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[Craven1138]

Hey there BioWare

I must say it must be hard to see all this negativity. I may even feel sorry for you guys, since ME3 without last 10 minutes is absolutely best part of trilogy and that’s an incredible thing to achieve. But I hope you understand how it feels if after nearly 150 hours (without replays) of awesome, immersive gameplay finale is not only disappointing, but actually manages to damage that long and great experience.

This thread gathers a short overview of issues with ending. What you are reading is hevily edited opening post. Thanks to community this list should be fairly complete (after seven days new points no longer appear, only support, that I hope will continue). Since forum is hyper-active and tends to be a little messy, this list was created in hope for two things:
- To show all various issues with endings (I don’t support all of them, but believe all should be heard)
- That once we get some kind of response from BioWare it will address all those problems, not treat whole “Demand a better ending” movement as group of people who wan’t “whiners want rainbows and unicorns ending”.


So here it comes:

PLOT:
This is probably most obvious set of issues, but also probably hardest one to deal with. There’s a certain vision writers came up with, and there ain’t much that can be done unless finale (after Harbinger beam) is either indoctrination/vision/dream or just rewritten. There is a lot of support for “dark energy scrapped ending”).
- Catalyst seems to be most hate-inducing aspect. At least partially because of his disregard of our actions and achievements like uniting Geth and Quarians, like relationship between Joker and EDI.
- There is strong feeling of detachment between ending and whole trilogy. To point where some users even say “feels like an ending to another game that someone grabbed and pasted onto this one”.
- Plenty of plot holes and possible plot holes have been pointed out. Normandy escape, “teleporting” squadmates to Normandy contradictory nature and logic of Catalyst, fact that Citadel/Catalyst is alive and conscious and needs keepers to let reapers in, what's the point of dropping Normandy on planet when it's more than likely it's a slow death for them?
- Some users would be fine with no explanation for reapers (me among them, it holds well with ME1 where Sovereign simply said reapers are beyond mortal comprehension). Other users say that ending lacks enough explanation and closure. So current ending is bad for both sides.
- Lastly, probably most important – finale brutally narrows premise of series as simply conflict between organics and synthetics. There is much more to Mass Effect than this.


CHOICES:
- Possibly the best thing about Mass Effect trilogy was that we could really make choices that mattered. Those choices had impact on game, you guys made sure that even small quests or events were reflected later. But in final 10 minutes it turns out to be pointless. It may seem like multiple endings, but actually they are similar and not affected by previous choices.
- During gameplay player gets strong arguments that Catalyst is plain wrong, and that conflict can be avoided, but it’s all for nothing as we are forced to make Red/Green/Blue decision.
- I guess you went through hell to make sure that ME3 works with all those variables from ME2 and ME1. And now, when everything is about to end, when you don’t have to worry about next sequel, you could let player go any direction he wanted. “Decide how it ends” wasn’t it? So why force us to destroy Mass Relays? Why condemn hero to die, why separated families, why dark age for galaxy
-Game forces on us idea contradictory to what has been established before EDI/Joker, Geth/Quarian (with proper gameplay of course). ME3 in particular was about uniting galaxy against Reapers. And now it turns out it was all for nothing, because unity is impossible.
- It’s not that we would mind a sacrifice ending for Shepard. What we want is to be able to CHOOSE that ending.


HAPPY ENDING / VARIOUS ENDINGS:
- While Mass Effect (especially ME3) is a very dark story, but stil that doesn’t mean there can’t be positive ending. And even with one, galaxy is still mostly in ashes, with dead kids, torn families, lost loved ones, for Shepard - Anderson dead, some other friends dead (Mordin, Thane, Legion). I’d say it still would be pretty grim. That’s why “ponies and rainbows” argument seems to very least untrue.
- One of most frequent complaints is one that endings are just too similar. Even to point where flashbacks don’t show your love interest.
- We don’t want destruction of relays or Shepard’s death removed. We just want this to be one of possibilities. Next to ones where Reapers win, Reapers loose, relays stay, next cycle comes and so on… We just want options and choices. Three games told as that there are various possibilities and options. Don’t change that in last minute.


GAMEPLAY:
- There are complaints about lack of boss. (Trying to be objective, but this one I’m least sympathetic.)
- Harbinger was heavily foreshadowed as main villain, so many expected some kind of confrontation, a shooting finale of some kind.


PERFORMANCE
- Mass Effect 2 presents great example of how to reflect our performance, and that’s what we partially expected from war assets.
- We hoped for little snippets showing Krogan making ground fight easier, orbital fight with Turians, our team members from ME2 making at least tiny appereance as they fight to take Earth back.
- Ammount of war assets could also impact scenes involving clash with Harbinger (say after the unfortunate red beam). This could serve as kind of boss fight, even if player only watches. Right now our performance doesn’t feel much connected to outcome. After all Harbinger was shown as most important of Reapers.


