Okay. I need to rant a little - this is mostly directly copy pasted from where I initially posted it but I wanted to know a few things. So before I copy everything in here, my question boils down to:
TL:DR: "Whats the point of not going with the reputation choice on Rannoch? Is there any moments in the game where you see a 'reward' out of this?"
Now then, here's hoping the copy paste gods have mercy on me and don't mess up the layout.
Won't use spoilers except for in the spoiler section. I just completed Rannoch's related missions and I got a serious issue here. Except for the fact that I just did one ending (There's three) that makes me really, incredibly sad - which is a sign of good story telling may I add - I have just a big issue with how this is all done.
So essentially there's three endings (to Rannoch - not the game).
1. Choose x 2. Choose y 3. Go renegade/paragon and get both x and y
Right, nothing special. But I don't understand why BioWare would do this. Well I got an idea, but it just seems stupid. Most people, I dare bet 9/10 people would go with the speech (Renegade/Paragon) option. They lead to the same thing. Why? Because the game basically slaps it into your face that it's the better option. And it is. From a gameplay perspective, it really is. From an overall story perspective, it really is. It's the happily ever after ending where (almost) everything ends up perfectly. There's a loss, but even that is really more a victorious ending for that loss. In addition, gameplay wise, you get 825 + 510 War Effort points. That's an incredibly high amount. You win, no sweat.
Then there's the options very few people will pick. And if they pick it, most of them will merely pick it because for some magical reason they couldn't get enough Paragon or Renegade score - which is kind of silly considering I had like 80% Paragon, 10% Renegade and still could do the renegade choice. And that option is, frankly, much better when it comes down to writing and deliverance of story.
But you lose. You win something, you move on. But you lose a lot. When it comes to the story I think this is merely realistic. I'm fine with that, it sucks, but I'm fine with it. From a gameplay perspective you again lose out. But I'd be fine with this, if not for the fact the game practically wants you to get the perfect victory here. In fact I'd be really happy if these two were the only endings and they neglected the reputation system for once or just made one of these paragon or renegade (It's not too far fetched, one of them in particular could easily be viewed as renegade looking at BioWare's previous 'renegade' options)
Reputation ending: - 825 + 510 War Effort points - Happily after ever, generic result - You take a loss, but that loss is really negligible in contrast (explained in spoiler section)
Non-Reputation endings: - 825 OR 510 War Effort points - Incredibly big loss but you are 'victorious' - Incredibly high emotional, dramatic and memorable level. Major things are lost and displayed in a rather emotional way. I'll be honest, these options were probably the most emotional situations I've seen in a BioWare game. - UNIQUE cinematic
So either take the generic win ending that is better in every way with very little emotional level to it or story deliverance or go with one of two endings that the game apparently doesn't want you to take, will make you shed mantears and remember as a highlight of the game no doubt, and give you a unique cinematic and feeling of purpose to there being a choice. Because with the reputation ending you don't really pick. You just go "I will take both" essentially and the game goes "Sure, why even have a choice? This is the perfect one". To me it feels like the reputation option was really thrown in so people wouldn't complain that x thing was lost and don't expect there to be any bad things happening in a science fiction, space opera that involves the reaping of all organic life by giant sentient machines.
And this frankly upsets me. Because I want to take one of these non-reputation endings, and I probably will. But the game is basically slapping me in the face and going "ARE YOU AN IDIOT? TAKE THE PERFECT ONE". Now to go into the spoilers to clarify this with more context:
Spoiler
1. Choose Geth survival. 2. Choose Quarian survival. 3. Use your magical charm to get a 300-year war to stop and have them work together after all right in the last second.
"Does this unit have a soul?"
Picking Geth survival is the one I can't personally bear to go with. And that means in this case, it's brilliant. After defeating the Reaper you are informed that the Quarian fleet is about to assault the now defenseless Geth fleet and as such wipe out (almost) all Geth in the universe. Legion then tells you that in order to save his/its people he can upload the reaper code - Which does sound a bit risky considering it is Reaper, but there is no reason to indicate this will have negative effects - to all of the Geth making them more intelligent, give them freedom and allow them to survive the massacre the Quarians have in store for them.
