7052 réponses à ce sujet

[StruttingJester]

As with everyone else, everything but the last 15 minutes of all three games was phenomenal, but the ending ruins it all.


Probably a lot of repeats here, but I wanted to add my thoughts.  A number of these points assume choices I made in my playthrough, but I would imagine they can be extrapolated for any set of choices.



1) Consequences & Closure.
When I played through the first time, not knowing what was going to happen, I was torn between the synthesis and destroy endings, limping back and forth between them a few times.  The thing that finally settled it for me was that the destroy option also killed the Geth, after I had already saved them.  However, there was nothing in any of the endings that reflected this.  No cut scene showing the Geth toppling over with the reapers, nothing showing them and the Quarians living in green-tinted peace and harmony.  Very little is different between the endings; as someone on twitter put it, we get to choose what color mountain dew destroys the galaxy.  Also, if the decision is ultimately to keep the endings as they are, showing what happens to everyone, even if it's only a 15 seconds for each (hopefully showing conclusively if they live or die), would be a significant improvement. This would be best focused on those who have names, but the various allied armies could also have gotten more screen time.  And most importantly, the love interest story should be resolved, whether it's them saying goodbye to Shepard's memory, or them finding the body in the rubble of the crashed citadel.



2) Forced Dialog.
There was no arguing with the Catalyst.  It explained it's side of the story, and we had to just sit there and take it.  We can't control what reaction people will have, but we can control what we say to them.  If the Catalyst tells me that synthetics and organics can't live together, my first reaction would be to bring up the Geth and Quarian reconciliation, then Joker and EDI's relationship.  It probably won't accept the arguments, but of course I'm going to try.  But that choice wasn't given to us, and should have been.



3) Joker
Why is Joker abandoning us?  He rescued us from an erupting volcano, led the charge against the Reaper vanguard, took an unknown relay into a black hole cluster and waited for the job to be done to pull us out, and delivered us to earth to end the threat once and for all.  It is completely out of character for someone who has demonstrated exemplary courage and admittedly feels responsible for Shepard's death once already to abandon his commander without word of his fate.  It strains credulity even further for him to have also picked up the squad mates that were with Shepard on earth minutes earlier, but not wait to hear from Shepard, if he even attempted to make contact.



4) Previous Choices Have No Impact.
Regardless of what path you take to get there, the Catalyst/Crucible combination always has the same three options (assuming the requisite EMS), control, synthesis, and destruction.  None of the choices made up to that point make any difference on what it does, aside from increasing the EMS rating.  Could the Geth have been able to integrate what they knew of reaper code to make it more effective (or possibly shield themselves from the blast?)  Could the Salarians have been able to determine beforehand that the use of the weapon would destroy the relays, and enact a plan to deal with this consequence, or prevent it?  Possibly working with the Rachni to at least set up some form of inter-system communications?  There are thousands of different choices made at this point, any of them could be used to tailor the ending.  I would even go so far as to argue that there shouldn't be a choice at the end, or at most, a single choice.  Compared to what was there, I would have preferred the choice to simply be to activate the Crucible or not, and what happens after turning it on is entirely dependent on what choices I made previously.  This is implemented to some extent with low EMS, where the choice on the collector base determines whether the control or destroy beam is fired.  If this took into account all of the major decisions, and not just that one, it could have made a great ending.  All of the choices have been made by this point.  It's time to see the impact of those choices.



5) Synthetic Vs Organic
The Reapers being revealed to be created to ensure synthetics do not destroy organics seems to ignore half of the points made by the rest of the series.  The Rachni almost obliterated all other life, as did the Krogan (and it is easy to draw parallels between the Genophage and the Reapers), neither of which had anything to do with synthetics.  It would have made far more sense for the Reapers to be tasked with preventing any one species from dominating, and possibly obliterating, all other life.  Their logic would be flawed, as life will always evolve, but they would not have been designed to understand that, they would only know that every 50,000 years, civilizations will have advanced to the point where mass extinctions are possible, perhaps likely.  This opens up several new options for endings:
- Cerberus victory, in which all other sentient life is exterminated aside from humans (justifying the Reapers, but also destroying them)
- United galaxy victory, in which the Reapers are defeated and everyone is left to pick up the peices and try to get along.
- No Victory, the option to delay this apocalypse by destroying both the reapers and the relay system (this could strand the other species in the Sol system, but since the citadel is the control system for the relays, it could easily send everyone home at the same time).
- Several other options that I can't think of. 
We would only be presented with some of these options based on our previous choices, per the last point.



