Will EA and Bioware actually use MEA as a learning lesson?

Here's an improvement I would like to see:

Why can't we buy every type of item in the game from the store on Tempest rather than trotting all over the place to get weapons from this one, armor from that one, augments and mods from that one, but only mods from this one.

Most games try to make an art of making shopping as inconvenient and as time consuming as possible. Bioware is really just following along with the crowd on this... but it's something that I'd like to see changed.

Also, more consideration as to where fast travel points are placed so I can instantly go where I actually need to go instead of jumping to a fast travel point in the middle of nowhere and still having to drive or walk to get my business done. For example, why can't Clancy be standing right by the Forward Station at Site 1? (so I can unload salvage and buy what I need from him without having to walk around the corner each time). Why can't the merchant in Podromos be located closer to that forward station? Why is one merchant on Kadara not in the port out in the boonies and not near a forward station at all?

Especially since renegade Shepard doesn’t seem to recieve consequences for his actions.

That's exactly the problem, the narration and the visuals should not be so disconnected from eachother, this was inherent of the format the Extended cut chose to go with. As I pointed out in my first post, the narration takes place in the present, while the slides take place in an unspecified future, I'm not even sure whether the slides are supposed to depict the actual future or if they are just 'could happen' events.

Pretty much every slide lacks proper context, if for example the slides about the Tuchanka had been accompanied by a narration on the future of the krogan I'd be okay with it despite not lacking the format. Another example would be to add short narration for each character and what they're up to in post-reaper galaxy rather than leave us with pretty meaningless images.

I don't think we have to go here, my proposal was merely meant to illustrate how I personally would have liked seen the trilogy conclude in a way that does not require the usage of slides, but rather through a continuous scene that affirms most of the player's decisions. Again it's mostly Andromeda where I'm taking these ideas from.

Except for Spectre weapons -- also available on the Normandy -- there's so much randomness in the ME1 shop inventories that I'm not sure this is really true. I found that you were better off just proceeding with the next main mission. You're depending on the RNG anyway, and you get more swings faster at it by killing and looting than by visiting shops.

The weird thing is that ME:A takes ME1's awful economy and then makes it even worse with crafting.



Sometimes buying materials can be useful, depending on what you've got Ryder wearing.



Then they'd have needed to do individual planetside views out the windows. Technically doable, of course -- you see the Nexus before launching the first time. I guess it could have failed some ROI check and been cut.

I completely agree with the last part.  You should be able to board the Tempest without taking off each time.

ETA:  ME1's vendors were not really specialized... all of them sold armor, weapons, and mods (well, I get only one sold the mods - the hanor located in the financial district - farthest away from everyone else, of course).  Their inventories were pretty random except for the initial ones.  ME:A's vendors are specialized... the weapons vendors won't ever sell mods.  The armor vendors only sell armor... and even only specific brands of armor.  You'll never see the vendor on the Nexus selling the Angara line of armor.  I can understand this fits the lore better... still, combined with the way they've located them on the map (i.e. not near FT points)... it's a real PITA that serves no real function story-wise.  I really don't understand why most games deliberately do this - placing the things the player really needs to repeatedly access during the game a distance away from the FT points - is it a loading thing????

Also, Vetra is supposed to be the Queen Quartermaster... so I really do think everything (all types of weapons, armor, augments, mods, and minerals, etc.) should eventually be available on Tempest.

They still could have had the same cutscene play when you actually triggered launch from a planet... we all would have seen each one a few times anyways since you can't just stay on a single planet the whole game.  Not allowing us to board Tempest without leaving a planet just made no sense.  Surely Ryder would have returned to his ship periodically to restock and rest from combat without lifting off each time.

Really, any of the games out there would be shorter and more enjoyable if the devs just put more thought into player convenience.  Exploration is not repeatedly running over the same old ground between a vendor and an FT point.  It's just a time waster... and, as I said, they all do it to some degree.

I had less issue with the planet to planet travel scenes because they were most frequently unlocking new planets and I wanted to see how they had drawn each one and what the descriptions were.  I didn't scanning everything the moment it unlocked, but did little bits each time I moved from hub to hub.  That way, it only became a problem when I ran out of new routes to get between major points... but by then they had patched that and I could skip the repeating ones.  Still, they could have organized their GM differently.  Lorewise, it would make more sense if the initial exploration worked it's way out from close to Nexus to farther away in concentric circles.  I really doubt that Ryder would just bound off to a far corner of the cluster before exploring the stuff closest in nor do I think he/she would have been bounding thoughtlessly back and forth from one end of the cluster to the other... they had no Mass Relays and limited fuel, so this sort of travel had to have taken some time.  Jaal would not have logically been simultaneously assigned to explore situations on two planets that were not even remotely close to each other.

As far as being able to just, say, mine the minerals and buy the rest (although you might have to travel quite a distance to find a vendor that sells just the right item)... You could.  You could also just kill the animals and buy the minerals.  You could also collect any of the materials you needed via Strike Teams and AVP (Cryo Pod) rewards and not mine or kill at all.  It would, of course, be much slower to do it that way... but not impossible.  The only thing "lacking" on that front is an alternate ability to gain research points other than Milky Way ones.  To do that without scanning, you would have to run strike teams since the cryo pod rewards only involve Milky Way points.

Well, ME1, anyway. ME2 works like ME:A, doesn't it? And in ME3 the ship only docks at the Citadel so it never comes up.




Which MP mechanics are you talking about?




Again, you can buy them. In practice, I can't imagine running out of the animal-generated components since you get attacked by the things so often.

Oh my.. we agree.  I have to check... did hell just freeze over? (kidding, of course).

Will they learn from this? Yes.

Will the takeaway be what was needed? Probably not.

Lol. A learning lesson. As opposed to some other kind of lesson.