The "Open World" Compromise

Is a hypocrite not a valid character? Or a two-faced charlatan?
Freedom will always come at the cost of reactivity, and personally, I prefer reactivity. I'll always take a Geralt over a Dragonborn. However, I'm primarily concerned about games being the best incarnations of themselves, and if Andromeda is attempting big open world, I'll judge it on those terms. And in almost every category, Andromeda just pales in comparison to its competition.

Yes, rollplaying is in your head. That's how it works. You invent a history and a psychology for your character and you play accordingly. I'm not too big on it (unless its actual tabletop rollplaying), but I do like to indulge in some of the mechanical affordances of rollplaying games, namely their greater mechanical freedom. In Skyrim I can tackle enemy forts in any manner I please, weaving stealth, magic, and brute force together in all sorts of weird ways. That's a direct consequence of the game's open world design. Andromeda, on the other hand, is just a shooter with bigger levels. It doesn't really leverage its openness in any other way but attack vector.
I can't stand Ryder. The writing doesn't help, but I'm not a fan of younger protagonists, and a bit more Renegade badassery wouldn't hurt. Regardless of my opinion though, a BioWare protagonist is never going to stack up against a Bethesda game or a CRPG in terms of player freedom, and that prevents BioWare from ever fully achieving the full breadth of what an open world has to offer. Not that they need to, but if they're taking on all the genre's problems (bugs, lack of polish, inconsistent pacing, etc.) they might as well make use of its benefits more.
Which is never what I advocated. I've never praised a Bethesda game for good quest design (I don't think). In fact, I find their often linear quest systems to be fairly counterproductive within the context of an open world. What I praise Bethesda for is world design. No, none of the content is particularly amazing on its own, but if you're at least moderately entertained by the game's systems, simply navigating the world will enhance your experience. This is because Bethesda knows how to pace an open world. They know precisely how far apart each dungeon, quest, and point of interest should be, and they know how to pad all that walking out with random encounters. What I want BioWare to do is take note of this for their world design. I'd rather BioWare dropped the open world, but if they're intent on keeping it, then it's important that they construct them in a way that enhances the game's core systems rather than just pad out game time.
My preferences align almost entirely with yours. That's why I'm disappointed in Andromeda. I wanted a more well-paced game with more consistent writing, less bugs, less compromises with the combat system, etc.. I probably said it in the post you quoted me on, but Andromeda is trying to be two things and failing at both. It's trying to be an open world, but it doesn't leverage that genre's affordances nearly enough, and it's trying to be a highly choreographed cinematic shooter, but it doesn't have enough polish and pacing.[/quote][/quote]

Good reply thanks.  Like I said, if I want to make a character entirely from scratch then I'll write a story. I also have no interest in watching a film where I have to head cannon everything about the lead protagonist. A hypocrit is fine, as long as I can be one within the written work, not at willy nilly. I also want to make the games the best they can be, which is why I said compare with Witcher, because it integrates the plot and side content better than Andromeda (it's also better than every other RPG on the market but I haven't noticed it being used to bludgeon those with). I completely understand the issues you have, and can agree with them (althought not to the extent of your disappointment). What I took issue with was the comparison of roleplaying. Andromeda may not give the player as many options as it should, but compared to zero I would still give it the lead. Being able to do consequential things freely in the game, with only your own head justification for them, is roleplaying in only the most techincal sense. Like I said, it's the aquivalent of going off and writing a story on your own, but not one integreated into the game your playing. I still give any Bioware game the edge on that. As far as the other issues, I agree totally, althought even taken cumulatively the bugs in Andromeda are less and less troublesome than in many others I have played. In fact on both my attempted plathroughs of Skyrim I quit when a bug would have made me redo an entire long quest line just to undo it. I didn't enjoy playing though it the first time and I wasn't going to be made to do so again.  Again, thanks for the reasoned response. We are probably closer to each others positions than not, just at an inverse proportion of disappointment. 

Sorry, probably should have cut your quote out.  I wasn't so much replying directly to you, just in general.  Your post was just the one that triggered my thoughts.

 I am not comparing it...my only main gripe was on the "roleplaying" is better in TES. If you reread everything I actually said I was dissuading comparisons. If you like TES (I would rather be beaten in the head with a mallet rather than play them again) that is fine. But there is no in game playing of a role unless you make it up entirely in your head. The proper comparison with MEA is Wicther or games like it, and that is what I said.

It is fun being a controversy magnet!  

There is no argument. The issue was character choices in TES, of which you get zero besided race and gender. I wasn't speaking of RP in a complete sense.  And sure you might have to make up some head canon in Bioware games, but not the entire thing.

 Ah...I care mostly about the character based roleplaying, so I can't really comment much on this side of things. If what you desceribe is true, hope it gets better with these games in the future for you.