Other Points:
- Don't force a rainbows and sunshine ending, and I don't think there is one to be found here.
- A final boss could have been fun, but that isn't what the ME games have been about.  However, killing Harbinger somehow during the fight to the beam would be EPIC.  Don't know how that one would play out though...
- If you're going to do the indoctrination thing, be careful with it.


EDIT: I forgot to add this section earlier, things that were great, above and beyond how good the game is in general:
- Weapon/Armor options, we have plenty of choices to find the right weapon for us, without being overwhelmed.  Especially the specialty weapons, the Scorpion, the Particle Beam etc.
- Paragon/Renegade interrupts - there could be a few more paragon ones, but in general these are a great way of pulling us into the role of Shepard
- Bringing everyone back from the previous games (if they were alive), continuity keeps the series going.
- Whatever it is you do to make us emotionally attached to the characters.  There wouldn't be such a big deal with the ending without this.





Thanks for giving us this chance, as far as I know, it's unprecedented.  To really listen to the fans, those of us who have dedicated hundreds of hours to play the game...  and if something actually comes of this... 
I, like many others, have always maintained that BioWare is the best game developer out there, and if you fix this for us, you will prove that to be the truth.


I just hope you can do it in a way to please all of us, we tend to be a fickle lot....

Modifié par StruttingJester, 17 mars 2012 - 06:12 .

[Bantz]

Maybe i'm a bit disney, but I want a happy ending option. Make it hard, really hard, to get. I want to be able to give tali more time. I want closure on to what happens to my team not just "they appear on a random planet". I want to have the option to not have to murder a teammate (edi as she is a synthetic) or an entire race who a good friend died to give freedom to (the geth) while still taking out those bastards.

I want the bad guy in Me3, the illusive man, to NOT BE RIGHT. I want something other then a random godchild that hasn't appeared in this form all game but suddenly shows up and tells shep whats goin on, and shep just says "oh... ok". It's completely out of sheps character he's been a "to hell with fate" type person all series.

I want a good ending to easily the greatest game I had ever played up until the ending. I want the option to have a good ending, if i don't do enough then things can go south. But if I do just about everything right (only thing I could see being a grey area is the cure/not cure genophage) I should be able to earn a happy ending.

I think saying shep "has to die" in a game based on choices and consequences is doing a HUGE injustice to your fanbase and the wonderful story you've set up so far. Yes shep has suffered much and seen a lot of suffering. He's seen dear friends die, stood by helpless while five billion asari were killed on Thessia. Was hit with the realization that the Illusive man was slaughtering people seeking shelter in order to run horrific tests. He's seen and experienced more then anyone ever should. he deserves, and has earned, the opportunity to retire into peace. You can end his saga there. Let him live and you could have us import ME3 saves into ME4 and make shep do a cameo it would be epic.

[Vardtmardtr]

And, if possible, make there a possibility of good-perfect endings the player has to work for, don't reward their commitment with death and unavoidable disaster.

Give Shep a chance at some happiness, (s)he's been through a LOT.

[Xarathos]

 I'm sure some of what I'm about to say has been covered in detail already, but I respect the call for constructive feedback too much to avoid providing any. I'd also refer to this link which has been provided by a number of others in this thread so far, mainly because it's an excellent summary of our issues. Broadly speaking.

This is what I would like to see: 

1) A wider variety of endings, including at least one 'heroic' ending. 

   Several people have attempted to describe the ending to Mass Effect 3 as "bittersweet." The problem with this is that in order for something to be bittersweet... it has to have something "sweet." 

The possibility of a happier ending would not invalidate the sacrifices Shepard made to reach it, and would give us something to pursue in multiple playthroughs. It should not be handed to us; I don't want Rainbows and Unicorns: The Game. I'd like to see something that feels like a reward for all the effort that it took to reach it. And I'd like to see something that reflects the unique journey of MY Shepard.

For example, a path that would allow Shepard to... build a house with Tali on Rannoch, or help Liara rebuild Thessia (and yes, maybe have some of those little blue babies they talked about in the Shadow Broker DLC), or meet up with Garrus for drinks, to retire and live off the book rights, or - if the path suits my Shepard - maybe even just die in the arms of his/her LI... different outcomes based on different factors. Even if these outcomes weren't actually SHOWN - and there is something to be said for leaving something to the imagination - a reunion with Shepard's squad and one last touching scene with the LI (if any) would IMPLY the chance to do all those things perfectly well.

