Mass Effect Andromeda: To Boldly Go

[Inarius]

Surely that depends entirely on how good the AI is? Doesn't matter how frenetic the *multiplayer* combat can be if the AIs you're fighting in single player barely fight back, which I've heard is a complaint about the game--how true is that?

Not very, it more has to do with player power creep imo. You can get your ass kicked pretty hard in the early game due to being fairly flimsy combined with enemies who are designed to pin you down while you get flanked by other enemies. Once you get the right gear and skills though you pretty much can just wade into the middle of a pack of enemies while yelling "I will destroy you!" and win without breaking a sweat.

[SangoProduction]

Kidding aside, on my Origin store page I still see all the options, so not sure what the problem is on your end.

Just another case of why Origin isn't a good store page. Whatever. At least the game doesn't crash...wait...nvm. Oh...and I can't quit origin because it's still running...while it's not running.... Good god, Origin!

EDIT: Oh. Cool. Well, I force quit origin, and I try running it again. Crash.

God damn you EA and your unskippable bull**** cutscenes!

OK. Fourth time's the charm....and after an hour of cutscenes and crashes, I find out my character was a soldier instead of a stealth. God damn this really sucks.

[Morty]

In other news I completed Eos's main quest for now and I have a bunch of research points. Unfortunately, I also have a lot of option paralysis. Darn you limited research budget.

Don't forget having to gather specific minerals first. I can already tell research, crafting and equipment are going to be Fun. In the capital-F, Dwarf Fortress kind of way. I just want to make a sword, how hard can it be? And it looks like if I want a shotgun, I'll need to go buy one.

[Psyren]

Surely that depends entirely on how good the AI is? Doesn't matter how frenetic the *multiplayer* combat can be if the AIs you're fighting in single player barely fight back, which I've heard is a complaint about the game--how true is that?

The multiplayer is just horde mode so it's not like it's not representative.You're fighting the same enemies and using the same guns, the maps are just smaller.

Ultimately the only one who can judge is you, go watch videos or play the game.

Just another case of why Origin isn't a good store page. Whatever. At least the game doesn't crash...wait...nvm. Oh...and I can't quit origin because it's still running...while it's not running.... Good god, Origin!

EDIT: Oh. Cool. Well, I force quit origin, and I try running it again. Crash.

God damn you EA and your unskippable bull**** cutscenes!

OK. Fourth time's the charm....and after an hour of cutscenes and crashes, I find out my character was a soldier instead of a stealth. God damn this really sucks.

I don't have any of these issues and I'm in it for hours at a time. I think your computer might be playing a role here.

[Chen]

Spoiler rant: Murder Sidequest

Spoiler

Show

Okay, Bioware, there is an objectively correct answer to this problem, and you are not providing it. The correct answer is to throw out the murder conviction and hold a new trial for attempted murder. I don't care how much time the leadership team doesn't think it has, they've been sitting on their asses getting picked off by aliens for 14 months, they can take an afternoon to hold what borderlines on a kangaroo court. As the director said, this is the Initiative's first capital crime and they are setting a precedent for their justice system for the rest of the project's duration, and the options I am being given do not contain "do it right", but instead letting me choose between a system that suppresses evidence for the convenience of the State and a system where attempted murder is not a crime. So, yeah, **** you whoever wrote this sidequest.

Actually

Spoiler

Show

I'm not sure in reality that would work. If you were convicted of murder, then something threw out the conviction, I don't think you can get retried for attempted murder for the same incident. It's double-jeopardy. I guess there are some exceptions to how the conviction was thrown out, but insufficient evidence doesn't seem to be one that gets around double-jeopardy.

Not to mention that the Initiative don't really have the resources to lock someone up permanently anyways. Seems like the community service option would be correct if you're throwing out the conviction. Personally I deemed him still worthy of exile so just sent him off regardless.

[RagingKrikkit]

Ah, the joys of being a console peasant.

I think he was being self-deprecating. As in the "I am a 'console peasant' who everyone looks down on, my game only needs a small update and I'm in though". That's how I read it, anyhow.

