Is Bioware playing it safe?

The choice to go to Andromeda Galaxy was the only way to move the series forward from the um...problematic endings to ME3, without having to be a prequel (which would have all kinds of problems of it own), a side-story which at best might be fun for a one-shot deal, and frankly I think the series is way to young for a hard reboot and since I can still play my original trilogy on Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PS3 I have little interest playing Shepard again with shiner graphics although I'm not 100% opposed to the idea it's not something I would probably not pay $60+ on day 1 for.

The general idea of a trilogy is that act 1 introduces your hero, villain, and the universe. In that regard that is in ME1 Tali is a massive exposition dump on the quarians and the geth and is the most boring character in the game and if Liara wasn't a LI she would have been the same thing except for the asari (that and Ali Hillis and Jennifer Hale had a great chemistry). Story wise ME1 had to set up not only who Shepard and the squadmates are, who the villains are, and explain how everything from the Council to the Normandy SR-1 and everything else works. Most of the story of ME1 is just exposition that BioWare needed to get out of the way.

The second act is basically the hero getting their ass handed to them by the villain or the hero learns a devastating truth, loses a mentor, or love interest, etc. It's the dark chapter.

The third act is basically the climax where all the hero defeats the villains. So that ME3 is more combat driven shouldn't be a surprise (honestly it's prologue is really boring and rehashes a lot of the exposition from the first two games) because all the story was set-up in 2 previous games, their assorted DLC, novels, comics, and anime movie.

Now to be brutally honest the story barely holds together across 3 games and their DLC, (the novels, comics, and anime help somewhat but just barely) because in my OPINION BioWare never really had a much in the way of a three part story planed from to start, I think they saw how well Halo was selling at the time and how Bungie and Microsoft were say that it was trilogy and were thinking that since Star Wars, The Matrix, and The Lord of the Rings made money by being trilogies that saying Mass Effect would be a trilogy would be good for business. I think at best Casey Hudson and Mac Walters went in with the old "we will make it up as we go" approach and while there are a few successful trilogies that did that right (Evil Dead maybe) but I find it leaves a lot to be desired.

Play as a human again the original Mass Effect trilogy was about humanity starting out as newbies on the galactic stage and becoming leaders and proving their worth.
Playing as a rookie look I've played as an already well-trained space marine in the Mass Effect trilogy, (and as well as a warrior, thief, and mage in the various Dragon Age games, a well trained martial artist in Jade Empire and a Jedi/Sith with memory loss in KOTOR 1) so frankly I find the idea of playing as a rookie kind of fresh. Mass Effect was NEVER about aliens it was and still is a story about humans the aliens are there because it's science fiction.
  
As far as the 3 man team it works (the combat in ME3 was IMHO the best of the series so far) so why fix something that was never really broken?

 

    

I already acknowledged the two sides in my two previous posts to you and I did not tell you to "just leave," so I'm really not sure why you're getting on me about this.  Care to explain what it is I've exactly said here that you seem to think qualifies as either vitriolic (per your first response to me) or trying to stifle expression?

... and I'm sure you're well aware of this general issue as being the result of comments made by that poster over several threads... not just this one.

Not really, but maybe fast and loose. Montreal are mostly amateurs when it comes to defining their own concept for a single player game and they're kinda the visionaries this time. Mac is kind of lenient as a creative director I feel like, at least in the way he can come across in interviews and the lead writer of the game pulled a "Drew Karpyshyn" and left as soon as the initial draft was done. And as for the game's framework, it sounds almost exactly like Inquisition just with a Mass Effect spin, but I have a feeling it will be less glitchy and hopefully the main plot has more parts to it and dramatically it doesn't flounder after the first act this time. Hopefully the story is not as vague either.

I just don't understand why anybody would spend so much time with something they hate

I was probably one of the few who didn't have a problem with the ending of the first trilogy. That moment when Anderson drew his last breath, man! that was hard to watch. And then Shepard made the ultimate sacrifice which to me felt like the right choice and completely fitting for the character.

The ending of ME3 was just about the only time in the whole trilogy where I got to make a major choice for Shepard that actually suited the personality I had designed.

I genuinely disliked both ME2 and ME3, but the end of ME3 was the best thing in it.

I have not once attacked another person here for their opinions on Mass Effect or anything else.

I cannot say the reverse is true.

I'm pretty much the same way especially once The Extended Cut was released that answered all the questions I had, but for MANY fans here and elsewhere the endings are, to put it nicely, still problematic for them and I'm sure there are several people here who can explain in great detail what the problems are/were with the all of the various endings.