EA 'Mass Effect Andromeda Advocate' Executive Patrick Söderlund has been promoted.

I agree, but that was what was said repeatedly by others was how great Overwatch did it.  Even while ignoring how Blizzard sidestepped the laws in China regarding lootboxes.

Only reason the Tempest and Nomad not having weapons bothered me was because it didn't really make any sense to me.  We're in this new galaxy, not knowing what we'll find or what we'll run into, with no immediate support if something goes wrong, but we have no way to defend ourselves if something happens.  I don't remember the Tempest ever cloaking, or anyone talking about cloaking.  What if the Angarans had been hostile when you first appeared in the skies over Aya?  Pathfinder team would have probably been dead right there.   

We do find out in the final battle that the Nexus does have armed vessels aboard it (as used by Kandros and Reyes during the final battle).  The Nexus itself is not armed and neither is the Tempest.  Apollo didn't have obvious arms and neither does our space station.  I'm not sure the idea of going into someplace new armed to the teeth is necessarily all that universal.  Gamers have this mentality that they want everything armed when they play... and I really think that's at the core of the excessive complaints about Tempest and Nomad not being armed.  Fact is, the Angarans were somewhat hostile towards newcomers; and the one thing that convinced them not to shoot down the Tempest on sight was that it was obviously not armed.  As I said, even if Nexus was armed to the teeth, the Initiative would have stood no chance against any native hostile force they met head on.  Native populations numbering the millions or billions or trillions could easily crush the Initiative (who were only about 200,000 people maximum - most of whom were in still in cryo).  Had they fired anything at the Angaran (even in defence) they would have been every bit as dead right there as you claim going in unarmed would have made them.  If you go into someone's homeland looking like an armed invasion force, you better have a force large enough to actually carry out an invasion or you're going to get crushed.

From a story perspective, I could easily set it aside.  It isn't a story-breaker for me at all.  From a gameplay perspective, I didn't miss it (never used the canon much on the mako once I learned that I could take down the maws far more easily just on foot because I could hit them with warp or neural shock and they'd go down with very few rounds from pretty much any standard gun in the game.

I'm talking more story perspective.  People act as if having defensive capabilities makes you a war ship, or says you're seeking conflict.  You're in an entirely new galaxy with no idea what you'll run into.  You're not walking around without weapons, so why would none of your ships and vehicles have weapons in case you run into something guns can't handle.  The Kett have already attacked you on Habitat 7, and wiped out your colonies on Eos.  Why would you then go out on your own without any means of defending yourself? 

This wasn't anything major that ruined the experience, it just never made sense to me.

The Apollo comparison does not work, you already know there is no one on the moon or the space around it. Also, in early space flight weight is at a premium.

The more accurate comparison is the Mayflower, Santa Maria or the Trinidad. All were exploration or colony ships and all had a well stocked gun deck.

Which did nothing to aid them in making peace with the native population.  I doubt they were there to protect them from the unknown, but so that they could protect themselves while leaving the seas that they already knew were also sailed by their nation's enemies and pirates of the day.  They were just damned lucky that the native populations of the unknown shores they were exploring were not in position of technology equal to their own... or they would have never made landfall.   Another thing to note is that Columbus believed he was finding an alternate route to East Asia (a land known by Europeans... just that that overland trade route were blocked by enemies).  So, he also had reason to believe he would meet resistance at his destination.

Well, if you want to write your novel, go for it.

As for defenses on Aya.. again, we don't know.  It's not shown or discussed in the narrative.  Resistance HQ is on Aya and we are shown that it has an array of surveillance.  In addition, Tempest was met and escorted by a squadron of Angara fighters.  Why would you doubt they have defenses?

Really, people just love to assume in one direction when it comes to ME1 and a totally opposite direction when it comes to Andromeda.  Laughable really.

Well if Asari can get out and cover entire ships with protective fields, I guess it's feasible

Oh, so you want to play word games?  You specifically said:


Yet, the Angara have been keeping the kett at bay for 80 or so years on at least 2 other planets that we know of (Voeld and Havarl) and maybe a few more since the game is not specific about the number of worlds they still hold (it's a few is all be know).  Again, they have their Resistant HQ on Aya (along with a training facility), what makes you think they would not take steps to defend it.  They did send out a squadron of fighters to escort a single unarmed vessel into their city and Ryder was met on the ramp by a number of armed Angara.

Certainly, they are making strategic use of the fact that the planet is hidden by the scourge... but that's no reason to just assume that they wouldn't have taken steps to protect/defend those assets IF the planet were ever discovered.

... and that's a reason to assume that a ship touted has having the firepower of 20 dreadnoughts that can "rip through the barriers of any ship in the Alliance" shouldn't similarly be able to rip through the barriers on geth fighters (see discussion on Things That Don't Make Sense Thread)... and yet assume that an entire planet held by a species that have been at war with another species for nearly a century and who have located their Resistance HQ on that planet have no defenses in place to repel that enemy should they attack that planet?

Laughable how you keep trying to pull comments out of context.

Bioware makes many of the same writing errors in ME1 that they do in ME:A... yet, ME1 is viewed as some flawless masterpiece without a single plot hole, etc. and ME:A is viewed as complete garbage?  Sorry, I don't buy it.  ME1 is flawed and ME:A is also flawed in many of the exact same ways ME1 is flawed.  The big difference is that ME:A released to a fan base already resistant to exploring the story and already primed to hate the premise of the entire game and already bitter about ME3's endings... a fan base that proved that to be fact by dissing on ME:A a full year before it released... before they had any inkling whatsoever about the story, the dialogue, the animations, and the gameplay.