I am a Mass Effect fan and I played the trilogy so often I lost count. This is why we should try to avoid past mistakes with ME:Andromeda. Complaining after the fact is pointless, right now is the time for feedback. These are my thoughts, wishes and hopes:
My most important wish is that ME:A is consistent. I wish for story and gameplay to go together, to not contradict each other. Mass Effect is inconsistent in so many ways, because BioWare made things up as they expanded their universe and by doing so retconned or simply ignored the lore from previous games. One example: ME1 contains a side story about the biotics with L2 implants, who suffer because of them. Kaidan is one of them. But when you check the inventory, then he's using the same implant as every other biotic... and you can easily give him a better one, too. Gameplay contradicts the story. [Edit:] This was my mistake and it has been explained properly ingame.
Similiar issue: Shepard can learn biotic bonus talents even as non biotic without an implant.
There are dozens of examples and some can make you question the entire trilogy. BioWare can do better this time.
Realism
As entertaining as the games are, they still have their fair share of flaws and issues. ME will never be hard sci-fi, it will always be futuristic fantasy in space. It's too late to change that but we can try to not make it any worse.
So while nothing will change the impossible biology of the established species, the law of physics defying technology or the mindboggling mistakes various species made, we can at least make sure the new planets are scientifically sound. This time there shouldn't be solid mercury in temperate climates (not to mention pure and above ground) nor should we simply plant a flag on top of a ton of pure uranium. Different planets should have differenty gravity, too.
Finding resources is one thing, but how do we actually get them? Probing planets in ME2 was awful, because it made no sense. The probe itself couldn't land, mine the ore, process and refine it and then fly back to the Normandy. The probe only located it. How did we get it then? Was there some kind of Cerberus support fleet that followed us around? And how would that have worked when we probed planets in Geth space? Or colonized worlds with millions of settlers? You could probe planets fully claimed by mining companies and no one cared. It would like to see that addressed properly in ME:A.
Another issue that always bothered me: Shepard's armor has almost no pockets. How the hell did they manage to carry all that gear in ME1? Or the resources in ME2? This time we shouldn't be able to pick up anything except for small trinkets (that also means no RNG loot). Instead we scan stuff with our omni-tool and either sell the information, use it to replicate objects or use it for our own scientific advancement. Exploring new star systems and planets and creating maps would be just one way to earn money.
Speaking of selling stuff... is there even an economy? Do we have money? It is unlikely that our fleet would use actual money and we definitely don't have money any civilisation in Andromeda would accept.
Money wouldn't be important at all, we'd trade in resources and information instead. Our fleet needs water, food, fuel and raw materials for repairs... in fact, we wouldn't get very far without that. Think of Battlestar Galactica, only less chaotic and more advanced. We couldn't just jump around all over Andromeda, we will have to secure our fuel sources first.
Oh, and of course the technology in Andromeda would not conform to our standards. So we'd better not find any ammo (aka thermal clips) we can use, not without adapting our weapons to the local standard or switching to particle weapons that don't need ammo. Please do not go back to the ME1 weapons or pretend you have found a cooling solution that replaces thermal packs. All those weapons violate physical laws. Especially weapons like the Falcon, Venom, Acolyte, Graal, Typhoon etc. They create matter out of nothing. The explanation provided in the Codex doesn't work. It would have been better to switch to actual ammo in ME2, with the suits providing the energy for the weapon's mass effect fields.
Back to planets: Please take care not to have the same species of animals on different planets unless you can think of a valid explanation how they got there. Thresher Maws are nonsense. Even if we accept the premise of a lifeform that consumes anorganic matter and can adapt to a multitude of hostile environments, there is still no explanation how they got everywhere unless the Protheans just transplanted them to uninhabited planets for shits and giggles. All Tresher Maws come from Kalross, on Tuchanka. Let's ignore the fact that Kalross would have to fire her eggs out at escape velocity to get them into orbit, the Milky Way is 100.000 lightyears across and the eggs don't use the relays nor do they come even close to lightspeed. To successfully seed even a dozen planets all over the galaxy Kalross would have to shoot sextillions of eggs into space, something no galactic civilisation could ignore. And the Krogan would have very weird legends about it, too.
So... please do not copy & paste lifeforms again. Thanks!
In fact, you should get a scientific advisor for the game. I don't know... get Neil deGrasse Tyson to voice our scientific officer on board of our ship and then trick him into giving you advice. He loves doing that anyway. Btw... our exploration fleet does have scientists on board, right? We aren't just military, I hope.