So this is it. We hope there will be detailed response from BioWare, that will address our issues with endings.

If I were to point darkest and brightest side of ending I’d say this – in just few minutes, our fantastic experience with Mass Effect trilogy was shattered, but it is just few last minutes. It CAN be fixed without messing with previous, fantastic dozens of hours of Mass Effect.


To other users: thank you all for help with this list. All of your support and bumps are much appreciated. Keep it alive, so that BioWare takes notice!



Some supplements:

Plotholes: http://www.gamefront...fans-are-right/ It’s one of best lists out there. But it’s focused on plotholes and explanation why ending is miserable. Does not go to Performance/Gameplay issues.

Probably most compelling proposition of ending: http://arkis.deviant...ILERS-289902125 – victory over Reapers is earned through tough fight, war assets are shown.

Fantastic explanation of Dark Energy (original) Ending: - also he makes point I totally love and support - Crucible isn't answer, there HAS to be conventional battle: Reapers Armada vs United Galaxy Fleet.

For archival reasons, work in progress version (as it was 16th March 2012) of this post is stored here: http://social.biowar...49689/1#9750176

Finally – don’t forget to like Demand a better ending to Mass Effect 3 on facebook.

Modifié par Craven1138, 19 mars 2012 - 08:33 .

[Dranume]

bump

[RxP4IN]

Biggest issue: The catalyst. AKA "Incoherent, ill-conceived, and completely contrived plot device."

Modifié par RxP4IN, 10 mars 2012 - 09:19 .

[pomrink]

bumping.

[ibage]

RxP4IN wrote...

Biggest issue: It was bad.

Fixed it for ya. 

[Spectre_Shepard]

good for the most part. I wouldn't mind a sacrifice ending for shepard.

What I want is to be able to CHOOSE that ending

[RxP4IN]

ibage wrote...

RxP4IN wrote...

Biggest issue: It was bad.

Fixed it for ya. 

Thank you, good sir.

[Tartilus]

I'll throw up the similar list I made earlier today, in case that helps:

I think it's important for us to consider that, at some point, a community manager is going to have to explain our thoughts to any number of developers, and accordingly it's important that a succinct list of our concerns with the ending is available. Those concerns are numerous, and here are the ones I'm familiar with so far:

1. The endings are extremely sad. This is a much-maligned criticism by individuals who associate depth with the perceived darkness of the endings, and that may or may not be a fair point. Regardless, it stands as obvious that many people were hoping for an ending which proffered some hope beyond that available in even the 'happiest' of endings.

2. The endings contain plotholes. The escape of the Normandy and the teleportation of her crew (including the formerly deceased) are the most obvious, but the lack of sufficient explanation regarding the Catalyst's efforts and origin also makes many of his/its motivations bizarre and unsatisfying.

3. The endings fail to fit in with the broadest themes of the series. Slightly different from 1, this criticism notes that the story of Commander Shepherd has always been a story of achieving the impossible with the help of a close crew and rigorous preparation. The endings as offered do not incorporate the crew, do not change significantly in response to your preparation, and while perhaps technically constitute doing the impossible, fail to meet even that low bar which is a solution that does not have an inevitable cross-racial holocaust and galactic dark age as its result.

4. The endings lack variety. This criticism can be directed at both the artistic and story aspects of the ending – the results of the ending decision not only vary little (at least, and this is important, on a scale which is important to our experiences in the game), but the resulting cinematics have only minor differences, and the various sub-endings result in changes so small as to be entirely unnoticeable. Consider that some way could've been contrived to make the Synthetic option differ from the Control option in a fashion greater than a change in the color of the 'light' and a different Texture for Joker in the games final seconds.

5. The mechanics of the ending are not appropriate. Without repeating the various criticisms as regards the ending closely mirroring Deus Ex's, the culmination of the story with a game-show-esque approach to saving the world very much fails to be satisfactory, especially when Mass Effect has otherwise been about the integration of choice into the experience

6. The endings lack dependency on the player's choices prior to the last five minutes. This is important, because the entire rest of Mass Effect 3 was about reacting to previous decisions; consider that, provided one is able to fill the 'war asset' bar in a satisfactory manner via some other means, the decisions in the third game serve no purpose to explain, shape, or enhance the endings. This seems contrary to the spirit of the other 95% of the experience.

7. The endings do not make sense given the character of Shepherd. As has been state elsewhere, we are playing some heroic badass who has otherwise talked down to, shrugged off, and inevitably defeated everyone who threatened, cajoled, or otherwise tried to force him to do something he didn't wish to do. In the ending to ME3, this character offers no rigorous questioning, no protests, no counter-arguments, no discussion of any kind save a resigned sort of death-march which could not be more contrary to his character. This is distressing.

