order of attack -- pacing and sequencing of MEA worlds

Why would anyone complain just for the sake of complaining?  There is no such thing. There is always a reason for complaining. (Excluding obvious trolls on FB, Twitter, YouTube.) If ME:A had been really polished, it would be much harder for the genuine trolls to come up with something superficial to criticise, like we now have with animations and minor bugs. It's much harder to make  memes of plot holes or something deeper like that. People complain a lot because there are a lot of reasons to complain. We are the people throwing money at them. Why should we not complain when we get a less than perfect product? If nobody ever 'complained', we wouldn't be having any real discussions. What is called criticism from seasoned game critics suddenly becomes complaining when it comes from fans who don't have a background and experience in writing well structured articles. It just isn't expressed as eloquently, which doesn't mean it doesn't have any merit to it. I get that it gets tiring to see so much criticism but that's the way it is with this particular game. People care about it so much that they wish it had been more perfect. And personally I enjoy this phase the most, when enough people have played the game a lot and we are starting to get beyond the obvious flaws and theorise how the game could have been better. Pointing out the flaws is not saying the game as a whole sucks. 

But what I meant about the organisation of quests was that scanning plants seems very important to me from an RP point of view, while it was obviously not important in order to proceed in the game and finish the main story. But there were some missions that seemed really inconsequential in the journal description and turned out to provide very meaningful new information for the main story, at least in my opinion, as someone who wants to know as much as possible. It was particularly  that kett mission that stood out as a complete surprise. For people who only plan to play the game once but still want to get all vital new information about the story and the world, this is a problem. It's a fairly drastic change compared to the trilogy games, which you could easily complete in 20-30 hours each. A cultural shock. 

When the same people complain about an issue from both ends that is "complaining for the sake of complaining."  People here seem to want the side quests to be both important and not important to the main story... but they can't logically have it both ways at the same time.  Many of ME:A's side quests actually do a pretty good job of being optional while still having some connection to the main story or delivering some backstory that really does flesh out the universe.  Doing them or not doing them changes dialogue within the story... structuring Ryder's character differently... but people rush through them and do them just for the sake of getting them ALL done rather than picking and choosing the ones that they want to use to build their version of this story on.... and then they complain that they can't role play Ryder in different ways.  For example, doing the Ryder's Family Secrets tasks will cause Ryder to deliver dialogue that credits his dad with the idea of using the scourge... not doing those task will cause Ryder to come up with that idea on his own.  Bioware puts the quests in with the idea that some suit some types of Ryders and other suit other types of Ryders... so people have to be willing to use those side quests the same way they use the dialogue wheels... You can't select all the dialogue options all the time and expect Ryder to say something different and it's the same with the side quests.  Role playing is as much about the options you select not to do as much as it is about the options you do.

I agree that the games in general have gotten inordinately long overall.  Some people like this and developers are currently of a mind to make games that do take 100 hours or more to do everything inside them.  With ME:A, it is quite possible to run well over 100 hours playing as a careful, slow methodical researching type of Ryder or do an equally satisfying "complete main story run with a more driven and singularly focused Ryder on the task at had in 20 hours (speed runners do it in a little over 2)... and the story itself still works because the dialogue adjusts (not perfectly... there are many areas that can be improved, but still, it does work).  I also personally like a tighter, more linear construction in a game... but some people don't and the current development trend is to more open worlds.  IMO, having to write numerous "changes" into a story to account for players to this quest first or that quest first just bloats the coding needed and doesn't usually really effect changes in the PCs personality for RP purposes. 

I would rather they focus on a more linear (gated) delivery of tasks and focus changes in the PC's character based on what side quests out of a smaller group of tasks offered at a time that the player merely decides to do or not do before moving onto the next gated area.  This would more easily allow for the markers for the quests not being done by the player to just "disappear" entirely when the next "gate" in the story is crossed.  For example, with more "gating" the choice between going to Havarl or Voeld could have been written more definitively...i.e. going to Havarl first could have resulted in "meeting the resistance" there and caused that quest line on Voeld to just disappear... rather than having it move/change from being a Priority Op to an optional side quest and adding in all the additional voice work it took to make that series of quests "work" storywise regardless of when the player might have decided to do it during the entire remainder of the game... before and after catching the Archon... and then only really partially succeeding with these dialogue changes... and essentially compromising a little bit of the tightness of the story... just to accommodate those "open-world enthusiasts" who are rue to allow a developer direct their story in any way.  Rather than Jaal just being ambiguous about the missions at the meeting beforehand, Jaal could have detailed differences about the missions that could have involved Ryder choosing one over the other (and have it structure so that different personalities of Ryder would choose differently).  Yes, that means one doesn't get to play all the missions in one playthrough... but that, to me, adds replay value... and enticement to play again as that different personality of PC and would then take the path not taken by my first one.