My Shepard was a soldier and a diplomat, who could talk his way out of a paper bag but wouldn't heasitate to shoot if the situation demanded it. He unified the galaxy in response to the reaper threat. He overcame impossible odds over and over again. He ought to have a reward that suits that kind of effort. 

Not all the ending possibilities should be happy, certainly, but there should be something rewarding for us to work toward. For some of us, ("I was promised blue babies!") this is what that means. And even having some WORSE endings wouldn't be bad; some of us, it has been said, would like the possibility for the reapers to win outright if Shepard has done particularly poorly.

Mass Effect 2 had an amazing ending. I had a particularly horrifying first experience with it in which nearly my entire squad was wiped out, and it hurt, badly, because I knew it was MY fault. They died because I failed them as a commander. Subsequent playthroughs went better, but the impact of that moment never faded, and it's always been one of the things I tell people about when I tell them how amazing Mass Effect is. It's amazing because it makes us feel what Shepard feels. And though the ending could be positive for Shepard and his squad, it was always bittersweet - there was always SOMEONE you couldn't save, even if it was just the colonists. 

I'd like to see Mass Effect 3 build on that idea, but with even more variation. Because this IS the end of Shepard's story, and variation is possible.

Within this larger framework of endings, maybe some of the current choices could still be included, but in a way that brings closure to the experience. I know, we've seen the end results of many of our choices throughout the 'ending' that is the entire game, and that's fine. But the implications of the current ending make it seem like many of those outcomes have been undone. I don't want to see all my work undone.  Shepard did so much and acomplished so much, plunging the galaxy into a new dark age just feels... wrong. Especially given how many people would seem to be trapped on a broken Earth... 

2) Endings that are thematically consistent with the rest of Mass Effect. 

   As far as we know, Mass Effect has never been about the conflict between organics and synthetics, and having the child AI (who we really have no reason to trust) dump it on us just comes out of nowhere. What's worse, is that the central idea of this conflict is invalidated throughout the rest of the games by our relationships with Legion and EDI, and (in my case and many others) the hard won peace we achieved between the quarians and the geth. 

The themes of the game seem to be unity, compassion, tollerance for others, and the idea that the diversity of the galaxy is what makes 'our cycle' strong. Mass Effect 3 builds this idea up a LOT, even more so for those of us who heard Javik's speeches in From Ashes. The current endings seem to just sweep these ideas aside as pointless. 

3) Endings that allow us to avoid compromising Shepard's integrity. 

   Maybe compromise is acceptable to some people, but I don't want to see Shepard sacrifice everything that makes him/her special in order to 'end' the game.

The goal has always been one thing; to destroy the reapers. We see the necessity of this hammered home throughout every game. Sovereign is uncompromisingly wicked (and a fantastic villain, one of the greats of all time). Harbinger is intimidating and dark. EDI has told me that the reapers are selfish, and care only for their self-preservation. Any compromise with them is failure. 

This makes it particularly frustrating when the ending appears to undermine this with a retcon of monumental proportions. A last minute villain reveal, a claim that the reapers aren't evil... no. No, this can't be true. But Shepard, for the first time, seems incapible of raising an argument in defense of life, diversity, unity, all fundamentals without which he would not have reached this end at all. I want to see those traits valued. But there isn't a choice that lets me satisfy all of them.

If I choose control, the reapers still exist, and I have failed. This is made worse by the knowledge that Saren and The Illusive Man both thought they could control the reapers and were wrong. Why would it be different now? Hearing Shepard say the words, "so the Illusive man was right all along," broke my heart. I cannot accept that.

If I choose synthesis, I'm forcing a vision of unity on the entire universe, essentially doing the reapers job for them... or allowing myself to play God. I love the friends I've developed the way they ARE, and the idea of forcing them to change to suit some AI... no. 
I cannot accept that.

Destroy, then, is the only choice left... but it requires me to commit incidental genocide against the geth, and effectively murder a valued crew member (EDI). It requires me to obliterate the sacrifice of a friend, Legion, and wipe out its entire people, the people it gave its LIFE to uplift. I cannot accept that. 

