Least Favorite Squadmate in Andromeda

I want to airlock Peebee. I wish we could have the option to not take on certain squadmates onto the ship at all, like leave her ass on a planet and not letting her back onto the ship.

After her stunt in her loyalty quest, I REAALLLY wanted to airlock her, after bitch-slapping her, then throat punching her, then ...well you get the idea. You can't count on her to do anything but whatever she wants and then she does that?????? Soon as I got back to the ship I wanted to put her into another escape pod, push the eject button and wave "buh-bye bitch."

Havo dad, Legolas Sairys

I was passing through to make sure Liam was still winning this thread, but had decided to comment on this. I've tried bringing him ashore, in my third PT, in hopes he'd offer something redeeming. Instead, he's proven to be extremely self-righteous and provocative in the way he approaches his squadmates. I like him even less, now. Individuals are welcome to their private feelings, but show respect to others, Liam. No tact, no sense, and the maturity of a five year old. Ugh.

I strongly suspect that Lukas enjoys writing these polarizing characters, now. Sera was at least fun, if you could overcome her narrow-minded idiocy. Liam is just an idiot. His best scene, the football game, is even marred by his arrogance and lack of self-awareness. This PT, he called my Ryder a jerk in this scene. The only thing I can come up with that could've provoked this is that I didn't congratulate him on his dumbass LM decisions. I didn't take the harsher route, either, holding Verand and chewing his ass. Still, he's butt hurt and disrespectful. I'd definitely kick him of the Pathfinder team, if I could. He's a nice guy; but he's a childish dumbass.

After 2+ games, I changed my vote from Cora to Peebee, for many of the reasons mentioned above.

Cora's asari fixation is still annoying but she's a solid squadmate and has good banter with pretty much everyone. I really like her and Vetra together since they are kind of polar opposites in how they've approached things in life.

Liam hands down.

Now, where's the nearest airlock...

It's hard to choose, honestly.

I think Peebee is well-written for what she's supposed to be- an Asari in the ansty Maiden stage who hasn't settled down yet- and I'd say her character arc is pretty good at how 'age' doesn't mean 'maturity'. I'd say she's the best Asari companion we've had yet in terms of character development... but that doesn't mean I like her sillyness.

Cora annoys me. I'd really almost one a put-down line when- if cheating on her with another Asari- you could just go 'if I wanted an Asari, I'd pick the real Asari.' It's annoying... but she does get over it.

Liam doesn't annoy me, honestly. The accent's a good play at the diversity of voice actors rather than American accents for everything. It fits his unconventional background of HUST1, which I think is a good set for him. I can even appreciate the fact he's well-intentioned and headstrong. I wish there was a better 'moral decision' at the end of the mission, but that's the writer's fault. I didn't realize how confrontational he is with others, but honestly I can't take him too personally so I'm surprised others do.

Jaal... no such thing. Except if you totally piss him off- both destroying the Exaltation facility and killing Aksul- in which case he alternates between 'you're my best friend' and 'I can't talk to you right now.' Tsundere doesn't fit him.

Vetra... not a problem with her, per say, but I do regret we can't- as a role-playing choice- take a problem with her smuggling ways. The game is way too easy on that sort of thing, in my view.


As heretical as it might be...

Draak is kinda boring to me. Better than the savage cave-krogan steretype, but old man badass boring as well. I want a Krogan LARPer next time.

Liam, but overall, the squadmates of Andromeda are nowhere near as interesting (or lovable) as Shepard's crew. :/

You should have been able to choose Bain Massani.

I voted Liam as he annoys me to the point that I don't talk to him at all and the first chance I get I drop from the squad. I think Cora is such an Asari-phile to the point of being annoying, but she is always in my squad. I like having my own bodyguard.

As for PB, though i did not vote for her I would definitely decline to recruit her or kick her out. Her remnant expertise brings nothing to the table and I find her and her attitude totally at odds with the team. I really hoped there was an option to part ways after the loyalty quest stunt.

Also I think ME needs to be more open to the idea of making squaddies optional just like DAO. Even in ME1 you could opt to not recruit Garrus or Wrex.

I think Andromeda and Ryder are better ways of doing it than ME. There's always going to be a limited number of options, and a narrative-heavy game like Bioware either narrows it down to a few options, or makes it so that what you say doesn't really matter. (The Dragon Age Origins approach, where you could be True Evil but still get 90% of the same dialogue once the one-line deviations were ignorred.)

Paragon/Spectrum had an absurd range from Space Jesus to racist sociopath, and it wasn't good role playing when both couldn't be carried well. Ryder, as a whole, is far more consistent in tone- a narrower but more developed band of comedic-good. That does mean there are times I feel left out being a bad boy (girl), but it's for the best overall if the character actually means something when it does get to be expressed.

Of course, the ME trilogy was pretty horrendously unbalanced for the most part, between false choices or horrible speach systems. ME3 was probably the best at being a completion check, but it experimented too far in some ways. (Though some of it's conversation experiments- like the fight with Vega or the Kasumi-mission-without-Kasumi, were truly novel.)


Overall, it's less Ryder I'm concerned about- I can deal with someone who's consistently indifferent about smuggling- and more that no one seems to take issue with 'hey- you're stealing limited supplies our colonists may need!'

I hear you, I will say that Paragon/Renegade system had the distinct advantage of at least giving players the impression that dialogue options were meaningful and had wieght attached to them. As a result people on these forums who played the games tend to identify much more strongly with a paragon or renegade allingment than with any of Andromeda's tone options. Although Paragon and Renagede are generally considerd to be very disticnt from eachother the exact meaning of paragon and renegade was poorly definded thus giving room to players to rationalize their reasons for picking a specific paragon and renegade option.

Narrowing the spectrum down did however generate some complications. As you mentinoned antagonzing Jaal by both destroying both the facility and killing Akksul would lead to him distancing himself from Ryder in shipboard conversations yet at any other moment he would continue his development of growing close to Ryder and the crew. One might expect that with tighter control of the roleplaying experence the writer could anticipate on such fallouts, Maybe make Jaal leave the squad all together. Drack is similiar by making the choice to save the Salarians and keeping the drive core but here the writers once again failed to anticpate that the buddy narrative could be broken at some point.

Likewise, while character development is improved from the trilogy there appears to be no penalty for ignoring it. Outside of captain Dunn's surivial, which is tied to Cora's Loyalty quest, one can just race through the critical pad an still get "we're a team" comments from squadmates in the epilogue. Even a strictly proffesional Ryder is poorly acknowleged by crew and narrative.