Biotic Enemies

Sovereign: Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relays. Our technology. By using it, your civilization develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic life. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.

If this true then Andromeda might not have biotics as biotics are the result of the reaper tech and the eezo that comes with it. Andromeliens might not have discovered this at all let alone gave a compatible physiology.

Just saying it would be nice for once to have the goddamn technological upper hand.

eezo is a carcenogenic substance. Had it not been for the Asari Biotics might not even have existed in this cycle. Yes eezo is naturally occurring but come on...

That Sovereign speech can be safely dismissed by now, since it clearly stemmed from the old over arching story line that got thrown out with ME3...

So, sure, there might be naturally biotic enemies in the cluster... their powers would most likely not be called biotics though.

the part about the tech holds true. If not then that would be a huge cop out

I agree! I'd like to point out, though, that the abilities enemies had access to (not just biotics) have been toned down each game. In the first game, enemies used all manner of abilities against you (maybe all of the ones you could? I don't remember), and they could even ragdoll you. Either way, they still had a much larger array of abilities to use against you, and it made them more interesting in that sense.

But ME2 reduced enemy powers to only the most basic ones, and by ME3 you're lucky if an enemy uses any powers Not even basic stuff like Overload or Throw, never mind anything more interesting. Not even Cerberus Engineers use tech, only their deployable turret. Phantoms use a barrier and their palm-blasters. Banshees have Warp. Geth turrets have Incinerate, but it acts more like concussive shot (doesn't set you on fire). Some enemies use Cloak. That's really about it, sadly - the rest is mostly projectiles, melees, and Frag Grenades. There doesn't need to be as much strategy for countering these things, which makes the game less fun than it could be, in my opinion.

So here's hoping ME:A is more like ME1 in that regard, or better. ME3 was still very fun for me, but I think enemies having most of the same powers you do and Biotics being different and dangerous foes would be a great improvement. But they should probably not do ragdolling

I also understand that sometimes enemy abilities can be very frustrating (stun-lock, insta-kills, etc.), but the thing is, ME3 had all of those things anyway, so I don't think they should have removed diverse abilities.

You're totally right about how it creates an odd gameplay-story segregation issue, though this also applies to other classes tending to forget about the powers they should have, and sometimes even things all classes have, like shields. I hope ME:A cutscenes take these things into account. And just a note: It would only make sense for Biotics to use standard kinetic barriers in addition to their biotic ones, so one could recharge while the other was active. This would make them very hard to kill, so I understand why it's not a thing in gameplay or story, but it kind of should be.

I also agree on letting us avoid powerful attacks if we pay attention and time it right. In ME3, it was nigh-impossible to avoid a Banshee's Warp ball without going into cover. Even evading generally resulted in getting hit anyway due to crazy target-tracking. So I would simply have these sorts of abilities have their tracking toned down - they'd still track most targets, but would usually miss one if it evaded - and that would apply to your powers targeting enemies as well.

While I'm not sure a voice calling out attacks would work on account of combat being too fast-paced for that, the omnitool/HUD giving you warnings (like the grenade indicator) could be cool, especially if it's something we could choose to upgrade.

Edit: Semi-ninja'd

First, let's address this idea that mass effect tech is somehow linked to biotics. The latter is a biological adaptation to the presence of an environmental compound. The former is a technological path. Equating them is a fallacy. Element Zero is present universally, since it is an after effect of super nova explosions. Biotic species could have developed in Andromeda. These species need not have developed mass effect technology, however.

To address Han's question, I agree that biotic enemies (and the occasional tech enemy, for that matter) should be more dangerous. I'm not sure about the mechanics offered in the OP, since they're beyond my experience. I know it can be pretty risky including these type of effects in a game. I was thinking more along the lines of what we experience in the ME3 "The Citadel" DLC Mirror Matches. Those Shepard mirror-clones were tough and aggressive, and more fun to fight than nearly any other SP enemy in the OT. In general, that DLC had better SP combat that most of the OT.

It could be that better AI and simply giving them dangerous powers could be the answer. The problem with Shepard's foes is that they were never really supposed to put up a meaningful fight. They were there to get stomped. They didn't have the tools to challenge Shepard and his team.

edit: partial 

Of course not. I was mostly reflecting on the biotic fights in that game. Didn't think about Tela Vasir's fight, though. That's a good example.

I agree that it's nearly certain that the species of the Heleus Cluster would have developed entirely different technologies. There are positive signs that the game will reflect this, primarily in the form of a Mac Walters tweet saying that the "Andromeda Initiative species will be using mass effect technology".

This is a separate issue from biotics, however, and not really what this thread is discussing.

Well we can already get skewered and eaten alive by enemy mobs so I don't think having biotics disintegrate us if we fail to do something is a bad idea.