown place, unknown race... Jaardans ? You will find out... in MEA2.

There are also other things I got in my mind, but what’s the point ? They are not listening.

Scrap any ideas of precedural planets immediately - let them dabble with procedural small maps for MP instead. Turn down the lights and make it dark and gritty. Sort out the animation stuff. Focus on one planet or so and make it interesting. More story missions/quests. Make angara not like space elves. Play MP and put it on track so it won't suck at release. Step up the character creator. Unfreeze Asari from cryo so we don't have to use just one clone. Scrap Pibbi.

I would have prioritised game development around 10-15 long, narrative-ladden. missions that all felt and look distinct from one another as in ME2 and 3, and completely dismissed the open world idea or made it entirely optional and a small part of the game as opposed to essentially it's main basis. I really think that is the core of MEA's problem - it has FOUR (not counting loyalty, which were all shorter and less morally interesting than me2's) missions in 80+ hours of mostly sidequests gameplay. Inexcusable, imo

I bolded the parts I agree on, since hokkmasterbass brings up some valid points. And add my own.

- Adding to less side missions - Less side missions like contagion, where you have to scan your way through several systems to get to the meat of the quest.
- Less FedEx simulator. Go very easy on the fetch and carry missions.
- Adding to quality over quantity - Bring the outposts to live. Create NPCs that give the impression of actually doing something instead of just standing there. At least three stages of development for every outpost to show some progress whenever the PC visits, some sense of achievement and some incentive to revisit the sites to see what's new.
- Bring back something like Renegade/Paragon to allow your PC to be formed as you like them and not the dev team. At least offer some kind of comeback when some NPC verbally slaps you in the face.
- Make the open spaces smaller but fill them with interesting stuff to discover.

Why wasn't Ryder able to stand up for him/herself when the stowaway knocked him/her to the ground? The same with the escape pod.
Who says I would want them in the next installment?
I don't see a problem with that
Why?
Why?
Why can't there be another spot for Ryder to escape?
Get rid of it. The power wheel allows the player to have a squadmate use whatever power on whatever enemy while the other sqaudmate can use whatever power on another enemy

In no particular order:

- Toned down the whole 'we're explorers, not soldiers' schtick. I've no issue with them making this more Star Trek then Babylon 5 but when it gets to the stage where we're literally firing kids into unexplored galaxies on ships that have no defensive options, it gets difficult to maintain the suspension of disbelief.

- Delved more into the Jaardan/Scourge conflict. The Kett are fine as a Cerberus-style nazi faction but there's not enough depth and horror for them to be the primary opponents here. Rival tomb raiders? Perfect.

- Vehicle combat. The potential here is huge.

- Have an opposition faction to the Remnant. Imagine what the exploration could have been like if Ryder and co kept happening across endlessly repeating battles between, say, the Remnant and some kind of grey goo-style scenario based around the Scourge, and trying to work out what happened in Heleus. Consider something like between the Typhon from Prey and the Smoke Monster from Lost. This hits the 'we need alien aliens' checkbox and lets you do some pretty damn creepy missions to boot.

I never would have wasted my time or money with 'Procedurally generated worlds'

Its a concept that SOUNDS good on paper, but in actual practice it would probably just be very frustrating after the novelty has worn off.

Gamers are getting older. They have jobs, families, and other responsibilities. To sit down infront of a game and go exploring 'procedurally generated worlds' TRYING to find the next quest marker or other somesuch thing to advance the plotline they want to finish, or discover a particular sidequest/main quest objective they're trying to get to would just, eventually, end up being a waste of time/incredibly frustrating. A good chunk of the playerbase for these games don't have TIME to waste on this. Nor would they have the time to fully appreciate it if it was pulled off successfully.

Procedural generated worlds are a pipe dream at best.

As such, my focus would have been in making the best damn story I could make. Meaning no cheap gimmicks and as few 'Insert plot device for drama here' moments... so if I was mac walters I would have stayed as far away from the plot as possible, putting a heavy emphasis on the first contact scenario and done away entirely with the Remnant technology.

If I were the creative director for Andromeda:

Overall the tone would be darker with mysterious and alien environment which should appear to MW races remote, exotic and unfamiliar. I'd add a sense of isolation to the Nexus, sprinkled with some uncertainty and precarity of life on the frontier. The Nexus would have been in my vision the only familiar hearth in an obsure and dangerous galaxy. Definitly more intrigue and politics with the protagonist having to balance the agenda of each player in the leadership. I'd give to the game a darker space-opera theme. On the music side I'd use a mixture of space ambient, synth music and eerie notes.

The aliens we met would be shrewd and opportunistics. Not outright evil nor good. They would surely not trust us and we would not trust them. Interest and temporary goals would be the point of contact. Their agenda and lore would be explained with each different game pieces by pieces. If this alien were the angaran I would have designed them differently to look like less symphatetic.

The Kett would be different more traditional imperialists than people trying to indoctrinate exaltate your people again. They are attacking us because they can, because they want power and control. No other reason is required. Their lore and society explained over the different games.

General changes:

1) Return of improved paragon/renegade system with the possibility of actual renegade choice.
2) Return of the class system. This means ditching SAM completely. Increase of replayability.
3) Smaller explorable worlds. I like exploration but it should be made on smaller worlds like the asteroid planet we went.
4) More mature protagonist and cast. I want a seasoned cast with knowledge, wisdom and life experiences to share.
5) I didn't like how the Angaran were too eager to accept us and how we were so eager to unite with them. It felt unreal, how many years it took for the MW races to work together? Want more contrast.
6)That Turian Ark mission was simply awful. Back to the drawing board.
7)Make Peebee Cora and Cora Pebee. Meaning give me an actual asari being the asari commando and viceversa.

- swap the asari for the quarians. Have a quarian squadmate
- mother Ryder is dead.
- Alec survives. He believes he's dying so he transfer all stuff to Cora, but for some reason her implant has issues. It was decided to have it transferred to little Ryder. After dealing with Eos, dad wakes up, but cannot continue as pathfinder because of the injury he suffered. So what he does is give  advice to little Ryder after each mission. The sibling I would have awake and ok, but assigned to help on Eos or assigned to a strike team.
- Liam and Addison will be the ones to refuel the tempest check the oil, check the tire pressure and wash the plane.
- Greer would be squadmate instead of Liam
- Ryder's cabin would be half the size. the other half would be where Drack will be at instead of in the kitchen
- after arriving on the Nexus, its learned that the pathfinder that was on the Nexus has been missing since they got there. No word.  He/she was last spotted on Eos. Little Ryder investigates.
- give the player the ability to craft Cerberus armor. Ryder can wear Cerberus casual clothing.
- the car will be replaced with a shuttle. It can have different paint jobs including  having Cerberus colors and logo