8. The endings have implications, perhaps unintended, which seem to ruin the ME Universe. Admittedly, many of these implications could be avoided, but the lack of contrary evidence fosters a suspicion that these matters were either otherwise not considered, or supposed to be generally acceptable. Indeed, they might even be, but only with proper elaboration, of which there is none.

9. The endings fail to provide closure. There is, as a diagram that is floating around illustrates, no falling action. No conclusion. I do not know what happened to my squadmates – I do not, for reasons that may be bug related, even know which of them is alive. I do not know what happens to the universe, or to the people I've saved. I do not know how I'm remembered, or if any of the terrible things mentioned above actually happens. There almost could not possibly have been less information provided regarding the ending of the game, and that is incredibly distressing when the intention was to wrap up a series that had otherwise displayed all the signs of excellency and had a fond place in our hearts.

[Naltair]

I can support these ideas.

[Kenthen]

RxP4IN wrote...

Biggest issue: The catalyst. AKA "Incoherent, ill-conceived, and completely contrived plot device."

This. I really want to see this ripped out of the game by its roots.
Anything is better than that, get rid of it and replace it with nothing for all I care, or the dark energy bit. Or macaroni.

Modifié par Kenthen, 10 mars 2012 - 09:23 .

[BrotherFluffy]

I agree with this. Only when we meet Catalyst the Friendly Ghost do things take an immediate nosedive into the unflushed toilet. The rest of the game is damn near perfect, and I loved watching all the hard work I put into strengthening the fleet pay off as the galaxy really give it to the Reapers. I understand that this is a dark sci-fi setting, but there has ALWAYS been hope, and in some ways, that's one of the core values of the series, is that there IS hope. Sure, ME2 was a dark story, but you could still pull it off and have everyone survive. Now, I didn't expect everyone to survive ME3, and I was right, but I still think if you put in all the effort, Shepard at least has a CHANCE of surviving and finding some form of happiness in retirement. I'm not asking for a Disney ending where the Reapers get blown up and things are better 5 minutes later. The galaxy got it's collective butt handed to it, it isn't going to be a good end. But I'd like to think that SOME good could come out of it.

[pomrink]

Don't forget, The Reason for the reapers existence is a bit circular also.

[Lurka]

Should of ended it at Anderson and The Illusive man (kill or control) with what ever choice you make, Harbringer tries to stop you and the Normandy comes in and helps giving you just enough time to press the button. Then it ends with you and Anderson sitting down, bleeding out watching the Reapers be destroyed by the fleet or you and the illusive man side by side as you send the Reapers somewhere unknown.

[Dranume]

Well stated and well written, organized and that is what we need

[DrDetective]

That stupid little robot boy and his irrational fear of robots. That's not what the series was about. You just ruined the whole thing.

It would be like if, at the end of Return of the Jedi, after Vader dies having redeemed himself, Luke gets in an elevator and an ewok who died earlier in the movie explains that the whole thing was actually about how droids shouldn't be allowed in bars. Then he has to decide whether to kill all the Luddite bartenders or go make out with his sister some more, because that would make some new robot DNA.

[Craven1138]

This is opening post as it was in 16 march 2012:

Hey there Michael Gamble

I must say it must be hard to see all this negativity. I may even feel sorry for you, since ME3 without last 5 minutes is absolutely best part of trilogy and that’s an incredible thing to achieve. But I hope you understand how it feels if after nearly 150 hours (whole trilogy, without replays) of awesome, immersive gameplay finale is
disappointing.

What I want to do is to keep this post short and as informative as possible. My point is to gather short overview of issues with ending, so that it’s not as messy as this hyper-active forum. I feel that some viewpoints are easily lost, and I really hope at some point we will get some kind of response. And when that time comes it would be bad if only thing that would be addressed would be “whiners want rainbows and unicorns ending”. While this may be true (I myself would like to have Hollywood-style happy end), there are more points.

So here it comes:

PLOT:
Most obvious set of issues, but also probably hardest one, as there’s certain vision writers came up with, and there ain’t much that can be done, unless finale is rewritten (dark energy thing is great, too bad it was abandoned as it would fit very well). Catalyst seems to be most hate-inducting aspect, probably because of his disregard for our actions.
There is strong feeling of detachement between ending and whole trilogy. Some even say " feels like an ending to another game that someone grabbed and pasted onto this one."Also multiple plotholes and possible plotholes have been pointed out - unexplanatory escape of Normandy during battle, unexplanatory presence of teammates that should be with you or dead due to Harbinger ray on Normandy contradictory nature and logic of Catalyst, fact that Citadel/Catalyst is alive and concious and needs keepers to let reapers in, what's the point of dropping normandy on planet when it's more than likely it's a slow death for them?

update: Some users would be fine with no explanation for reapers (I like it too, it holds well with ME1 where Sovereign simply said reapers are beyond mortal comprehension). Other users say that problem with ending is lack of enough explanation and closure.
update2: Also some users would like to have "reapers win" ending (me too, makes sense), if you perform poorly galaxy will just have to try again in next cycle (imagine evolved Pyjacks ).
update3: One more issue - finale brutally narrows premise of series as simply conflict between organics and synthethics. There is much more to Mass Effect then this.