Yeah, that's what I meant: sometimes being a console peasant has its advantages. In truth, my "gaming" laptop is about 5 years out of date, so I pick up my AAAs on console and get the interesting stuff on PC.

Also: I logged onto the multiplayer yesterday and it gave me a bonus pack for owning ME3, even though I switched from X360 to PS4 (probably because the username was the same). It wasn't a particularly exciting pack, but it was certainly unexpected.

Team Impressions (Pre-Loyalty missions)

Spoiler

Show

Cora presents herself as a loose canon. Maybe she's just that far out of whack because of the first mission, but she's carrying Jack-grade biotics and a whirlwind of personal issues. She hasn't acted in a way to cause doubt, but I'm still wary of her.

Liam is an idealist. I can respect that. He is also a risk-taker, and I can respect that too. The problem is that when you put those two traits together, you can end up with somebody who jumps into situations without being ready for them to go to hell. His remarks about leaving the police force being for everyone's good sounds to me like he got his ass kicked out and is trying to shove the whole thing to the back of his mind, which I read as matching with the doctor's warning that he's not ready for when something does go wrong.

Vetra strikes me as Fem!Garrus; do the right thing, damn the legality. I also suspect that she's going to be one of the more popular romance options.

When making Drack, somebody must have asked how they could one-up Wrex. The answer: make him even older. Drack has been through and killed so much **** that he can afford to not give damn. If you were sitting at a table laughing and joking with Drack and decided to pull a gun on him, he'd still be laughing five seconds later as he crushed your skull underfoot. He's got nothing left to get angry over and now he's just having the best retirement ever.

Peebee needs a little Volus buddy named Jay. That's all I got. I can't tell if she has trust issues or just an overactive sense of drama, and the fact that she lives in an escape pod could point to either.

Finally, Jaal. Jaal is interesting. He lacks the fatalistic edge of Javik, but keeps the air of "if I really wanted to, I could kill everyone here". Actually, "Javik 2.0" really does feel like an appropriate metaphor for him, his situation and his relationship to the antagonists. He's probably going to be the other very popular love interest.

[RagingKrikkit]

Actually

Spoiler

Show

I'm not sure in reality that would work. If you were convicted of murder, then something threw out the conviction, I don't think you can get retried for attempted murder for the same incident. It's double-jeopardy. I guess there are some exceptions to how the conviction was thrown out, but insufficient evidence doesn't seem to be one that gets around double-jeopardy.

Not to mention that the Initiative don't really have the resources to lock someone up permanently anyways. Seems like the community service option would be correct if you're throwing out the conviction. Personally I deemed him still worthy of exile so just sent him off regardless.

Spoiler

Show

Well, I'm not an expert on what constitutes double-jeopardy, but if we're building an inevitably screwed justice system here, "allow double-jeopardy" seems as valid an option as "allow the state to suppress evidence".

[Psyren]

Spoiler

Show

Well, I'm not an expert on what constitutes double-jeopardy, but if we're building an inevitably screwed justice system here, "allow double-jeopardy" seems as valid an option as "allow the state to suppress evidence".

There are actually considerable constitutional benefits to having double jeopardy in a legal system, and considerable ramifications if it is removed. Doing so shifts the balance of power strongly in favor of the state, which can simply throw charges at an undesirable citizen or entity until one sticks.

[warty goblin]

Played another two hours or so last night. Made it to the first for reals planet.

The writing is still mostly bleh. There's obvious maximally dumb moments ("my face is tired") to be sure, but it's mostly just the reams of personality-free people who won't shut up. Granted, I was very much playing the 'first village'* section of the game last night, and I find this section of an RPG to be generally not the most interesting, but dear me, this was a very dull first village. Travel to a distant galaxy, see what look like an upscale law office, and meet petty bureaucrats in offices!

