Everything Wrong With Mass Effect: Andromeda

The way I see it they were important because the people chosen already meant a lot. Ryder was a pioneer in exploration. Ishara was a well-renowned diplomat. Raeka reestablished an entire planetary ecosystem.

Then the fact they were the COMMANDING OFFICERS of the teams that were meant to evaluate the worlds probably added something to that, but their actual importance in the job, discarding their history, I'd say they were just important because they were in charge of something important.

The Vault discovery would've happened eventually thanks to the likes of Peebee. But they had no SAMs with them at that moment, as they themselves were with everyone who had an implant on their Arks. SAM expedited the breakthrough significantly, if we consider another expedition, this time sufficiently armed and prepared for the weather and the Kett. In the case none would happen, SAM and a Pathfinder were the sole reason any even happened.

Might have taken a long time without a SAM equivalent. The Archon hadn't gotten anywhere with the problem in decades.

Having said that, 10K is on to a real problem. It's not obvious exactly how a Pathfinder's job was supposed to work in the absence of the convenient Vaults. A SAM gives you the tools to diagnose problems, but then how would you solve them? OTOH, the AI wasn't expecting major problems in the first place, but then all the mysticism over Pathfinders happens way too early. (It would still work in the late game, when Pathfinders are know to be beings who can magically make water drinkable and so forth, but everyone starts there.)

Right. That dead engineer on Eos had the idea, but not the power.

Alec Ryder continued to modify his SAM, after the other pathfinders received theirs, which is why ours is stronger and smarter than the others.

They didn't detect any vaults (or the scourge) when they were surveying with the geth relay because the vaults didn't exist 600+ years ago. According to Ryder, while on Habitat 7, the vaults are only 3-4 centuries old. The golden worlds were habitable and vaultless before they left. However as they were drifting in space the Jardaan played the role of god and built the vaults; the Opposition supposedly deployed the Scourge in response which apparently caused the entire cluster/galaxy to become almost uninhabitable.

Pathfinders and their teams have the A-team role, the tip of the spear of the Initiative, so while it is their focus to chart a path, the rest of the Initiative pitches in as well. Pathfinder teams are like the Star Trek Enterpise crew (or any protagonist really), the plot dictates that we're the only ones with brains and brawn to get anything done, everyone else isn't protected by plot armour.

They Initiative did bring terraforming gear with them - this seems to be the case when they rename Habitat 7 to Ryder-1 - but none of those are fast or reliable enough to make planets livable because they're not designed with the Scourge.

As stated in the posts above, the role of the Pathfinder was to scout various worlds and set up forward bases for future colonisation.

The Vaults weren't in Heleus when the Initiative left the Milky Way and that SAM can interface with the technology to allow Ryder access is merely a happy accident, which the Initiative takes advantage of to help with the terraforming/colonisation process.

If we have to pick fault with anything, it has to be why the Nexus didn't have a Pathfinder or SAM node already onboard?

As the game tells us (or otherwise implies), because they lacked someone with Pathfinder-authorisation or a SAM, they weren't able to unlock various equipment on the Nexus until one showed up (over a year late). The failed attempts on Eos were doomed because they could only set up an extremely basic outpost, with nowhere near the specialised terraforming equipment they actually needed to attempt full-scale colonisation.

I would have at least liked them to justify this by explaining that they did have a SAM Node and Pathfinder team on the Nexus, but they were wiped out due to various calamities. Most of the Pathfinder team and SAM could have been lost when they hit the Scourge, with the survivors attempting to do what they could on Eos (hampered by the loss of SAM), only to end up being killed by the Kett.

To make it even darker, we could have discovered a former Nexus Pathfinder could even have been one of the bodies on the Kett vivisection tables on Eos? Which gruesome discovery actually could end up becoming slightly significant later in the plot, because without Nexus-SAM active the Kett would have dismissed the implants and left the body behind for the Nexus to recover it.

Could easily imagine that adding to the later frustration of the Archon when he realised what makes Ryder "special". Would have turned out that his underlings had that access to that technology and let it slip through fingers.

Yeah. The Nexus not having a pathfinder and sam node was a why didn't they thing? Maybe it was done so Ryder could have some side filler missions to complete.

On Hab 7, the player sees little Ryder having trouble breathing after his/her face got in the way of some debris. The player sees dad have trouble breathing as soon as he puts his helmet on the kid's head. When Ryder, squad and the salarains/krogan exit Archies ship, to be picked up by the tempest, why isn't anyone having trouble breathing? Is it becasue the plot demanded Alec and little Ryder have problems breathing, but not anyone after exiting Archies ship?

Consider the source...

I know about ME2 and the strap armor and breather masks. Include the belly button armor as well. And no, everyone does not have breather masks or whatever for that scene.

Not sure if the game ever addresses this in dialogue or the codex. If I were to guess, the reason why the Nexus doesn't have a pathfinder, is because its population is far more diverse compared to the Arks. It had most of the Krogan, a lot of humans, and batches of Salarians, Turians, Asari (again not sure if specific numbers are given to us anywhere in the game). However based on the codex entries for the Arks and their respective species, they already have a lot of trouble agreeing amongst themselves. Imagine trying to get all the species to agree on who should be the pathfinder to represent the Nexus - almost impossible. I think they were lucky to even accept a human, Jien Garson, as their leader even though the Initiative was her idea.

As for the lack of breathing masks while they were escaping the Archon's flagship. It would have to depend on the composition of the atmosphere they were in. Some gas giants can have a breathable atmosphere as long as the ships stay high enough. I don't know much about gas giants to say anything else.

It's funny in how after you analyze the game's plot points that you realize this game has serious story and pacing issues. The one that really stood out for me as others have described was in how Alec could communicate with these vaults...even with how advanced this Sam is, there is no way to decipher alien technology as if it was technology they was familiar with. And also if it wasn't for the vaults themselves, how would Ryder make these worlds habitable?


The whole bit with the exiles and Sloane on Kadara pretty much chillin' without the help of Ryder was a bit puzzling as well....she also ran the Kett off the planet while the Kett are building or have built headquarters and bases on other planets with ease, but yet they couldn't defeat a squad of ragtag exiles from the Nexus?

I didn't tear the game apart in the manner that this vid is doing  tho, because eh...i know they are trying to tell a story, but even without breaking it down, i thought the story and characters was lacking....it's just that when you see these types of vids breaking down the plot-points of the game, you get a sense that this game needed some QA and some fine tuning of the overall plot and story elements. 

It wasn't exactly easy  for them to decipher the whole vault thing.  But as far as your second point is concerned the worlds already were habitable, according to long range scans.  And they say later on that they did bring terraforming equipment along with them.  They did have contingencies.  Just all their contingencies failed.  

1.  Why would Sloane want to just out and out kill Ryder and their squad when they came to Kadara?  They gain nothing by such actions, and maybe gain a lot by keeping them alive.  As for the other...did you pay attention to when you were playing the game?  The exiles on Kadara were hardly chillin