When I start making notepad lists of long term goals or shopping lists and such, usually in open world games with lots of tasks where you'd forget on your own what you might be working toward
It's not always the best option, like if you wanna save your gold for the ship upgrades it'll eat a big chunk out of that, but you could totally keep your gear perks that way if you really like them, you can upgrade at 61, don't have to wait for 62
My best guess is that it's a debris effect from your ship taking damage, and it's supposed to fly away and expire, but somehow got stuck instead of disappearing, so now it's an "effect" on your character that doesn't know its supposed to have timed out already.
Other Bethesda games, especially Skyrim, had bugs like this of status effects that would get stuck on your character longer than they were supposed to and you'd only realize hours later when your character has some weird blue fog following them
Once you get the perks you want you totally can hold onto it. Every ten levels all of your perk and major attack stat bonuses on gear get more powerful, (but there's no stat bonus to upgrading before the 10 level threshold at all) even when you upgrade the same old gear you had, but it happens at the "first" level of each ten, so not at level 20, instead it's 21, 31, 41, etc.
Basically I've had the "same" gear for like 30 or 40 levels, now, just every time I hit the new stat range I go and upgrade all of it. It costs a shitload of gold, but aside from ship upgrades I don't have another major gold sink, so it's worth it to me, my perk loadout is extremely optimized for assassin damage, which is important for me since I'm basically playing it as an open world stealth game where I only fight if I get caught, I can one shot anyone I want, no exaggeration (using critical assassination when necessary).
The final ship upgrades are very expensive, yeah, just seems like they give you something to grind for if you get that far
The ones that aren't timed (don't have the hourglass icons) are worth picking up because they're all just like "kill 20 Athenians", "sink 5 ships", basically shit you're already doing, so you just swing by, pick them up, and keep playing like you already were and randomly one will pop and you'll get fat XP for doing what you were doing already anyway, but that's only if you want the extra XP, it's totally unnecessary
Sorry, my intent was not to sound condescending, I was erring on the side that you weren't aware of the ways you could get around those issues in order to enjoy the parts you wanted to. Your criticisms are definitely valid, I would agree that even needing to know about the workarounds sort of proves that what was included wasn't an entirely cohesive and tight product to begin with, the way I played is not necessarily right or wrong, and neither is yours, it's just how I was able to mine the most enjoyment out of what was there.
My main idea is to not let someone see your comment and assume that that's how the game is and there's not another way to enjoy it or any clear ways to identify where content you'd want to play begins and ends, I was able to figure out and selective play the parts I enjoy, but even still there is content in that game that I skip because it's, definitively, not fun. Even still, it's become one of my favorite games of all time, but no one game is for everyone, thanks for the mature discussion, sincerely!
You can just pay off your bounties instantly at any time from the map screen, and I've always had so much money in that game that I've never had to deal with a bounty hunter unless I wanted to, and I don't even sell any gear, I dismantle it all.
If you're a compulsionary completionist then the game is probably too big, but they make it as friendly as they can to not have to complete the world. Unique gear drops only seem to come from unique Cultist leaders or checking vendors, and there's no achievements for completing all map markers, it's just supplemental content for XP and some gear or if you just really want to do it, there's no huge cost to just moving on to actual quest content if you want.
They don't tell you when you've completed a whole region for a reason, to disincentivize completing it all unless you're a madman. I'm doing world completion just because I like grinding the game, but it's been two years in the making with big breaks in between, and if you ever feel like your gear or levels are behind the curve and you have to grind, the difficulty settings can be changed and can be set as forgiving as you like, they actually alter the level scaling and RPG aspects.
I think it's a great game worth playing, but you do need to be ready to tell yourself when enough is enough because they give you too much for weirdos like me that just wanna experience it all over a really long... Odyssey.
The quests you get from the quest boards, especially the ones with the hourglass icons can be pretty much blanket ignored. Otherwise you can tell when talking to the quest giver if Alexios/Kassandra accepts the quest generically and doesn't respond to anything the giver says very specifically other than "I'll take care of it" or things like that.
I love the shit out of that game, have been world exploring and only doing the unique side quests.
Funnily enough playing BotW on CEMU was what got me to get a switch, it was just so good I wanted to play it without any caveats or messing with settings or working around the gyro controls and the allure of playing it portably anywhere was high.
I don't play a lot of TCG, but Forced Showdown halfway counts as long as you're cool with the action side of the game. One of my favorites of all time.
Also, a lot of the Yu Gi Oh games probably count since there a lot with heavy single player content.
That's sad news about the studio. I suppose some people forgot that the original Mass Effect had quite a few issues and it wasn't until 2 that it got real good, and having that bar set at a payoff that was only possible through three games of narrative choices and carryover was impossible to hit for Andromeda.
It seems like it was cursed with "how the heck do you follow that up?" Syndrome. And sadly the facial animations seemed at the time to be the critical anchor that all the general issues surrounded and were exemplified by.
I hope in the future Bioware steps back from adding those "MMO side quest" style side content they began including for Inquisition, it did really change the feel of the whole game having those there.
Interesting to hear about the first act dragging, I actually think this is a problem echoed by Starfield, whose first 12 hours are confusing as you don't understand where and how to access the different types of gameplay at will, and it's too early on in your character's development to be able to really fully engage and figure out the ship and outpost construction. By then the people who don't have patience or weren't interested in the game to begin with have likely already had their opinions begin to solidify.
I wonder if Bioware will try an Andromeda 2 down the line, I think that universe deserves another shot.
How do you feel about/have you played Andromeda? I love the ME trilogy, and I was a quarter through ME2 doing a trilogy replay as well, but then Starfield released. I'll get back to it eventually though. I haven't played Andromeda myself, but I feel like it couldn't possibly be as terrible as the kickback it got on release.
Just to go on the other side, you're clearly a substantial poster of interesting content on the gaming Fediverse, even if it ends up as articles about the latest large games. You also participate in the comments sections with pretty level opinions, and it blows my mind that that person was calling this a "nothingburger" of a post even though they're obviously bookended by tons of engagement.