(To be fair, Mass Effect did this too, when you got to the citadel. On the other hand, you had a definite goal in going to the citadel, and within the limits of the engine at the time, they really did try to make an interesting space filled with fun stuff and cool aliens. Here my goal was literally go here, talk to a squillion people I haven't seen before and don't care about, and the place really is boringly corporate feeling)


Exploration is fun. I like the life support system, particularly that your suit's life support doesn't instantly recharge when you get back in the not-a-Mako. It makes it seem like a genuine resource that you have to watch. I mean it doesn't seem like running out is going to be much of a problem if you pay any attention to it, but it's there, and I like that. Somehow the new vehicle still drives like crap though, driving a Warthog around Halo was way more fun than this thing is, and that was 15 years ago. Planet scanning is dull as mud. Again. Why is this even here? Having to scan every single thing is gonna get rather old as well.


Combat remains fine. Some of the fights are hard! I expect this will of course fall apart after I'm no longer level zilch point squat, but it's nice the game at least briefly manages a proper difficulty. I wish they'd gone for something like Rise of the Tomb Raider's XP bonuses for chaining headshots together, because that turns out to be a whole lot of fun.


I hate everything about the interface though. It controls awkwardly on a 360 controller, does a crappy job of using screen real estate, and buries everything behind layers of pointless obfuscation. The quest system is unusually bad, but nothing about this is good, and they explain it for crap. For instance, I can change guns by holding X, instead of pausing the game to go into the inventory. Nowhere is this explained that I can tell, I just stumbled upon it last night by accident. Getting into the not-a-Mako is press Y, getting out is press B, because that makes sense. I still have no idea how to use consumable items like incendiary ammo. It doesn't seem to make anything like efficient use of multiple-input commands either, but it sure does spend time making you ride a train to run to an office to listen to the game yammer about the terrible in-universe explanation for why you can only have three powers active at a time.

(Games, please, for the love of all that is holy, stop making me listen to blather about the in-universe justification for stupid limitation. It's a game, the controls and computing power limit the available options, I know this. Pretending like it makes sense because of a magic hologram said so is just embarrassing for everybody involved)

(Also, quest design. If a character has a radio, or literally lives in my head, do not make me go somewhere to talk to them. This should not be a difficult concept to grasp, nobody ever played a quest and went 'yeah, this needs more pointless running around!')






*By which I mean that portion of an RPG where you've finished the combat tutorial/you are now the chosen one segment, get to the first village, and the game promptly chainsaw-murders all its forward momentum by making you talk to about seven zillion people and loads you down with a bucket of sidequests.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

I'm not sure if this is even the correct thread anymore, but.

After over a year of idleness I logged back on to ME3 to run around in multiplayer, clear out some of the lingering challenges (I find Vanguards in multiplayer can be iffy). To my surprise I actually managed to find public groups without waiting forever. For an unsupported game, I find that impressive.

It's still as fun as I remember. Other than getting nothing but consumables out of my Premium Spectre pack, and having my credits magically disappear after a couple of the games, I had a blast.

[RagingKrikkit]

There are actually considerable constitutional benefits to having double jeopardy in a legal system, and considerable ramifications if it is removed. Doing so shifts the balance of power strongly in favor of the state, which can simply throw charges at an undesirable citizen or entity until one sticks.

I suppose this is now a "design Andromeda's legal system" thread. I propose that the introduction of potentially verdict-alterig evidene (abusable if not properly defined and controlled) should warrant a retrial on more accurate charges. Going to the 5th Ammendment of the US Constitution, people are protected from being tried twice for "the same offence", and I am not enough of a legal expert to say if that applies to the action (point weapon and fire) or the charge (murder), though I suspect the former because the latter leaves room for somebody to try and say "my client was charged for X Y years ago, so you can't charge him with X again." I propose instead a case structure of: attainment of probable cause/warrant, arrest (incl. reading of rights), investigation (incl. evidence gathering), trial on most appropriate charges, and--if applicable--sentencing. Any new evidence emerging afterward, weither it is anticipated to increase or decrease severity of charges/likelihood of guilt, would then mandate the previous judgement be discarded and a new trial held, possibly with modified charges.

Any laywers here who can tell me how horrible this plan is?

