Most Underrated Game: One Year Later

Addison's behavior says more about Addison (and her frustration, the pressure, the previous failed colonies) than Ryder.  Tann, Kesh, Kandros, Capt. Dunn, the other Pathfinders, etc. - all treat Ryder as an equal and defer to her judgement.  I'm not sure what you expect quiet strength to look like.  Ryder kept plugging away, doing the work, and succeeding in the face of adversity.

Having others doubt the PC is a standard part of a typical fictional hero's journey.  Shepard started out as an N7, a mid-level career Alliance officer and XO, with a strong enough resume to be a Spectre candidate.  In fact, ME1 starts out with Anderson & Udina (or was it Hackett?) discussing Shepard's qualifications.  Despite already having proven herself a war hero - and even having a fan - the Council always questioned Shepard, Udina grounded her, Miranda questioned her throughout ME2 (and had wanted to implant a control chip), she started ME3 de-commissioned and under house arrest, and she was often advised or questioned by squadmates who disagreed with her decisions.  There were plenty of times when Shepard was crapped on, too.  Shepard had some fans and supporters, but also her share of detractors.  Except for Anderson, Hackett, and some squadmates, noone seemed to believe the reapers were coming - until they showed up and wanted Shepard to save them.

The Ai isn't a military organization, and does not function like one.  A lot of people were pretty happy to finally have a Pathfinder on the scene, and understandably so.  While some of the crew were assigned by the Ai, Vetra, Drack, Peebee, and Jaal joined by choice.

There are a couple of factors that I think sort of poisoned the well in terms of Ryder's acceptance (besides being young and unproven) -
1) The nepotic inheritance nature of her becoming the Pathfinder.  It would have looked/felt a lot different had she already been the Pathfinder or the second-in-command.  Also, if the role hadn't been handed her by her father.
2) SAM's constant influence.  SAM made a lot of the quests much easier to follow, but at the price of Ryder sometimes feeling like SAM's puppet.

This reads a lot like my internal arguments as I play the game! 😆 I can see the validity in all of your points, while still struggling with the dissatisfaction I described. I think it's a dozen little things that combine to annoy me. There aren't very many "assertive" conversation choices. The banter and auto-dialogue are often slapstick comedy type stuff. There are scenes like those we just discussed that try to emphasize Ryder's uncertainty. It just goes a bit too far for me. I often feel a bit disconnected from Ryder because Scott and Sara behave so differently from how I'd have them behave.

I like that each twin is written as a unique character. Each gets unique dialogue options, at times. The downside is that I end up preferring Scott by a wide margin, though my PTs are split about 50/50. Scott gets a few confident, assertive lines at key moments that Sara doesn't get. Tom also delivers his lines in a more wry, subdued manner than Fryda's unsubdued enthusiasm. That helps with the excessive cheese. I play a lot of Saras because I like building her in the CC. I play a lot of Scotts because I strongly prefer his character's personality and tone. Tom Taylorson was phenomenal.

A lot of it is in the timing. The trilogy was much more structured, and the timing and context of the jokes made sense. Much of MEA's comedy comes via banter, which is essentially random. You may emerge from a dark or somber encounter only to have Ryder, PeeBee or whoever else start cutting it up.

The "speed bump" line is one I often use as an example. I cringe whenever I hear it. (Not often, and always involves running over cloaked wildlife.) Sara screams, "Speeeeeed Buuuump!" in an excruciatingly ridiculous way. Scott quips, "speed bump" in a more subdued fashion. While the second is preferable every time, neither feels particularly appropriate after fighting cannibals; shooting 20 dudes to death; discovering a Collective torture-den; etc... MEA is full of cheesy one liners, and they're often ill-timed. The trilogy's jokes had timing and context on their side; and were generally of a craftier, more clever variety.

Makes all the unassertive choices. Complains Ryder is unassertive.

