Things working against a possible Ryder series sequel as of right now

What you've observed by watching other people play, really.  OK, I have no comment on that one.

I've asked more than once for someone to just do what I did.  Take some history from the world that existed before the start of your story and show how it affected you, your decisions, your interaction with your crew, their interactions with each other.  It was a very simple thing for me to do with ME1, and just ME1. 


I'm sitting here debating calmly, but other people seem to be getting upset for some reason, and then people say the detractors are the aggressive ones.

Aggressive? Who's aggressive?



I gave you about 80 "themes". But I guess the weren't narrow enough.

I also believe I'm calmly debating here.  I've merely progressively narrowed by discussion to match what you've provided as the basis for a theme in ME1.  I think the Moshae mission mirros the Virmire one quite closely.  I've certainly described it without any questions or "what ifs."  I'm not sure what the problem is here.

From my point of view, you seem to have changed the task at hand yet again, but I'll comply and reframe it the terms you now describe above.  The history from the world that existed before the start of Ryder's story is what the Angara believed their history to be - fighting an "outsider" enemies for nearly a century, cherishing their families at the same time.  The mission to save the Moshae shattered those beliefs, neither Jaal nor Ryder could look at a kett again and not see a transformed Angara.  The affect on Ryder's relationship with Jaal is dependent on whether or not he/she destroys the kett facility.  Jaal views destroying the facility as a breech of trust.  This can be negated by Ryder later demonstrating trust in Jaal's judgment by not shooting Aksul.  The Wiki tells me that there are consequences (i.e. that you cannot romance Jaal and dialogue changes) if Ryder goes against Jaal's advice both times, but since I've not actually done that yet in one of my playthroughs, my comment on that will have to wait until I have.  To show how it affects decisions about other quests in the game - In the side quest "The Lost Scout" we come across an Angara scout who is torturing a kett to find out where they have taken her family.  The knowledge that the kett she is torturing may even be a member of her family does weigh on Ryder's mind when deciding whether or not to shoot the kett to end the torture or leave the woman to continue with it.  The conversation with the Moshae indicating that the kett do remember their past life as an Angara also can weigh on this decision.

I think I am doing the same thing easily with ME:A as you claim you can "do easily with ME1, and just ME1."

Perhaps a better one suited to this new task involves Drack.  There is a history between the Krogan and the Salarians that dates back before the AI left the Milky Way that should go without explanation.  After finding the Salarian ark, you find out that the kett have been working on transforming both the Salarians aboard the ark and some missing Krogan scouts.  They appear to be closest to transforming the krogan.  At the end of the mission, you're faced with the decision to either save the Salarian pathfinder and some salarians or save the Krogan scouts who have not yet been transformed.  If you save the Krogan scouts, Drack will be pleased.  If you save the Salarians, he an be forgiving; however, it you made the decision to keep the Remnant Drive Core (not trusting the Krogan with it and not allowing them to have it as a power source for their colony), Drack will leave your crew entirely.  The decision also affects how the final battle shapes up - You fight Krogan berserkers if you save the Salarians or you fight Salarian agents if you save the krogan.  If you save the krogan, you are also thanked by the krogan scouts at the end of the game for having invited them to the party (i.e. inviting them to help you fight the Archon).  Several things can influence the player in making this decision - everything from how they feel about the genophage, how they feel about novice substitute pathfinders, to what type of enemy they'd prefer to fight in the final battle... to whether or not they want to keep Drack on their crew.

Just remember the "we need a different type of protagonist" gave us Ryder.  Besides there is no rule that says they are not allowed to make changes to Ryder or how the dialogue system works and I think that is the bigger cause for the problems you had and not the character themselves.

You absolutely had the option to NOT SELECT the "Liam Hold Me" line... instead selecting "Not liking this plan, Liam" which would have been just an honest statement, not a humorous one.  With the escape pod stunt, Ryder had the option to be angry at PeeBee or not.  She would try to quip back, but Ryder did could still respond with professional anger at the situation... Ryder's response was up to the player. 

Before ME:A released, people at BSN were clearly asking for a lighter mood, more like the Citadel DLC than ME3... so, Bioware merely delivered what those fans requested.  Personally, I prefer a line like "Mad is the smallest word for what I am." as opposed to a gag like punching out a reporter asking questions about the fall of a planet (just because you'd done the same thing in ME1 and ME2 and then telling her to "stay down."  You might consider that being "serious enough when appropriate" but I call it a cheap and overdone punch gag.  As for serious discussions in Andromeda... find a video of the discussion between Drack and Ryder that was part of the "How to Act Tough" quest.

Still, I can see a case for both of these being firing offenses. But the design assumes that everyone's going to be around for cutscenes, so that wasn't on the table.

Lol wow

For someone who was in the military for 3-4 years, and have a father who was an N7, little Ryder shows none of that. But the little one summed it up perfectly, after Eos, by saying I don't care. Lets talk about a kick a** team we have. Lets talk about that so-called kick a** team. You get a stowaway who doesn't like working with others, doesn't care about anyone and likes putting everyone in danger. Then you have the traitor. Obviously he doesn't care. So much for the kicka** team.

Agreed.  Firing either of them was not on the table, although certainly a choice some would have preferred to take.  There are many similar instances even in the OT where they were using a system that was accused of making "bi-polar" Shepards and forcing funky decisions in subsequent games.... Like the whole situation with Rana Thanoptis... Either Shepard killed her with apparently little reason to do so in ME1 or was compelled to let her go a second time in ME2 (generating some sort of ridiculous quip from squadmates in both ME1 and ME2).  There was no option to have given her a chance in ME1 and then really see the extent of her indoctrination in ME2 and kill her there (which I thought was the most logical sequence under the circumstances).

The answer is that the writing has some bad moments and some good ones throughout the whole ME franchise.  No single game in the franchise is perfectly written and, more often than not, the player has a variety of ways to avoid the individual lines they don't like... despite all the whining people like to do here about all the options that are "off the table" rather than acknowledging the options that are there that they simply just ignore or miss.

In the case of PeeBee, you do have no choice but to recruit her, but nothing in the game says you have to go out of your way to find all the little pieces of remnant tech she wants or to find and reclaim Poc that ultimately are the only ways you'll ever get far enough into her story arc to trigger the escape pod incident.   Ditto with Liam's story arc.  If you don't like him, just don't ever fill out his armor request and you'll never get a conversation that goes beyond his asking for it.  From a role playing perspective, there is a strong argument to suggest that a professional and focused pathfirnder would just not bother getting derailed by such side quests... but then the whiners would have to curb their 100% completion urges long enough to actually engage in some logical role playing instead of insisting that it's up to the game developer to design every single side quest in the game to fit with every single imaginable alternate choice they might possibly and even remotely want to see put "on the table."

Lol. Not even close.

I prefer Shepard over Ryder easily