With Frostbite3 it should be possible to create realistic planets and what we saw in the teaser trailer looked great. Please try not to re-use the same buildings all over again. On settled worlds we should see signs of civilisation. Roads for example. Maybe a few ruins or trash. Terraforming. Mining. Please don't just place a base or settlement on the planet and have it surrounded by untouched nature.
The maps will probably be rather large, so try to fill them with interesting features. If we travel in the new Mako a lot, then some empty stretches can be forgiven. Otherwise make the maps smaller. You can't go for open world anyway.
Gameplay
It shouldn't have to be said but after DA:I it is necessary: Do not try to copy another franchise or game. Stick with your own. Only use elements from other games if they make sense for ME:A, if they are necessary. Don't just add features because „Skyrim did it and it sold well“ or anything like that. Just don't. Or do you want to waste resources on two dozen useless mounts again?
Don't pad the game with filler content, with MMO style time sinks or artificial barriers like minimum level requirements for areas. Please keep in mind that most players do not want to do tedious chores to earn the right to have fun.
The gameplay improved and mature over the course of the trilogy. Mass Effect 3 had really good gameplay, so we should take it and improve it even further without changing too much. The omni-button has to go, different buttons for sprint, evade, cover and use are almost mandatory. No longer will try to revive a fallen soldier instead of evading. No longer will we stick to walls and corners instead of sprinting. Seriously, this is an actual issue, especially in multiplayer.
Give us a proper cover mechanic, that allows us to go prone or squat so we aren't depending on artificially created battle fields with convienently placed cover. Make cover more rare but give us better evasion mechanics instead (I see we've got jetpacks now).
Ammo should be rare as well. Aside from the tech issue mentioned earlier, there was way too much ammo all over the games. You basically never ran out. Making ammo rare would introduce a tactical element into the game and give less powerful weapons a chance as sidearm. Plus, it's just more realistic than finding ammo all over a building site or an alien space ship.
Allow us to use any number of weapons in any slot we want, even several of the same type. I'm not talking about dual wielding Claymores, but carrying two pistols or two SMGs. You'd still only use one at a time though. Each of the five weapon slots on the armor could hold any type of gun. Oh, and maybe we should think about the placement of those slots again because there is no way a Krogan would ever be able to reach the AR or SR slot on top of his hump. 
How the weapons are displayed ingame is another matter that never really worked well. Not only do pistols and SMGs share the same position on the left hip (and overwrite each other) but in many, many cutscenes the wrong weapon was displayed (Avenger, Predator). Please try to use the actually equipped gun in cutscenes. Thank you.
Being hurt needs to be less dramatic than the red tinted screen and the muffled audio. Since several such screen effects can be active at the same time (Krogan Rage, Geth Scanner/Hunter Mode, hazard conditions of the map) visibility is almost zero. Close to death is when your senses need to get sharper, not duller.
Someone shooting a weapon or using a power close to you should not result in a screenshake for you.
Powers and passive abilities in ME3 work fine for the most part, I don't think those should be simplified (looking at you, DA:I skill trees). If anything, they can be expanded on. Some powers shouldn't go through walls (Snap Freeze) but otherwise what we have works nicely (MP version, SP is still hilarious broken). One needed change would be to seperate Fitness and Melee into seperate trees or adding them to the class passives because the character that needs fitness most is the melee one... only now you can only spec either or, not both.
No crafting. At all. I'd even discourage the weapon upgrades because those are nonsense. Instead we need more different weapons and a few more weapon mods. Perhaps allow more mods for each weapon, I don't know. It would make a lot more sense than having 10 different and slightly better versions of the same gun.
Armor. I'd love to go back to the N7 armor. In ME3 there was no point in ever using it because the full suits were much, much better. Especially the Cerberus ones.
How about having only one suit that we can fully customize? Upgrade each part with technology we acquire during the game, perhaps unlock additional styles? Only the appearance should be seperate from the effect – some really good parts were ugly as hell.
Oh, and let's not forget that armor always needs a helmet. There is no point in wearing heavy armor with upgraded shields if the head is vulnerable. I would like to see helmets that fold away into the collar of our suit for conversations. Or something similiar.
No visors, no sunglasses... proper closed helmets with air filters and supply. Because we're in space and/or on unknown planets.
Please give vehicle combat some thought. In ME1 I never defeat a single enemy in the Mako, I always get out and fight on foot because that gives so much more exp. What's my incentive in ME:A to use the Mako? It should be better than „It is not possible to leave the vehicle at this time“ but not so great that I'll play the entire game from behind the wheel.