And no matter what I choose, I condemn the galaxy to a new dark age, after all the effort I expended to unify it. Again, this is not bittersweet, it's just BLEAK. It's cosmic horror on a new scale. It leaves me thinking we'd have been better off just letting the reapers destroy us.

Ideally, I'd like to see Shepard be able to argue with the reaper child... assuming the child should even be there in the first place. I'd like to see him/her make the case for life, and not just blindly accept it when the child shuts down the line, "I think we'd rather stay in our current form." I want Shepard to be Shepard, and find the fourth option, the one that makes us all remember why we identify with the character. The option that saves the universe and doesn't demand Shepard to seemingly give up and die. 

Even better, I'd LOVE to see it revealed that the reaper child is secretly Harbinger. Harbinger was such a fantastic villain in Mass Effect 2, it seems a shame not to feature him again in a big way ... and putting him there would be a good way to salvage the sequence as it currently stands and just branch off from it. It could add to the existing endings rather than eliminate them entirely. Then give Shepard the opportunity to fight back and triumph, to overcome his/her doubts and the nightmares that have been haunting him/her and either win or lose once and for all.

_______________________________________

I want to make this one point abundantly clear: I do love EVERYTHING else about the game. I loved the long walk and goodbyes at the end (though I'd much rather they be "in case we don't meet again," instead of the absolute finality they currently are). I loved seeing Garrus and Joker sharing jokes in the cockpit. I loved hearing Wrex call me brother. I loved every shining moment with Tali on Rannoch. I cheered when my Shepard punched a quarian admiral in the gut for threatening Tali's safety. I raged when Thesia fell and swore revenge on Kai Lang with Shepard. I loved seeing how my influence had changed Jack for the better. I found peace with Mordin's death because I know it's how he'd want to go. Thane, too, and Legion; what better sendoff could they have asked for? These tragedies made me weep, but in a good way. They had meaning. They had value. These characters went out in a Crowning Moment of Awesome. That's the way it should be, and I thank you for it. Even Anderson's death feels meaningful, if for no other reason than the fact that the scene is so touching... hearing Anderson say he's proud of me/Shepard MEANT something, and it just feels that much more jarring when we are pulled unavoidably into the strange and confusing end sequence.

Mass Effect 3 is FILLED with SO MANY wonderful things. I want to be able to recommend it to everyone I know, but with the ending as it is, I simply can't. And I want to make it clear that it's NOT just because it's sad ... it's because it's inevitable, and nothing I can do will change it. Shepard HAS sacrificed to get to this point, and so have many others. The problem with the ending is twofold: first, that as it stands, it feels like all those sacrifices were for nothing. And second, that there can be no better outcome than the one we have. With no better outcome available, we feel no reason to try again. We want to spare ourselves and Shepard that kind of end. 

If Shepard's ending must be sad, let it be a Moment of Awesome. Let it be a moment of victory or defeat as the Shepard we've spent so much time creating and nurturing. As it stands... it doesn't feel that way. It feels like I'm being asked to decide exactly how to condemn all my friends and allies to a slow death. 

And please, give us something to work for, a true 'bittersweet' ending that gives Shepard a chance to reach a much deserved retirement. That possibility wouldn't make the journey less meaningful; on the contrary, for many of us it would give it meaning again.

I hope this helps, feedback wise. I've tried to be as clear as I can at this time of night.

One last thing: I love BioWare and I always have (I've been a fan since KoTOR, and though I've yet to play the Dragon Age series I've played practically everything else including Jade Empire). And I love Mass Effect most of all. And 99% of Mass Effect 3... it's the best game I've ever played once. I just want it to be something I can play again and again.

Thank you for listening.

Modifié par Xarathos, 17 mars 2012 - 05:43 .

[awilkin]

I'd like to see a "Reapers win" ending. The fact that Shepard could actually lose would make victory that much more meaningful.

Also, no more mass relay destruction. This just destroys the galaxy’s vibrancy. I'd almost prefer to let the cycles continue.


Also, here's some things I liked about the ending:

-The galaxy map. I didn't care for the genocidal consequences of that scene, but watching the energy pulse propagate through the relay network was visually very cool.

-Shepard's moment with Anderson on the Citadel. Touching.

-Seeing the space battle overhead while on the Citadel. It brought a nice sense of epicness to the scene.

-Though from a storytelling perspective the stargazer scene fell a little short, Buzz Aldrin's general message about space exploration was moving.