In which case Tali, of course, disagrees. You side with Legion, telling him to start the upload and Tali attempts to tell the fleet to stand down. They will not listen, seeing this as their chance to retake their homeworld that they have fought for over 300 years for and almost in tears asks you to stop Legion. You then tell her that you're sorry and Legion says he needs to be uploaded himself in order for it to work, dies and the Geth fleet is reinforced with the code. The Quarian fleet attacks, the Geth defend and due to their upgrade are more than capable of destroying them all. The Quarian admiral denies retreat and in a full charge they all get wiped out and destroyed. The Quarians are dead. Tali, witnessing the destruction of all her people takes off her masks tells Shepard she is sorry and commits suicide by jumping into a canyon below. You have a paragon interrupt here, but you are too late to catch her.
A Geth Prime walks up to you and explains Legion is no longer among them and that he will be remembered and they will honor you by helping you out in the war against the Reapers. Shepard ends it with a deeply saddened "They made their choice." ------ Picking Quarian survival is the one I will likely end up going with myself. Especially after telling the Reaper that it is the time of the organics and renegade interrupting him with the laser to the face, but that's irrelevant. Same thing happens here, Reaper is destroyed and as such the Geth are currently disabled and in a state of vulnerability. The Quarians attack and you side with Tali, explaining to Legion that you are sorry and you can not have him uploading the code and letting the Quarians kill themselves.
Legion realizes this means the destruction of his people and in an act of defense grabs Shepard by his throat holding him in the air, explaining to Shepard he can not let his people be destroyed and starts uploading the code. While Shepard is helpless and Legion is uploading the code Tali, in act of defending you and her people, stabs Legion in the back of his 'neck' with a knife (Guess that knife she carried around actually got some uses). Legion falls to his knees, Shepard can then do a renegade interrupt - presumably to shoot him in the face - but I chose not to. Legion realizing he has lost, his death is imminent and his people are about to be annihilated attempts to - in the most saddest of ways a Geth could speak - asks something along the lines of "Creator Tali'Zorah.. Does.. this unit.." in which Tali, almost in tears, responds with a "Yes."
Legion falls to the ground and it cuts to the unique scene where you can see the Geth fleet being immobile and defenseless as the Quarian admiral orders a full assault and easily annihilates all that is left of the Geth. Moments later Shepard is approached by the admirals on the ground as they explain their gratitude, that they will do their best in the war effort and that "Tali wants to say her goodbyes" (Spoiler; she doesn't say her goodbye and wants to stick with you. Presumably having romanced her here makes the dialogue longer because I assume most of the chatter here would be different had I not picked her as LI) ------ So here we have two incredibly dramatic and emotional - and with incredibly I mean by BioWare standards this is by far some of their best story delivery in a long time so take that as you will - scenes that require you to make a huge sacrifice, kill off either one of these characters which either you have or love (As far as I'm aware most people love Tali and Legion or at least like them) in what is literally a struggle for them to preserve their entire species that both end in a unique cutscene and ending where you only have one faction left standing. ------ Now then, when picking the Reputation(Paragon/Renegade) ending.Same deal of course happens, Reaper destroyed and the Geth fleet is immobile about to be annihilated by the Quarians. That is until Legion starts uploading, in which case it is a matter of time until the Quarian fleet is annihilated instead. Shepard initially sides with one of them, Legion means he'll start the upload and Tali means that he won't start an upload. You then have one moment where either Tali begs you to stop Legion uploading - after attempting to tell the Fleet to stand down and failing - as her race is about to be annihilated. Or you have Legion asking you if he can start the upload and mentions that this is not right and just. Instead of making a hard decision here, Shepard then takes a bit of a (silly) risk - after all time is ticking away here - and decides to solve this by the power of his magical talking skills. Essentially it boils down to making a speech/rant that ends up - not in a unique cinematic - in the Quarian fleet standing down and Legion completing the upload.
