Testament to a subpar overarching narrative...

I happened to like the main quests. The pacing was fine and it reminds me of ME1's somewhat less urgent plot. What Andromeda lacks in regard to plot is a well presented villain and more exploration into The Archon's motivations. I almost feel the opposite of you when it comes to companion quests, save for Jaal. Mostly because I found the squadmates this time around pretty underwhelming and/or extremely annoying.

At least ME:A has a story. The abundantly overrated Fallout 4 and The Witcher 3 don't have one, as @upagain stated. Yes, I have both, and I prefer ME:A above them.

It's funny to watch people be unable to cope with differing tastes.

Totally different for me. I like to avoid all the "loyalty" missions with the exception of the Asari ark until after the main plot is done, because I don't think they fit tonally and absolutely love the main missions from a level/story design. Hunting the Archon/journey to Meridian and Meridian: the way home are in my top ten all time when it comes to ME missions. Actually in my top 7 with Noveria, Virmire, Ilos/Citadel and the Suicide Mission being the other four. MEA has other problems for me (character interactions, checkbox tasks for example). The "in-between" is not as good as I hoped. The main story arc in Andromeda is OK for me (and the missions as I said great), the (missing) premise of what are we doing there, what was the goal going to Andromeda is the one thing I don't like in the narrative.

Well, well...Maybe you don't have me blocked after all! I've only ever used the word "Idiot" once and that was in September of 2017 (You only need to look at my history to see this). You showed your hand...

I wasn't a fan of the overarching story, which to me was colonization. None of it made sense to me and it made it hard just to stay interested. You're supposed to be leading the exploration/colonization, but everywhere you go has already been colonized. I have to activate these vaults for viability, but people are already living there fine. Viability to overcome such huge obstacles as being too hot or too cold. Really? We can live is space on the Nexus, but can't reach the promised land because it's too hot or cold. I have some of the best scientists aboard the Nexus, but people on Eladeen can figure out how to irrigate and we can't. People on Kadera can figure out how to filter the water, but I have turn on vaults to be able to live there. Just never made any sense, bothered me all game. I felt like the guy in the first Ironman movie. Why can't we do this? Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave. With a box of scraps.

As for loyalty missions, I'm not the biggest fan. I do them for the squad members I like. One thing that's bothered me since ME2 is how no matter what your relationship with them, your squad members come asking for help from their close friend. If you barely talk to someone, you shouldn't get their loyalty mission. In ME1 you couldn't get Garrus quest, or Wrex's family armor quest, etc unless you had talked to them a lot.

Fair.  I also like the overall design of the main missions, but I also like the design of many of the loyalty missions.  I find Liam's mission and Drack's mission to be just a whole lot of fun to play.  For me, the ME1 combat system just sucks balls and, therefore, I have never ranked any missions from that game as highly as you do.  The SM from ME2 remains my favorite though.  The lack of a grand goal or purpose in going to Andromeda has never bothered me, since I see it a mirroring the multitude of smaller stories that brought families to North America from Europe from the 1600s to 1800s.  I enjoyed asking people why they came and getting different personal answers from them.  That's what I saw reflected in my own genealogy... but I think it's a concept that missed the boat with the 30-somethings that make up the bulk of gamers.

I always found doing both the main storyline and the LM to be a snooze fest. The storyline was just purely boring while the LM's I found to be just "meh."

Plus it didn't help that Ryder was a complete joke as a main character...

To all who called me an idiot: just for the record, I have all three games, and I spent many hours playing all of them. The Witcher and The Witcher 2 have a story; the number 3 haven't, and I only play DLC's and side quests; the main questline, well, . A subpar overarching narrative is like no narrative to me. I can say the very same thing about Fallout 4. The old Fallout and Fallout 2, Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas have a story; Fallout 4 is another game where I only play DLC's (not all of them; some are crap) and side quests. So, calling me an idiot because TW3's and F4's storylines make me is and . And let me point out that I'm not saying anything about the individuals who made those comments, only about the comments themselves.

I find that with these huge open-world games that I am inclined to enjoy the DLC's a lot more because the main story lines within them are just more manageable and there are fewer distractions that pull the player out of the story itself.  With the main games being so large, I tend to lose interest in following the main story particularly after 50 or so hours of average playing time.  I enjoyed the OT because each game was about 50 hours long and everything was more linear.

Witcher 3 does have a story (as opposed to the MMO-grade grindfest of fetchquests that is 1) and a decent one at that, but I suppose it's possible to see where that is coming from.

You have to disable the god damn map markers, because otherwise even TW3 has MMO-grade levels of open world filler that is handled no better than Inquisition or Andromeda. First thing anyone should do playing Witcher 3 is turn off anything but main and side quest markers.

The one thing that makes TW3 filler even bearable is the combat being enjoyable. The first thirty, forty hours, anyway (in a hundred-and-fifty hour game)