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

I touched on this in another post. Imho, I felt in order for Liara's character development to make sense, it requires some sort of fan theory or "therapy" fic.
When you mentioned the suspension of disbelief thing, I think it depends on whether or not someone liked Liara in ME1, even then, that hypothesis isn't very reliable, as some people who disliked Liara would dislike her even more in the sequels. Considering I liked her in ME1, I personally felt her character development killed any suspension of disbelief that I had.

Outside material is a poor substitute for a lack of context and poor writing in the games. More effort should have been placed into explaining Liara's change in ME2, rather than her being a minor character you come across on Ilium for a few moments. I'm not sure if Liara's writer had already changed in ME2, but her writer definitely changed in ME3. I know that Drew Karpyshyn wrote her character in ME1, but I'm not positive he wrote her in ME2. She played such a minor role until the Shadow Broker DLC, it's hard to know. That would also be a factor, however, having a change in writers.

I might've heard somewhere that Patrick Weekes was the lead writer for LoTSB, but I'm not sure about that. I know that Mac Walters was one of the lead writers of the redemption comics.

This is me throwing out an idea, but making ME:A a metroidvania style game would've been a way to have a non-linear game whilst also allowing for a good story. This way it also ties in the theme of exploration.

I think the statement that open world games fail pretty hard is more imposing subjective tastes on the game as fact when it isn't. Personally open world is one of the things I like about the game considering it is about exploring new worlds in a new galaxy. The story, childlike dialogue that wasn't seemingly written by adults, no sense that any of your crew could possibly die (and the fact there really wasn't a chance one or more of them could) a lame derivative antagonist were things that worked against solid basic gameplay in a good setting with a solid premise.

That said, an aversion to open world vs. a like of it here is probably going to be an "agree to disagree" thing boiling down to personal taste, but if this game had been another essentially bland hallway shooter like ME:2 without the engrossing story to fall back on, this game would have been a true failure not just a deeply flawed financial success.

Except, as I already pointed out, everything Andromeda tried to accomplish was already in ME1... What was ambitious and difficult about this project was determining how far BioWare Montreal wanted to push that vision that started in ME1. I wouldn't say that MEA was as much as a resounding failure as you seem to claim. I actually think it did execute many concepts incredibly well. It's really more of a mixed bag that had some troubles, largely due to a lack of time because of production chaos early on.

Outside of the story and characters, I found ME2 and ME3 to be medicore games. They were nothing more than hallway shooters that tried to mimic Gears of War. If not for the strength of the writing and the cinematography, I think many would realize the faults of the original trilogy and how they were streamlined due to a lack of ability to do something better. MEA was an attempt to truly capitalize on the promise of ME1, which was all about exploration and exploring strange, new worlds. If not for internal issues and a lack of focus, I think MEA would have been far more successful in what it attempted to accomplish.

The whole concept of an open world not working with a compelling story isn't the issue. We've seen that's very possible and proven in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The problem was priority breakdowns and the development hell that was MEA for five years. It did not have proper guidance, which led to the project being impacted in almost every capacity.

Jettison the entire game and make one about people (and aliens) trying to survive and rebuild after the events of ME3.

Go with the destroy reapers ending. Simple. 

This!!....I would not have fast-forward the game 600 years later to try to dismiss any type of canon ending to ME3...pick a canon ending (because there was no way the writers was going to please everybody) and fast-forward maybe a few years later where everybody is still struggling and rebuilding and hit them with another threat.....maybe not as big as the Reaper threat, but something concerning that dark matter/dark energy storyline the writers kinda got away from....

I would have probably created an ending that somehow destroys the Reapers but spares the geth and other AI like EDI....not sure if i would have killed Shepard...(probably not) but if it called for somebody like Ryder, he would have had to have more of an edge to him to compliment the darker storyline....Andromeda felt very tame and vanilla to me...even when they did try to throw some dark and dangerous themes in, the urgency and threat of the Kett never felt fully realized....

Not really.

It takes a little imagination, and a little Biower handwaving, but that's nothing new at this point in the series.

Or it takes no imagination... They don't have to talk about the Reapers because they're gone. Quarians or Geth could've had a liveship slip out, or maybe Shepard got better choices in ME3 than we did. All of that doesn't matter.

As a Pathfinder, you are setting out to find pathways to new communities and remnants of old, with a mixture of old and new tech in a very spacepunk sort of setting. Exploration galore, finding remnants of things we might give a shit about, etc.

I don't think you are following the discussion. The poster I was replying to was suggesting what we would have done instead of Andromeda. He wanted to make Destroy the canon ending for ME3 and make a direct sequel after that. I was merely telling him the problems and the obvious plot holes that would ensue.

I'm not sure...i never fully understood the deal with it, only that the Quarians was studying it. I just thought thought that the writers could come up with something (even if it wasn't dark matter) to give the folks in the Milky Way another threat to deal with while they are struggling to rebuild in the aftermath of the Reapers.