Legion then has to sacrifice himself, like before with the Geth choice, to apply the upload to every Geth (This is kind of funny. Since he doesn't actually need to at this point and honestly then just sacrifices himself to upgrade them instead of saving them from total destruction). Tali and Shepard are saddened to see Legion having sacrificed himself and you are approached by one admiral and a moment after a Geth Prime. The Geth Prime says he is grateful, that Legion will be remembered and that they will do their best to help in the war and with the Quarian people to rebuild their civilization. They are all happy essentially and start picking places to live. As a result you have just solved a 300-year-feud by the simple task of shouting. You don't lose any faction, the only loss you take is Legion which is reassured all the time that what he did was good and he'll be honored and for always remembered for it so in essence, he had a pretty darn solid death. You get both the Quarian fleet and the Geth fleet. No losses, no cutscene, barely any emotional story deliverance and good, generic victory.
To add here, after talking to Tali you are informed that due to Geth being there they are doing what would have taken them centuries in mere years. Plus they are already building an immune-system by allowing the Geth to upload themselves into their suit and faking diseases. ------
To me this feels like punishing players for making hard decisions and going through the emotional ride and rewarding those that essentially just pick the easy way out. Don't get me wrong, I loved this planet and the story involved. I absolutely love these two endings, but the fact the reputation ending exists really upsets me. I basically now go through the game knowing I could have this really perfect, quite unrealistic solution instead that gains me so much more.
Actually, it's not based entirely on Shepard's legendary charm. You have to fulfill certain requirements to get peace. If you don't, then nothing you say will convince the Quarians to hold off.
Totally agree. Bioware messed up here. This was their solution to the ME2 system where some players couldn't solve squad disputes. But what they ended up with trivializes choice.
If they had forced me to choose between the geth and quarians, it would have had a higher impact. It would even make the ending make more sense, as hard as that is to believe.
Same could be said for any semi important decision during the series that has a paragon/renegade choice. Only difference here is that there is a lot more at stake, the loss of a species.
For example, to bring up semi relevant, in tali's loyalty mission from ME2. They made you decide whether to honor tali's wishes, keep her father's secret and allow her to be exiled while keeping her loyalty or you could ignore her, prevent her from being exiled but losing her loyalty.
Or you could go for the paragon/renegade and yell at the admiralty, preventing her from being exiled while keeping her loyalty.
Same goes for a lot of situations throughout the series. If anything, it is better a system in ME3. With the new reputation system, it doesn't reward you for just choosing only paragon or only renegade. It rewards you for taking your time and doing side missions. If you barrel through the game doing little of either, you don't get the option of saving both.
Though what you say is very true, a situation where you have to choose would have deep emotional impact and force you to make a meaningful decision. Then again, as someone who is deeply invested in the characters, its not exactly a decision I would like to make.
I guess what I'm saying is that its not something you can really single rannoch out for. Its something that has been there throughout the series.
Hmm. Didn't realise I typed that much. Must've been on a roll.
In order to even get the chance for that option you have to have done a lot of prior groundwork. Both ME2 loyalty missions, the resulting argument resolution, the composition of the admiralty board and the geth consensus all factor in to whether that option is possible as well as how hard the check is to pass.
I liked the "Peace" ending a LOT better than the others. The Peace ending had a MUCH larger emotional impact on me, and felt like a vindication of my efforts and understandings over the trilogy.
The other endings would have made me just ANGRY. Angry because there's no reason why Shepard couldn't talk Gerrel down (the geth actually WANT peace, and if you don't break off your attack, they'll be just as strong as before in a few minutes and they'll destroy you in self defense).
Modifié par SaltyWaffles-PD, 11 mars 2012 - 03:49 .
I liked the "Peace" ending a LOT better than the others. The Peace ending had a MUCH larger emotional impact on me, and felt like a vindication of my efforts and understandings over the trilogy.
The other endings would have made me just ANGRY. Angry because there's no reason why Shepard couldn't talk Gerrel down (the geth actually WANT peace, and if you don't break off your attack, they'll be just as strong as before in a few minutes and they'll destroy you in self defense).
