How Much Personality Should Ryder Have By Default?

Please please please let there be some sarcastic dialog choices!

Very little auto-dialogue. Auto-dialogue should be implemented when explanations are happening, such as when Person A is telling Person B a situation and person B responds with "How so?" or something like that.

I much prefer to be the one in control. In ME3, I lost all my Shepards; their personalities were gone. I like where they are going with the dialogue wheel in the DA series. I think it's evolved nicely and can still be improved upon a bit, so I wouldn't have an issue if they wanted to borrow from that idea from the DA team.

I agree that part of it is preference, and it can be a tricky balance to get right. It worked, for the most part, with Inquisition, to have a character with that much range. But I also believe style is important; a key part of an RPG is role, and that often means playing a more defined character. Choice to the point your character is spread a little thin is often more indicative of a sandbox, which isn't what Bioware does. So, interesting point about some arguing that Shepard and Hawke were poor examples of RPG characters, because to interact well with the plot and characters I believe your PC needs roots. Background and at least a semi defined character.

I'm also totally biased because I didn't like Inquisition that much, to be fair.. the style works for Dragon Age, but not for Mass.

It's sounding like in Ryder's case family is going to be apart of those roots, and I'm also pretty sure (hoping) we'll get similar to me2/3 Shepard. Semi-set with a little wiggle room. Keeping with Mass Effect's style. Interested to see how it works in with the new morality system though - if there is one!

As much as in ME2 or DA2 at maximum. I think his agency in the plot is more important as well as our ability to define his past so he isn't some doe-eyed hero that draws the sword from the stone. I would like for Ryder to be a real Walters character, you know, a bit like Vega, because they tend to have a lot of attitude and I want to be able to have that. Better that than blank-slate Shepard or melodrama, megalomania Shepard from ME3.

I prefer to make the personalities for the characters I play. If I want predetermined characters, I play Witcher and Assassin's Creed. Part of the allure of Mass Effect for me is the ability to roleplay differently each time I play.

I also like playing the TES for the blank slates, and I agree that Bioware tends to straddle the line between the two. I just don't want them using as much auto-dialogue as they did in ME3. Here's hoping they scaled that back for Andromeda.