[Blackmind1]

Initial note: I'm normally a good writer, but it's 4:30am here and my eyes hurt. If you find any errors in grammar or spelling, pleae, just shrug them off 

I have quite a long view of how the game should end for it to be satisfying, and to help make the final choice a real choice that gives you 3 drastically different endings, with some small variables thrown in.

------------------

Everything is perfectly fine exactly as it is for the most part. The Crucible isn't a weapon of Reaper destruction, it was a fail safe made by the Reapers should they begin to lose. The large blue beam doesn't teleport you up to the crucible, it's a huge indoctrination beam, designed to hypnotize all life in the area into approaching it, where a trap is sprung. People would arrive at the beam and begin the indoctrination process, where they would then willingly walk right into Reaper liquifiers without thinking twice. Shepard see's the crucible in the way he does because he expects a device which will completely annihilate his enemy. The child is Harbinger, who felt the need to personally make sure that Shepard falls into the trap laid before him. Even Harbinger did not know the form the vision would take until he was in his mind with him. Once you've picked your choice at the crucible, it would go something like this:

-------------------

Blue: You wake up on the floor in London, your team surrounding you, horrified at the site of you writhing and screaming in pain. You see Harbinger looming over you, speaking to you in your mind, "You're a fool, Shepard! We are eternal, you can not control that which already controls you! If you stop resisitng, then your perfection will come much faster. Give in to your urge to fight. You have already lost!" As Shepards body goes limp, a faint image of Object Rho and your talk with Harbinger flash on screen, like the prothean beacon images from the first game. Your team begins to fight harder to fend off Husks, and depending on your war asset score, certain party members will live or die. It shows a few scenes of Reapers and Alliance ships being taken down, and your game ends here. No epilogue, civilisation is wiped out, The Reapers win.

This is the worst ending.

------------------

Green: What I consider to be a bad ending, but not as bad. You're pulled out of your trance, rain falling violently all around you. As you get up and try to come to your senses, you notice that all of the husks have stopped moving, the flow of time seemingly ceases entirely. With lightning illuminating the sky, your friends watch in horror as Harbinger descends, like a spider from a web, and proceeds to talk to you before He finishes you off completely.

"You surprise me, Shepard. After all this time, trying your hardest to stall the inevitable, you come to your senses and see our plan for what it is: A means toward survival. Organic life is chaotic, we have seen the same scenario played out many times over a span of time you couldn't even begin to comprehend. When Nazara, the eye of your salvation, awoke and alerted us to the presence of synthetics, we began the process of assimilation. Our form is not a single construct, but an ever shifting storage of countless civilisations. Your race, and indeed, every other race involved in your pitiful resistance, are to join us and become one with the galactic process which we began aeons ago."

At this point, your dialogue wheel would pop up, and Harbinger would talk a little bit about The Reapers, out of respect for you, and your choice to give in. After all conversations have been exhausted, your final dialogue choice would be (Rebel):"If you think we're going to go down easily, then your gravely mistaken. We will fight you, and we will finish you. " Harbinger would comment on the futility of the situation, stating your cycle has already come to an end. Suddenly, many Reapers would descend all around you, the rain turning to a storm. As your teams begin screaming in agony, the victims of flash indoctrination, you give one last look up to Harbinger, his final words, "Accept your salvation. Become one with us, and serve the cycle for the rest of eternity."

The screen fades, as one last bolt of thunder breaks the sky. You've lost, but the Reapers numbers were severely weakened by the efforts of your collective EMS (which will change this final number depending on your score): XXX hundred years will pass until all life is wiped out. You lose your team, but there is more than enough time left for people to right there wrongs, make amends, finish living. All life is forced into the middle of the galaxy, as The Reapers take over the systems one by one from the outside in. If you chose to save the collector base, then Harbinger utilises the aid of The Collector's and their processing tubes to speed up the rate of extinction. this is the modifier the base changes. You'll also get a neat bonus showing The illusive man trying to bargain with Harbinger, treating him as some kind of deity, talking about how he was trying to serve him. Harbinger will talk to him about how others have tried to control the deities which they worship, only to find that the deity isn't as forgiving of betrayal as they would have liked. You can't become, or control, God. The illusive man mutters about how he has failed humanity, and blows his brains out. We see flashbacks from his eyes suggesting that he has been in contact with Harbinger himself since he was struck by the artifact during the events of "Evolution". Since he began hearing the voices, urging him to help them with their plans, his resolve and sheer willpower helped him to slow the attempt to take over him. He use's what he knows to try and save humanity by finding a way to transcend even The Reapers, but never loses sight of the fact that elevating his race to a point above The Reapers will always require horrendous sacrifices.