EDIT: So, the above was written with more cut and dry cases (such as the sidequest) in mind, let's try to form a system for something more obtuse, say a smuggler. From the initial cause for suspicion (names being named in interrogations, keeps showing up near smuggling activity, etc.), the police are allowed to perform non-invasive surveillance (tailing vehicles, investigating garbage, etc.) and may seek a warrant for invasive surveillance (monitoring communications and the like). Both of these means are meant to catch current activity, rather than hunt for records. If caught red-handed, an arrest can be made on the spot and the system proceed as outlined above. If there is mounting evidence but not enough to make an arrest, the police may attempt to gain a search warrant (wither a single warrant encompasses all of the suspect's property or individual warrants need to be issued for their home, their office, the computers within, etc., I invite input) and a uniformed officer must inform the suspect at the time the police begin searching (or should they be allowed to search a place/gain access to a computer or server without the suspect's presence and knowledge? Should this require another form of warrant? I'm thinking this should be the point where they either make an arrest or apologize and back off.). If at this point incriminating evidence is found, the suspect is arrested, evidence seized and the process continues as above.

[tonberrian]

Personally I'm not too keen on exile as a punishment in general, but I can see the need with the colonies still growing. Still, I'm at least planning to try to open up dialogue with the main group of exiles, and I'd hope to eventually reincorporate them once I've path-found enough for a stable government.

[Squark]

Blegh. Changing the EA account my gamertag was tied to seems to have rendered me unable to connect to the EA servers with that gamertag (And only that gamertag- My sister's can connect fine ). EA support claims that the problem isn't on their end, but can anyone please explain how such a specific discrepancy can be anything but a problem with how they classify the account? I can't help but feel I've tripped up an anti-piracy measure, and they're just wasting my time to get me to stop bugging them.

EDIT: Finally got them to identify that the account change was the problem... But there's nothing they can do, and apparently I got given the wrong disclaimer. Blegh. The truly baffling thing? Other EA servers don't have this problem, since Battlefront connected fine.

[RagingKrikkit]

Personally I'm not too keen on exile as a punishment in general, but I can see the need with the colonies still growing. Still, I'm at least planning to try to open up dialogue with the main group of exiles, and I'd hope to eventually reincorporate them once I've path-found enough for a stable government.

With current resources, the Initative has three lines of possible sentences: Labor (community service, manual labor, etc.), Physical punishment (stocks, lashing, execution, etc.) and Exile. Biological realities preclude the potential of a life sentence of labor, so capital punishment possibilities come down to execution and exile. "GTFO our station" is simply the easiest solution with the least moral questions. Also complicating punishments are issues of lifespan: Salarians have half the lifespan of a Human, so a one-year punishment would take up twice as much of a Salarian's life, while it would be nothing to a Krogan or Asari. Should long-term punishments (1 year or above) be weighted by species life expectancy, then?

[Psyren]

I suppose this is now a "design Andromeda's legal system" thread.

No, you're right - shame on me for bringing it up. I'd rather the thread didn't get locked due to discussion of real world legal systems so I'll drop it.

I'm not sure if this is even the correct thread anymore, but.

After over a year of idleness I logged back on to ME3 to run around in multiplayer, clear out some of the lingering challenges (I find Vanguards in multiplayer can be iffy). To my surprise I actually managed to find public groups without waiting forever. For an unsupported game, I find that impressive.

It's still as fun as I remember. Other than getting nothing but consumables out of my Premium Spectre pack, and having my credits magically disappear after a couple of the games, I had a blast.

If you like ME3MP then you'll definitely like Andromeda's. It's that plus jetpacks basically.

(Also, quest design. If a character has a radio, or literally lives in my head, do not make me go somewhere to talk to them. This should not be a difficult concept to grasp, nobody ever played a quest and went 'yeah, this needs more pointless running around!')

The issue is that while SAM lives in your head, the reverse is not true. Everyone would hear your responses to him, and he had some pretty confidential stuff to talk to you about.

Also, from a purely artistic perspective... it's just a little bit more awe-inspiring to be debating the nature of your symbiotic existence as what amounts to essentially an all-new lifeform, while face-to-face with a large being of light in a solemn chamber, than it would be to do so while jogging past the bathroom or wedged between some crates somewhere. And at least you can run at a decent clip while not in your body armor, unlike the OT.

