Which aspects of Mass Effect (and RPGs in general) are the most important to you?

Companions, characters
Customization options
The main plot and story

Same as with all Bio games, Companions ans characters. They have yet to blow me away with any of the other features mentioned but they almost always deliver in the companions ans characters area.

That's why PS:T excelled, it had it all. Great writing, interesting world, cool/unique characters, lots of dialogs and choices.


Me too, i can play ME1 and Alpha Protocol again regardless of their controlls, but if a game has poor story writing RPG elements then no amount of good action/gameplay can lure me back.

I think the split between the Main Story and the Lore/world is what gets characters ahead of the verse and the plot. i have a hard time thinking of an interesting plot set in a boring world/verse. On the other hand, I think there is a whole genre of games without much of a plot, but with the verse that is just awesome... maybe I should revote and agree to bugs. But it's hard to Even play a broken game. I am not sure. I want it all, I suppose.

This is a difficult one, because every of those aspects are important in what I want in RPGs, and many of them in games in general. But if I really need to go for three they'd be:

- Backstory, lore and worldbuilding: This is essential in RPGs for me, and a big reason why I'm so hooked to settings likes ME's, DA's or Witcher's. I mean, if I'm going to be RPing in a fantasy world for hundreds of hours, that setting just must be something special. 

- Companions, character subplots and romance arcs: In the end, this is basically an expansion of the previous one. An interesting world is nothing without interesting characters, and characer subplots are where you get to really know them and their motivations, and where character development really happens.

- Gameplay, mechanics and level design: Ehh, because it's a game, duh. I don't find this as important as the previous two, but a clunky gameplay can ruin a good game if it makes it frustrating enough. I'm not too picky here, but I can't deny that ME1 would be a better, more enjoyable game witha gameplay as refined as ME3's, for instance.

Gameplay above all else, followed by Sound Design, and Customization.

aka I've done nothing but play Bloodborne for the better part of a year and a half.

I put story,characters,and back story/world building. In truth bioware has always done characters the best. That is bioware's specialty in my opinion.

I was going to say something about how the majority of people seem to think ME2 is the best in the series, even though it did nothing for the actual arc of the trilogy, and probably resulted in ME3 being worse off because of it. It looks like you already have that covered, though.

To be fair, a lot of people might be voting for the 'companions, characters and romance' optiom not because of the romance content but because they think well-written and relatable characters/companions are important. I myself am one of those people. I don't give a crap about romance dating sim nonsense, but a game with solid, well-written characters is something that adds a lot of value to an RPG for me.

I second this!
Bioware games are all about the characters. Too much so perhaps considering DAI's many flaws. Gameplay was never their strength and plot is hit and miss but mostly average to me.
They pulled off impressive world building with Mass Effect though, Dragon Age to a lesser extent but still great. And their narrative is usually very engaging, which does not mean the plot is good though. Two different things.

I find it difficult to pick 3 things because naturally all of these matter. With the exception of one: political correctness is often a killer for creative writing. And game developers should be careful not to fall into that trap too much or we're left with something very bland in order to not offend anyone. If it's not ok to depict weak women or violence against women in any form anymore for example (see Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad), well shit. Depicting something and promoting it are two different things. Stories often benefit a lot from diversity (if reasonable for the setting), but political correctness is something else. So that category for me is both a yes and a big fat HELL NO.

I ended up picking Characters/Story/Gameplay even though Story really isn't all that great usually as pointed out. But nevertheless, if the setting and overall plot doesn't appeal to me, I usually don't bother with a game. And maybe narrative counts as story? Narrative is actually one of the most important things to me and determines like nothing else how engaging a game is. (I like Telltale, games that are pure narrative with terrible gameplay and arguably not particularly creative plots.)

Something that is also very important to me is art design that got lumped together with graphics here, which is a bit unfortunate. While I freely admit to like the shiny, it's the art design that catches my eye - or not. A game that LOOKS unappealing to me will probably get a pass too. I dislike bleak settings or retro pixel style games. I can enjoy a game by aesthetics alone.

Voice acting is very very important to me too. So is music, something often overlooked. But especially combat music matters if that's what I have to listen to half of the game. I clearly remember how much I disliked the combat music in FF13. Witcher 3 has an amazing soundtrack and I would often kill things just to hear it. That score contributed immensely to the atmosphere of the game. So did the music of Mass Effect for that matter.