Peace was definentely the ending for me...especially after all the work I went through in ME2 and how Legion and Tali got along. Forcing a choice between the Geth and Quarians would be...unfortunate. Glad they didn't do that...
No, it was done well. It's the same principle as the SM. The harder you work, if you do everything right, you get a better outcome.
If only they'd remembered this for the ending.
I still can't believe the endings. I just don't get it at all. I had so many war assets and it didn't even matter. Ohhh no more ships exploded if i didn't get more assets. Okay well most of those people will die anyway when the relays explode. The quarians are stuck near earth. IN THEIR SHIPS! AHHHHH THAT DRIVE ME INSANE THAT THEY ARE STUCK IN THEIR SHIPS AGAIN!!!
Bioware should have made you choose between slowly killing your LI with your bare hands, and slaughtering an orphanage with a flamethrower one by one Choosing between Geth and Quarians isn't anywhere near as painful as my idea! Seriously, that decision would totally suck. Both the options are, like, way awful. Oh, what if you were forced to choose between living the death of every person killed by the repaers through their eyes, or being trapped in an immortal body that's unable to interact with anything for the rest of time? I don't know why you bother OP, I'm way better at this.
No, it was done well. It's the same principle as the SM. The harder you work, if you do everything right, you get a better outcome.
If only they'd remembered this for the ending.
This.
To make peace between the two, you had VERY little room for error. Legion needs to be active and alive. You need to keep Tali from being exiled. You need to do both of the missions on Rannoch. You need a nearly full reputation bar. There's more, but I can't remember it at the moment - it's been brought up on the board before, though.
Bioware should have made you choose between slowly killing your LI with your bare hands, and slaughtering an orphanage with a flamethrower one by one Choosing between Geth and Quarians isn't anywhere near as painful as my idea! Seriously, that decision would totally suck. Both the options are, like, way awful. Oh, what if you were forced to choose between living the death of every person killed by the repaers through their eyes, or being trapped in an immortal body that's unable to interact with anything for the rest of time? I don't know why you bother OP, I'm way better at this.
Interesting ideas, you should be a writer for BioWare!
Phydeaux314 wrote...
Mr. Big Pimpin wrote...
No, it was done well. It's the same principle as the SM. The harder you work, if you do everything right, you get a better outcome.
If only they'd remembered this for the ending.
This.
To make peace between the two, you had VERY little room for error. Legion needs to be active and alive. You need to keep Tali from being exiled. You need to do both of the missions on Rannoch. You need a nearly full reputation bar. There's more, but I can't remember it at the moment - it's been brought up on the board before, though.
Well alright, I wasn't aware that pretty much all the stars had to be aligned for this outcome. I guess I can live with it then, but still it seems a bit of a cheap way out for me. Especially since the non-reputation endings just seem to have so much more weight behind them and missing out on that because you go with the perfect ending seems.. odd to me. Why BioWare would hide some of the most emotional and dramatic scenes like that I don't get.
It's just.. I liked stuff like Virmire, it was memorable and with weight behind it largely due to the fact you could never really win with that. Like Tuchanka for example, I thought that was a great example of BioWare writing done right too. Then after going through Rannoch, enjoying it a lot, and with one dialogue option getting the most generic ending to the 300 year conflict just.. annoyed me. Yes the other two options made me mostly angry and sad, but the peaceful option just... didn't do anything. I won, seemed pretty easy. I assume most people would have done everything prior to that mission anyway, so I still think most people would easily be able to go with the reputation ending.
This franchise is easily one of my most loved franchises out there, but when great story deliverance is swept under the rug like that because of one reputation ending it just annoys me. It did that in the other games too, but there it was never nearly as impactful or dramatic.
So I guess there's not real benefit to blowing up the Geth or letting the Quarians die in the long run? Like how they sort of hammer on you that keeping both alive in peace gets you this much better outcome after you talk to some people after the mission. (What are the odds keeping the Geth around may result in them being hacked again by the Reapers.. or you hearing tensions are growing among Quarian and Geth again? )
I suppose I'll just go with the perfect solution here then, since it seems to have much more focus on it by BioWare post-mission.
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