Also, we have to keep in mind that ME:A developers flirted with procedural generation for 3 years... but couldn't make it work right and finally gave up on it.  If they had succeeded though we would have gotten a "never ending story" which is an enticing idea.  No doubt, however, the story itself was written to accommodate this idea... so it's not as "epic" as it might have been if they weren't trying to write it for a procedurally generated game in the first place.  The game also did pay a hefty price for all that experimentation.  It was released unpolished and, I believe, many of the random bugs in the game resulted from latent coding from this "flirt" with procedural generation.  Maybe we should all be blaming the popularity of Minecraft for this (joking... sort of).

I'm not saying that the game structure can't be improved upon.  It certainly can.  I will say though that what's the point about complaining over some things for 5 years (like the ME3 endings) when all logic says that Bioware is clearly no longer supporting the trilogy and hasn't been for a number of years... and then the same people continually telling other people here that they're being foolish for having hoped for DLC (even before the "no DLC" announcement was officially made) or telling people now they're being idiots for hoping for a sequel in order to complete story plot lines in this game that were obviously left open for a sequel... Yet, that is what has been happening on this site for the last couple of months.

Yeah... I'm probably going to have to invest in a gaming PC sometime down the road and change with the times yet again (sigh).

Good thread.

Trying to get back on topic: The last run I played a Ryder very committed to finding Meridian as soon as possible and had a lot of fun that way. The pacing felt the best it has felt in my five playthroughs.

Before finishing the main arc I only did deviate from the main path when my Ryder thought going left or right was more important at that time. This resulted in my Ryder only establishing the outposts on Eos and Eladaan, discovering only the secrets of the vaults on Eos and Aya and besides finding Meridian focusing on bringing the arks back into the Initiative. Did them in the order Salarian, Asari and then Turian this time. Of the side quests, Contagion of course felt too important to ignore, so that situation also got solved before the main arc was finished.

Loyalty missions (with the exception of Cora's), vaults, architects, Kett command centers and great other side missions like "Dissension in the Ranks", "Uncovering the past" or H047c's "From the dust" and "Remnant tiller" were all left for the post-campaign time.

Roughly 24 hours till the main arc ended, another 26 hours played post-game (and still three LMs left) = another 50 great hours of Mass Effect. Of course this way romances will get on the back burner, but I like it this way, because honestly most of the Loyalty Missions are the biggest offenders when it comes to a too light tone and fit better for my Ryder after the main story arc is done. That way they don't feel so out of place for the character I want to play and also doing most of the exploring after the main arc feels right, because then you can just roam around without thinking you should do more important stuff.

Man, I hate that mission. It's not so much that it's bad on its own, it also lampshades one of the worst lore problems (why does the MEU even have large ships if shuttles can do everything), is urgent, and can't even be ignored because Dunn keeps talking to you whenever you arrive at the Nexus.

The only bit of pacing that I ran into that threw me off was getting the Architect on Voeld before Eos my first play through.

Same here. Wanted to ignore it, but once I picked it up (and I really tried not to get it), I couldn't roleplay myself into not caring for it. 

I got off the Nexus without it first (if I remember right), but when I had to re-enter to speak to the other pathfinders Dunn asked for me via comm. Who am I not to help my ark's captain then? 

Yeah, that's one I think they really should have written such that Ryder does manage to catch Ruth before she actually leaves the Nexus.  Even if one just overlooks the notion of shuttles being able to travel long distances... with a clear radiation trail and really only minutes of a head start at most, Tempest (the allegedly fast and stealthy premier prototype ship of the initiative) should not have had to chase her very far before catching up with her.  They really didn't gain anything by trying to turn the quest into a threat against the initiative by rogue Angara since that plot line never really goes anywhere afterwards anyways... but if they really wanted to pursue that, they could have had the Nexus doctors take some samples of Ruth's blood (either before putting her back into stasis or after Ryder has to kill her to prevent her escape)... and then have a Angaran visitor steal those samples... sending Ryder off again to retrieve them to stop the Roekaar using them as a weapon.

This KILLED me; we're only a few steps behind her but she gets OFF the Nexus and out into space before we can track her down? It pissed me off so much on my first playthrough I didn't even bother trying to find her. Fine, let her go and infect everyone, whatever. That she gets *so far away* pissed me off afresh on playthrough 2. That should have never happened in a shuttle, especially one with a *rad leak* UGH.

A funny side episode: in my first playthrough (even though I fought Architects before the finish) I didn't even recognize the Architect in the final sequence, because I played a vanguard and was too busy charging back and forth on the ground. An intense fight can shrink your vision a lot.  

That last Architect is less dangerous than the pillar-hopping. The remnant goo always has the last laugh.