If there is different gravity on the planets, then the Mako's behaviour should reflect that. Or at least make it less bouncy than in ME1. ^^
Also important gameplay issue: A protagonist who can dance. Seriously. It's a miracle that Shepard got anyone into bed with that performance on the dance floor.
Companions and romances
I would love it if we weren't limited to two companions and could take our entire squad with us. It would open up so many options. It's probably not going to happen though but perhaps we could assign tasks to the companions we do not take with us on the mission. Garrus was always calibrating something, imagine if that would have made a difference. Maybe leaving the marksman behind on the ship means it takes less damage during evac because he was manning a turret. Leaving the engineer behind might mean less resources needed for repairs. There are lots of possibilities.
At the same time it should be possible to go solo, too.
Please give us new companions, crew and contacts. I don't think we should see old faces again, a clear cut is necessary for a fresh start in a new galaxy. That means no grandkids of people from the original trilogy as companions. As funny as it would be to have another Varkarian on board, people would constantly compare him to Garrus and he could never live up to his ancestor. Even if you make her a total badass female. Same for Kolyat Krios, Wrex's kids or whatever else is possible without invalidating the different endings.
I'd love to see more friendships or rivalries. You can be close to someone without making out. You can work together with someone who wants to outdo you.
The companions should hang out together, wander around the ship, have lives of their own. ME3 already did that for the most part. I really enjoyed Tali and Garrus hooking up if you don't pursue either. We need more of that... not just in the romantic sense but people becoming close friends, too.
Speaking of romances, I would like them to be optional but still important. If you don't care about them, then you shouldn't miss out on experience or items. Romances should give the player more options (and fuzzy feels, of course). For example... if you romanced Bastila in KotOR, then the game offered you an additional way to resolve her encounter in the endgame.
What I am saying is that a romance should matter. NPCs and companions need to react to it, the game should reflect the changed status. I don't want a situation where outside of three conversations and two cutscenes everything stayed the same. Well, depends on if the writers can fit that into the story.
Before we get to the story part... the dialogue wheel could be improved, too. Top right for Paragon and bottom right for Renegade is too simplistic. Give us more choices, choices that actually matter and are different from each other. None of that „say No in three different ways“ crap DA:I pulled. We play on big screens now, use that space to show us more of our possible answer.
Maybe go back to the DA2 mechanic with the three different personalities. Sarcastic/funny Hawke was so awesome, imagine the first contact with a new species in ME:A like that. 
The Story
Please, please, please create a logical story. Think it through from all perspectives. Please try to make the villain(s) intelligent without dumbing down our protagonist. The minimum would be to keep the Evil Overlord list in mind when writing the villain(s). Please, I beg you. If I have to go up against yet another hyper intelligent being that makes hilariously stupid mistakes... well... I won't be happy.
Make the story big, give us long main missions and don't lock them behind minimum requirements. Side missions should tie into the main ones in some way, they should make the main mission easier or ensure the loyality of your companions or your new allies. Perhaps tie them to exploration or resources.
Please only add a moderate amount of fetch quests and make the collections fun and easy. ME had the fish and ship models plus a few unique items like the N7 helmet, the husk head, the Prothean sphere and, of course, the space hamster. That was exactly the right amount and difficulty. Keep it that way please. Do not go back to ME1 or DA:I where you had to go through the entire game with a fine comb to find everything.
I already mentioned it but it bears repeating: Please do not pad the game with filler content or time sinks. A game with 50 hours of 100% enjoyable and interesting content is much better than 100 hours of 50% fun. Although 100+ hours that are all awesome would be best. ^^
BioWare's strength had always been story telling. Not that the stories were completely unique (or even all that good) themselves but the way they got told made the games so good. Clever use of tropes (and/or averting them) is something I hope we get to see in ME:A. We don't necessarily need a twist in the third act but I find the best stories are those I can't predict from the beginning.
Please keep some humour in the serious story, ME2 is a great example for that. Dazzle us with awesome and funny dialogue again, make us love or hate the characters. This is your strong point, please do not let us down.
