-Give him content in ME3. Not this token effort that we all saw was just a way of saying, "Of course we didn't forget all your teammates!" Players should have had the option to pick who they wanted on their team for a certain number of teammate slots.
-His script should never have been butchered to make assumptions on behalf of the player. That's what that infamous Femshep greeting came off as: Bioware thinking we'd be so hot to trot for a character we never even got the chance to get to know. His line about how the Normandy is Shepard's love REALLY rubbed people the wrong way.
-Seriously, more effort should have been put into Jacob's story. He should have been part of the main story, trying to take down the Illusive Man after seeing all that madness. Jacob's original writing that had him proactive and seeking to do some actual good would have meant that he'd have been as tenacious in setting things right by bringing karma onto the Illusive Man for misleading him.
how i‘d rewrite jacob to make him a more likable squadmate:
• femshep‘s interactions with jacob would sound normal. none of them would sound flirtatious unless shepard is actually pursuing a romance with jacob.
• if you dump jacob for garrus, cut out the line where he calls garrus a cuttlebone. jacob is supposed the be the nice, good guy, the one who gives cerberus a good image, not some racist prick who uses first contact slur. this move was especially bad since garrus is a trusted squadmate! really, bioware? an easy way to make a character hated is to make home insult a character that is that popular among players.
• don‘t make him say „miranda deserves a better man“ in regards to his past relationship to miranda, and then have him be able to romance shepard. that makes it seem as if he is still head over heels for miranda but settling for shepard, who he thinks doesn‘t deserve a better man.. unlike miranda. cut out that line.
• leave out the ‚heavy risk but the priize‘ line. it‘s so dumb. it objectifies shepard and it‘s just cringy.
• he‘s supposed to be the nice guy yet miranda is more polite than he is. jacob should not be saying he is not in the mood to talk; he should be more open towards shepard
• let us find out more about his past life. he was a privatee with the corsairs, what was that like? also where did he grow up, which colony? why did he join the alliance? how long has he been with cerberus and how did he come to join them exactly? how did he find out about the organization?
• for his romance, make it a serious romance, not some hook up. give jacob and shepard a movie night date on the normandy in the starboard port and have them watch blasto and have us learn jacob has seen all the blasto movies. or have jacob play videogames with shepard. giving him a little of a nerdy side would have make him much cooler.
• to make him more sympathetic, write jacob as being the one who helped jack get the coordinates of teltin facility. after the confrontation between jack and miranda, jacob felt so awful that he decided to help jack sort through the files so she could get the coordinates of that place and nuke it. this would actually prove he is that kind hearted nice man he was supposed to be
• have him apologize to thane at some point, saying he was wrong about him. this would‘ve been a pretty great opportunity to give jacob some small character development
• don‘t have him cheat on femshep, most importantly.