*By which I mean that portion of an RPG where you've finished the combat tutorial/you are now the chosen one segment, get to the first village, and the game promptly chainsaw-murders all its forward momentum by making you talk to about seven zillion people and loads you down with a bucket of sidequests.

Er... no one made you do any of that. You could have simply went to the docking bay and set out after talking to Tann, you know. It feels like you're complaining that sidequests (optional ones, at that) even exist.

[RagingKrikkit]

No, you're right - shame on me for bringing it up. I'd rather the thread didn't get locked due to discussion of real world legal systems so I'll drop it.

I meant that in a good way, I'm enjoying it. We're still discussing the game and its universe, even if we have to take real-world reference to do it. Besides, it's politics that's banned, not law. They can get intertwined, but I don't think we're overstepping any bounds here.

[Anteros]

Er... no one made you do any of that. You could have simply went to the docking bay and set out after talking to Tann, you know. It feels like you're complaining that sidequests (optional ones, at that) even exist.

And miss out on half the content of the game? Personally I like sidequests and town exploration, but wishing the narrative was more focused is a perfectly valid complaint someone can make about this type of game. It's a complete preference thing. I totally understand not wanting to spend 3 hours talking to every man, woman, and animal in a town in order to make sure I don't miss some future content that I'd actually care about.

There are going to be things people like, and things people don't like. You don't have to get upset (ok maybe upset is too strong a word, but I can't think of a better one) every time someone voices a criticism.

[Squark]

And miss out on half the content of the game? Personally I like sidequests and town exploration, but wishing the narrative was more focused is a perfectly valid complaint someone can make about this type of game. It's a complete preference thing. I totally understand not wanting to spend 3 hours talking to every man, woman, and animal in a town in order to make sure I don't miss some future content that I'd actually care about.

There are going to be things people like, and things people don't like. You don't have to get upset (ok maybe upset is too strong a word, but I can't think of a better one) every time someone voices a criticism.

I'm guessing Psyren's reaction was more of confusion at the word "made." I felt a similar way- It doesn't seem to be used in the right way. You don't have to do side quests if you don't want to unless a game has a "Wait and do side quests until you reach an in-game condition" mechanic like Inquisition's power requirements (Which thus far I haven't seen in the game). Yes, you do miss content, but it seems like Warty Goblin doesn't particularly like that content anyway.

[RagingKrikkit]

In other news: First new MP character: Krogan Gladiator. Pull, Annihilation (Field) and Nova. "GET OVER HERE!"

[Morty]

(Games, please, for the love of all that is holy, stop making me listen to blather about the in-universe justification for stupid limitation. It's a game, the controls and computing power limit the available options, I know this. Pretending like it makes sense because of a magic hologram said so is just embarrassing for everybody involved)

I have to agree. I understand why the favourites system exists, even if I don't particularly enjoy it. Power spam could get silly in ME3, and Ryder can pick whichever powers they want, unlike Shepard, not to mention cooldowns are no longer global. So restricting it makes sense. But explaining it by Ryder Senior's experiments feels unnecessary.

[RagingKrikkit]

I have to agree. I understand why the favourites system exists, even if I don't particularly enjoy it. Power spam could get silly in ME3, and Ryder can pick whichever powers they want, unlike Shepard, not to mention cooldowns are no longer global. So restricting it makes sense. But explaining it by Ryder Senior's experiments feels unnecessary.

If you do it right, you can make it work (or at least end up with a Kojima-level web of insanity). Andromeda... did not do it right. And that's before you start thinking about how Ryder Sr. taught himself biotics.

[Anteros]

I'm guessing Psyren's reaction was more of confusion at the word "made." I felt a similar way- It doesn't seem to be used in the right way. You don't have to do side quests if you don't want to unless a game has a "Wait and do side quests until you reach an in-game condition" mechanic like Inquisition's power requirements (Which thus far I haven't seen in the game). Yes, you do miss content, but it seems like Warty Goblin doesn't particularly like that content anyway.