The pacing of the story needs to take gameplay into account. I never liked it when a game told me that something is extremely urgent and then let me dick around forever before I felt ready to start with the main story. Skyrim is one offender but ME1 isn't any better. Right after you become a Spectre you get three missions: Find Liara, Geth sightings on Noveria and Feros is being attacked by Geth. Not only do you get Noveria and Feros too soon considering your current level/abilities, but they are fullblown crises. A hostile synthetic species has been sighted on a colony world... or so you are told... and no one cares. Another colony is under attack... and only you bother to show up and help. That just makes no sense and if the missions would have been acquired under different circumstances, then it would have been better for the pacing. For example... investigating Saren would show that he has substantial investments in Binary Helix, so that would be the reason to go to Noveria. That would make more sense and feel less urgent. Looking into the finances of a fugitive is a less pressing issue than looking for a missing unit of marines or a captured freighter. Know what I mean? 
Please be careful with AIs and synthetic lifeforms. We already got through that storyline in the trilogy, there is no reason to do it again in ME:A.
Similiar issue would be uplifting a local species to use as allies against the enemy. Although it would be interesting to hear the reactions of the Salarian, Turian and Krogan crew members to it, that's a can of worms we already opened.
I'm not saying don't do it or don't mention it... but it shouldn't be the main focus again.
Perhaps it's time to step away from the clear cut Paragon/Renegade decisions and allow things to become a little more murky, allow morality to be a little more grey. Sometimes there are no good choices, only less evil ones. If you are between a rock and a hard place, if you are fighting for survival, then you don't have the luxury of keeping to your honor, to your moral high ground. A exploration fleet far from home confronted with new enemies would fit in such a scenario.
Maybe you encounter two species who are at war and you need to pick a side. Do you choose the honorable but less advanced natives who are all natural biotics or do you choose the slavers who have a space fleet they use to raid the natives constantly? One choice will be morally good but cost you much, perhaps too much. The other choice will be morally evil but give you an ally you don't need to uplift... if you can ignore them holding slaves.
I think it would make the game more interesting if the consequences would only be visible later on. If you don't know what's going to happen, if you have to trust your intuition. Well, at least until someone posts a walkthrough.
Minor point: I know that BioWare is a company from the US and Canada, so a certain amount of patriotism and soldier worship is understandable. But please take into account that this game will be sold worldwide and not every culture is as enthusiastic about war and military conflict. ME3 was over the top with their speeches and honestly, it felt weird. Just my opinion though.
Tech and other stuff
Please make a proper port for every platform. That means the PC version needs to be able to do everything the console versions can do right from the start (DA:I PC: couldn't walk, only sprint).
A mouse isn't a controller and that needs to be reflected in the menus of the game. An inventory that only shows 4 items at a time is a disgrace to PC games. I'm not asking for Excel here, but if the DA:I menus had been developed for PC, then they would have looked very different.
I know EA wants to promote AMD's Mantle and that's okay. It even makes sense since the Xbox One and the PS4 contain AMD CPUs and GPUs. But please, please remember that at least 50% of the PC gamers are using Nvidia, which means DirectX.
Even better, DirectX 12 allows software to use every piece of hardware that is available. Which means it uses all CPUs, RAM, GPUs and VRAM in the computer no matter if it's Intel, AMD or Nvidia. That means a performance increase for virtually every machine. I wouldn't be surprised if the consoles got it as an update, too.
So let's hope we won't see the DA:I bugs and crashes again. Now that BioWare has more experience with the Frostbite3 engine I expect better from them.
I think it goes without saying that ME:A shouldn't be developed for the 360 or PS3. I doubt they ever considered it, but sometimes I like to make sure.
There should not be any savegame limitations for PC. If possible, then modding should be supported.
I hope for proper QA this time around. Yes, large projects will always have bugs and we understand that. What I don't understand are game design decisions that are blantantly, obviously stupid. Sorry BioWare. But DAMP was far from being a masterpiece. Why did no one realize that adding stats to every MP character each time you promoted one would imbalance the game? You should at least have implemented a limit.
ME3 multiplayer is still busy three years later. Not bad for a side project. I fully expect to see MP in ME:A, too. Just don't change too much and don't make the mistakes from DAMP all over again. Less RNG would be welcome, too. Allow us to buy the gear we want instead of giving us stuff we don't need.
Final thoughts
This is BioWare's chance to blow everyone else out of the water. They have an excellent game engine that was made for this type of game, they have an entire new galaxy to play with and half the lore is canon already. They don't have to start from scratch is what I am saying.
Unless they make a cash grab with cut content as DLC, MP shenanigans or overpriced but ultimatively worthless collectors editions, unless they rush the release date, unless they dumb the game down or unless they make another terrible port this game will be good.
BioWare always had the potential for great games and if they need to work on it half a year longer to make it even better, then they should do so.
TL;DR
Go back to the top and read it, ya lazy bum.
Retour en haut