CHOICES:
Best thing about Mass Effect trilogy was that we could really make choices that mattered. And that those choices had impact on game, you guys made sure that even small quests or events were reflected later. But in final 5 minutes it turns out to be pointless. It may seem like multiple ends, but actually they are very similar and not affected by your previous choices. ME3 gives strong arguments for Catalyst/ShinyKid that he’s plain wrong and conflict can be avoided, but it’s all for nothing.

I wanted to keep this short but I just must elaborate. I guess you went through hell to make sure that ME3 works with all those variables from ME2 and ME1. And now, when everything is about to end, when you don’t have to worry about next sequel, you could let player go any direction he wanted. “Decide how it ends” wasn’t it? So why force us to destroy Mass Relays? Why condemn hero to die, why separated families, why dark age for galaxy

update: " I wouldn't mind a sacrifice ending for shepard. What I want is to be able to CHOOSE that ending"
update2: In short: We want our previous choices to have impact.

HAPPY ENDING / VARIOUS ENDINGS:
ME (especially ME3) is very dark story, but still that doesn’t mean there can’t be happy ending. And even with one, galaxy is still mostly in ashes, with dead kids, torn families, lost loved ones, for Shepard - Anderson dead, some other friends dead (Mordin, Thane, Legion). I’d say it still would be pretty grim.

Problem many people point out is that endings are just too similar. Even to point where flashbacks don’t show your love interest.

update: we don't want destruction of Relays or Shepard's death removed. We just want this to be possibilities. Next to other ones, where Reapers win/loose, relays stay, next cycle comes and so on...

GAMEPLAY:
Trying to be objective, but this one I’m least sympathetic. But there it is - there are complaints to lack of boss. Harbinger was heavily foreshadowed as main villain, so many expected some kind of confrontation, a shooting finale of some kind or another boss-thing. This leads to…

PERFORMANCE:
It’s kinda letdown that readiness has so little visible impact. Unlike upgrades to Normandy from ME2. I really expected little scenes showing some of key assets fighting. Little snippet showing Krogan making ground fight easier, or part where we see orbital fight with Turians, and depending on how strong they were they’d either get pounded totally, or just a little. It could also impact on scenes involving clash with Harbringer. Right now it really doesn’t feel much connected to outcome.

update:
we expect small cutscenes showing if we had enough war assets, kinda ME2 style, where we see outcome of our effort to prepare fleets against reapers. Confrontation with Harbinger could fit right here so that he's not a lost villan.


Sorry for making this so long, but I really feel it would be great if, once issue of ending is addressed, it would be great to address whole set of complaints.


To other users: if you like this „list”, then please bump to keep it alive. I’m open to editing opening post if I missed something.

PS. Tartilus wrote very good list of his own here.

Modifié par Craven1138, 17 mars 2012 - 01:44 .

[Sterenn]

bumping too!

[Dranume]

Just tweeted this thread to Jessica Merizan, Bioware and Mass Effect community manager.

[Captain_Obvious]

Biggest issue: no happy ending. Second biggest issue: no reapers win ending. Third issue: pulling the god-kid out of nowhere. Seriously, do none of your writers know about infinite regress and special exceptions logical fallacies? I'm really trying to be nice about it, but the more I think about it the angrier I become.

[Dranume]

logical fallacies? lol I have not heard that word since Comp.2

[Craven1138]

trying to keep up, updating opening post guys!

[trifecta739]

The major problem is there isn't a range of endings. There needed to be a downright awful failure ending where the Reapers win and everyone dies and there needed to be an amazing victory where the Reapers lose and everyone lives. There also needed to be everything in between. And though it is not as important, I do agree that a final battle with Harbinger would have been extremely satisfying, especially after the downhill charge and the finale with the Illusive Man. You should have been able to save Anderson or the Illusive Man if you wanted to, and have your squad by your side for the finale. My other thread that I started had more information on my thoughts, but it kinda got buried.

[Craven1138]

yeah I dunno why I didn't say about lack of possibility of bad ending (reapers win, next cycle ahead) myself from start.

[nitefyre410]

Captain_Obvious wrote...

Biggest issue: no happy ending. Second biggest issue: no reapers win ending. Third issue: pulling the god-kid out of nowhere. Seriously, do none of your writers know about infinite regress and special exceptions logical fallacies? I'm really trying to be nice about it, but the more I think about it the angrier I become.

 

I know I feel the same the exact same especailly with its explination behind the cycle.. .. 

[Militarized]

/signed