But you do have to do them, unless you want to miss out on most of the content in the game. Especially given that Mass Effect games punish you for skipping them.

If I understand the criticism correctly, it's less that things like side quests exist, and more that the way you acquire them isn't very enjoyable, and breaks the flow of the narrative.

[Squark]

I have to agree. I understand why the favourites system exists, even if I don't particularly enjoy it. Power spam could get silly in ME3, and Ryder can pick whichever powers they want, unlike Shepard, not to mention cooldowns are no longer global. So restricting it makes sense. But explaining it by Ryder Senior's experiments feels unnecessary.

They're explaining why Ryder can make such radical changes, but your companions can't, though. I guess most of us just accepted that Shepard was much more adaptable than their squadmates, but it was a little odd, and given Ryder's relative inexperience, I can see why someone at Bioware thought they had to explain it.

Still, I can see why it might have a sort of midi-chlorian factor to it.

But you do have to do them, unless you want to miss out on most of the content in the game. Especially given that Mass Effect games punish you for skipping them.

If it's content you don't enjoy, you're not missing out on it. And the developers have said you aren't building toward anything like the suicide mission or push to earth (or at least, there's no in-game mechanics to measure how you're building toward it), so you're not being punished, either.

If I understand the criticism correctly, it's less that things like side quests exist, and more that the way you acquire them isn't very enjoyable, and breaks the flow of the narrative.

It's a problem that's almost omni-present in the genre, though. And frankly, ME2 and ME3's attempts to improve the system (Shepard gets a quest when they walk by a random person, and then later they stumble upon what that person was looking for) were at best a lateral move.

[tonberrian]

I remember respeccing being a big part of the advertising. I'm level 10 now, done a decent chunk of game, how do I shot respec?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I remember respeccing being a big part of the advertising. I'm level 10 now, done a decent chunk of game, how do I shot respec?

From what I picked up from an LP, in the doctor's office in the ship there is a machine to respec you.

GW

[Psyren]

I'm guessing Psyren's reaction was more of confusion at the word "made." I felt a similar way- It doesn't seem to be used in the right way. You don't have to do side quests if you don't want to unless a game has a "Wait and do side quests until you reach an in-game condition" mechanic like Inquisition's power requirements (Which thus far I haven't seen in the game). Yes, you do miss content, but it seems like Warty Goblin doesn't particularly like that content anyway.

Precisely this.

@Anteros: I'm not upset at all - just confused.

If it's content you don't enjoy, you're not missing out on it. And the developers have said you aren't building toward anything like the suicide mission or push to earth (or at least, there's no in-game mechanics to measure how you're building toward it), so you're not being punished, either.



It's a problem that's almost omni-present in the genre, though. And frankly, ME2 and ME3's attempts to improve the system (Shepard gets a quest when they walk by a random person, and then later they stumble upon what that person was looking for) were at best a lateral move.

This too.

If you do it right, you can make it work (or at least end up with a Kojima-level web of insanity). Andromeda... did not do it right. And that's before you start thinking about how Ryder Sr. taught himself biotics.

I got the impression he was always biotic, and swapping profiles is just diverting power from his amp to his muscles or his omnitool or what-have-you. Remember, humanity discovered biotics (even though we didn't know much about it) before we even discovered the Charon Relay.

Having said that, I haven't dug up all his memories yet so maybe he really did just engineer all these abilities into himself. In which case - all biotics is, is nodules of eezo strewn throughout your nervous system that get manipulated when you pass an amplified electric current through them. It's not like it's full-on magic where it's impossible to induce in an adult - doing so would just be very, very difficult, and the most advanced races in the galaxy apart from us wouldn't be studying how. (Salarians and Quarians disdain biotics while Asari all have them already.)

[warty goblin]

I'm guessing Psyren's reaction was more of confusion at the word "made." I felt a similar way- It doesn't seem to be used in the right way. You don't have to do side quests if you don't want to unless a game has a "Wait and do side quests until you reach an in-game condition" mechanic like Inquisition's power requirements (Which thus far I haven't seen in the game). Yes, you do miss content, but it seems like Warty Goblin doesn't particularly like that content anyway.