They're nearly all unassertive choices, or at least neutral. Scott has a few where he sounds like a proper commander. I've played so many times, I know where all of my preferred options can be found. Some lines that I really hate, usually jokes, I avoid like landmines. I enter the conversation, my spidey-sense starts tingling, and I think "Whatever happens, don't select X". 😁

At some point, I always end up dropping into the menu and checking the split on my "Conversation Tone". (That sounds awkward, but I'm feeling foggy-minded and can't find a better descriptor.) Usually, I'm trying to look and see how many unfortunates I've blasted so that I can calculate the percentage of the Ai killed by Ryder personally. 😕 My "Professional" choices are always well in the lead. The "Logical" (?) ones are next. The "Casual" I will use when in a relaxed, one on one conversations with my crew or I'm attempting to express empathy, put someone at ease, etc... There are plenty of those, but fewer than half as many as each of the other two. What's left? Flirts? I use those now and then.

I think they had a cool system in place. The choices could've been more varied in places. DA has a great system that I wish ME would just steal. I get the feeling that certain parts of MEA were written in a hurry. Then, as always, editing chops up the written story and what's left has to be smoothed. They just didn't get a lot of smoothing and polishing done with any part of the game. That's why we have a thousand little bugs that would generally never be found in a finished product.

I said assertive, not homicidal. He'd be a total idiot to not have Dale Atkins punished. It's annoying that we don't actually see anything resembling an arrest, or even a call for Nexus Security. Dale just wanders away. We assume he's arrested and can confirm it via quest logs.

There are numerous examples of what I'm saying in my previous posts.

Unassertive: "Good meeting, everyone" (in an undertone as everyone wanders away).

Assertive: "This isn't a military operation, but get permission first next time." (It's Ryder's ship and command. The crew should behave accordingly.)

An Op like this one would require order, discipline and strong leadership. Ryder is a little uneven on those fronts. S/he is often like a first among equals, and I don't think that really works. Despite the semantics, this is essentially a military operation. They are a team of commandos visiting occupied worlds and participating in an ongoing war. Late-game Ryder, particularly Scott, feels more confident and in control.

It's not that I don't like the character. I just think we should've been given more RP options. I'd have liked to be able to RP the Alliance-trained child of Alec Ryder more often. The wide-eyed and awestruck stuff doesn't really work for me; and many of the jokes annoy rather than entertain. I'm not sure what else to say. I've posted and explained my opinions pretty thoroughly. I don't expect everyone to agree, but this would be some of my strongest feedback for a team creating a sequel.

Meh protagonist, forgettable characters (minus Drack maybe), lame antagonist, only three new alien species and they don't even feel alien, dialogue range from acceptable to terrible, bugs that would make Bethesda blush, wooden facial animations even with the patches, story arcs left hanging, and laggy multiplayer.

Yep, underrated game of the year.

Ok so this is the special rule of "first discard all assertive choices" proof of no assertive choices? And like I wrote it doesn't end with Atkins. Not by a long shot. But, yeah, of course if every time Ryder is assertive is going to be disqualified by some special rule then yes I suppose you can say that Ryder is never assertive.

Exactly this.

Don't get me wrong I liked Witcher 3 and was super impressed when I played it and B&W is better than the original game but having played it twice, I tried for a third time and just couldn't do it. It just didn't hold me at all. 

MEA draws me back all the time, I enjoy making a different Ryder, playing a different way and experimenting with builds and weapon builds its great. 

I don't know if I'd go as far as to say it's the "most underrated." There were definitely problems at launch and there are definitely flaws to it. That said, I think there was also a lot of good stuff in there too. I personally loved the Ryder twins I made, the companions and crew were all at the very least solid with a lot of potential, and while there is a bit of open-world bloat, the main story is pretty solid and there are some great side quests and has some of the best loyalty quests of the entire series.

It's definitely not the best game I played in 2017, but it's also definitely a game that I still find myself itching to play and get more of.

Well for me it’s the length that limits how many I do. Not quality or anything. It still baffles me when people say they’ve done dozens of runs of games like Oblivion and Skyrim. I still love playing them but I can’t play them that often due to length.