Need Comfort: Andromeda won't be a Grinder, right?

That's how Trilogy works. BUT in Andromeda, if you can get Ryder in SP gear into MP for the Strike Team missions, then your SP gear becomes compared vs other players' even if only one character (the host) is playing the Ryder, and the rest of the players pick one of the MP kits.

I want to find out how this works.

The crafting, the SP+MP blend, and the Ryder being able to participate in the MP are all new features that we have not seen in the MET, along with the whole OW'ness of it, so, well, I want to know how it is designed and interacts with one another. Rather than seeing paint-jobs on Nomad, or learning that I can name my weapon tbh.

Well if 100 hours is what they are projecting, then I am fine with that. The longer the better.

if true... That is so neat !

Well they said that MP wont affect SP for real this time, so I'm guessing there isn't going to be any kind of cross crafting system.

Considering that DA:I had very minimal grinding that was actually necessary and you could easily get through the entire game without crafting anything, I'm not too worried about ME:A being too grindy if I don't want it to be.

Though as others are saying, there will probably be an element of grinding involved at some point.

It does not say so straight out, but the main article on the Strike Team Missions says that you can join another player's team, and you can do those missions solo, so a few folks suggested that the host = Ryder (who can either solo, or recruit help). This set-up does make an intrinsic sense, but if it does work that way (i.e. you are not forced to switch to an MP character for a Strike Mission) it will cause issues of SP performance. It will also fall very neatly in the concept of intertwined, but not obligatory content that increases the incentives for content consumption by each player. I'd like to know how the Strike Missions work, why they are separate and how they are different from the MP-from-the-start-menu mode & how gearing + crafting work in SP/MP. There gotta be a reason why they are changing it from the crafting-free MET model and why the Strike Team Mode is separate from just the MP and why the set-up of your SP character is similar to the MP set-up. They have all the ingredients...

Romances and sexual egalitarianism have been a big part of recent BioWare titles, so no guarantee that it won't be Grindr.

You know its a bit of a drag without being able to afford a PS Plus account though. If one can play as your Ryder during it, in theory, that would be a huge draw for me. But alas. I cannot.

It's a good guess, since it seems to be like DA:I in style (lots of zones to explore) and DA:I took about 100 hours for a lot of people (even if the main story was only 20-30). Personally, it takes me about 200 hours to do everything in DA:I.

I agree, with the caveat that that length is filled with meaningful/fun content.

I get how you would think that, but I just can't see them going through the effort to be honest, so I doubt we'll play as Ryder. It's probably as others have said: Ryder calls a team in, you play as the team, then back to Ryder.

It would be awesome though! I always wished you could make the default humans in ME3MP look like any of your Shepard saves.

Wait we can use our Ryder in MP? If so, I'm sold!! This is what I wanted with ME3.

If I am overthinking, they are overdesigning, tbh, putting in the features that are at best adding some flavour? I would not complain if it is indeed just a glorified quest alert and crafting is solely SP, but I wish they invested that dev manhours elsewhere.

I should have used a qualifying adjective like "speculated". It is one of the things I'd like to know.

I think they just wanted a way to make it seem like the strike missions and such related to the SP and the overall story (Like in ME3), but without actually affecting the SP much at all.