Yeah, I said that badly. It's mostly a matter of structure, rather than the existence of side quests. A very common structure in RPGs is something like
(Opening Area) -> (Safe Area)

Where in the opening area you've got a mix of combat, exploration, and talking to people, but it quite likely leans heavy on combat. Then you get to the safe area - which is also the first time the game really relaxes the linearity a bit - and the only thing to do there is to talk to the next person who knows what the main plot is, and find/do side quests. It's not generally a big area for exploration in terms of environmental puzzle solving or super-spectacular vistas or anything, and there's often zero combat. This can really kill a game's narrative momentum if the game doesn't handle it well; sort of a Tom Bombadil problem if you will.

It doesn't have to kill that momentum though. In ME 1 you show up at the Citadel with a very clear objective that directly relates to your previous experience, and it evolves from there. It also throws the occasional combat encounter in as well, which breaks up the walk to person -> talk to person -> walk to person -> talk to person -> eternal elevator ride -> talk to person loop a bit. You can pick up some side quests, too, but it actually keeps the major thrust of the first section (Saren is a bad guy) going. It's a slower, talkier portion of the game, which is fine, but it relates very clearly to what the player's goals are.

Andromeda does not do this as well, I think. I show up on the Nexus, and I have no idea what my character's goals are. I go talk to some people because they are people I should talk to, but I can't say that I go in hoping to get X or Y out of that conversation. It relates to me being the Pathfinder, but that's something that was done to me, not really a personal objective I have that pushes the narrative forwards. I'm not really trying to do anything, so the game can't give me problems to solve or obstacles to overcome, I'm just told to here or there to hear some piece of exposition. Plus it's a very boring space, sort of a cross between an airport and an upscale conference center, very pleasant and modern bleh. The Citadel wasn't exactly the coolest of settings either, but it had some weird aliens, a strip club, space traffic, etc.

[tonberrian]

It's important to note that the Nexus when you first find it is not the full Nexus. The Docking Bay doesn't really come into its own until you finish Eos's main quest, when it opens up the hydroponics section and the bar and the cultural liaison place. It's still not great but there is a little more to it.

[Rodin]

From what I picked up from an LP, in the doctor's office in the ship there is a machine to respec you.

GW

There is indeed, it's not very obvious but it's on one of the walls.

If it's content you don't enjoy, you're not missing out on it. And the developers have said you aren't building toward anything like the suicide mission or push to earth (or at least, there's no in-game mechanics to measure how you're building toward it), so you're not being punished, either.It's a problem that's almost omni-present in the genre, though. And frankly, ME2 and ME3's attempts to improve the system (Shepard gets a quest when they walk by a random person, and then later they stumble upon what that person was looking for) were at best a lateral move.

I think the density of the sidequests is one of the major things. I need to take another look, but it might just be that you ignore the ones that go under that "tasks" category. Those seem more like filler while the ones that get put in the other filters are more likely to be multi-step quests with some actual story attached.

[Squark]

I got the impression he was always biotic, and swapping profiles is just diverting power from his amp to his muscles or his omnitool or what-have-you. Remember, humanity discovered biotics (even though we didn't know much about it) before we even discovered the Charon Relay.

Having said that, I haven't dug up all his memories yet so maybe he really did just engineer all these abilities into himself. In which case - all biotics is, is nodules of eezo strewn throughout your nervous system that get manipulated when you pass an amplified electric current through them. It's not like it's full-on magic where it's impossible to induce in an adult - doing so would just be very, very difficult, and the most advanced races in the galaxy apart from us wouldn't be studying how. (Salarians and Quarians disdain biotics while Asari all have them already.)

The in-game codex mentions that biotics can be developed via exposure during childhood, not just in-utero. Still, Alec was 19 when the Prothean ruins were discovered, which would be pushing it. On the other hand, Alec had a strong interest in trans-humanism, and Miranda mentions her biotic abilities are the result of genetic engineering, so I suppose it could happen.