The words "XXX years until extinction" appear on screen, and the credits roll.

----------------

RED = NOT YET FINALISED, but will be longer than green and involves around an extra 45 minutes of gameplay!

----------------

These are just my thoughts that make use of some of the themes that I managed to extract from the series. they may not resonate well with others, this is all just my take.

(There is no stargazer in this story)

Modifié par Blackmind1, 17 mars 2012 - 05:41 .

[Vardtmardtr]

This is also probably what people wanted most, the chance to actually give their two creds on the ending, and let their voices be heard. Thanks.

[Skyblade012]

Some of this is copy pasted from a previous thread, but it is also expanded upon somewhat.  My problems with the old ending will be in a quote, my suggestion for a new ending will be at the bottom, for easy separation and viewing of what you would like to see.

The ending, as it stands, feels wrong.  It comes in a stark contrast to the entire rest of the series.

First, there is Shepard as a character.  Shepard is probably one of the strongest characters ever designed in gaming, period.  I don't mean physically, I mean will and personality.  Shepard is not easily forced or compelled.  You saw some fan backlash on this issue in Mass Effect 2, with players complaining that they felt "forced" to work with Cerberus, which is something that most Shepards would not do.  Shepard has an overall driving will that steamrolls practically anything.  From talking down those suffering indoctrination, to convincing entire civilizations to throw everything behind her into a last ditch fight, Shepard's sheer willpower can overwhelm practically anything in the universe.

This is broken by the ending.  The Catalyst, your starchild, admits to being the one controlling the Reapers, the one behind the entire genocidal plan that is wiping out all life over and over.  And just a few sentences later, Shepard is willing to take the word of the enemy of all life completely at face value, and do whatever it says.  This goes against everything Shepard is as a character.  When Shepard doesn't like the options presented to her, she either keeps pushing at people until a new option is revealed or she just whips out an interrupt and does her own thing anyway.  Shepard would never go along with Starchild's plans.  Especially since, I mean, look at them.  In order to activate the destruction mode of the Crucible, you supposedly have to shoot at a power conduit.  I'm sorry, but why are we trusting the enemy of all civilization that destroying a power conduit on our superweapon is going to activate it?
 
Then we get to the central premise of the ending, that organics and synthetics can never live together.  The problem here is that this is proven wrong. Twice, at least.  In Mass Effect 3, no matter what, you get to work together with EDI. A completely free, unshackled AI that chooses to side with the organics, even reprogramming herself to do so better. Depending on your choices, you can get the geth and the quarians to cooperate, ending a 300+ year war with a peaceful, cooperative solution. You say our decisions matter, but where was the chance to bring in actual proof of the Catalyst's flawed judgement to that discussion?  In fact, in the geth/quarian war, the geth NEVER betrayed their creators, as the Catalyst says they inevetibly will, they acted purely out of self defense after their creators betrayed them.  Yet, again, Shepard ignores her own accomplishments, imperical evidence disproving the assertions of the catalyst, and again sides with the enemy of all life, despite EVERYTHING pointing to the fact that he is wrong.

Not to mention, everyone dies. Period. Except possibly the quarians and geth. When you detonate that device, you fragment the galaxy. Without the Mass Relays, any ship or colony without a nearby food source is doomed. No food, no life. There are plenty of colonies that aren't self-sufficient, and all of those would die. The entire fleet, brough in to assault the Reapers on Earth, is dead, as there is nothing close enough to Earth to sustain anywhere near the population, since Earth itself is wasted. Even in the best possible ending, even with that brief glimpse of Shepard taking a breath, everyone is already dead, whether they know it or not. The Mass Effect universe has been killed. And that's the "good ending" reward.

Then there is the thematic shift.  Throughout the series, the themes the series focused on have been tolerance, unity, and working together against impossible odds.  This is the focus of the entire series.  Even if a Shepard chooses to be a jerk the whole time, the theme is still there, because it is the focus of the persuade system.  The persuades focus around getting others to work with or for you.  Even if you don't take advantage of them, the fact that they are the focus of that system, which is integral to the game, makes it a huge focus of the game itself.  And the theme has grown with the series.  Throughout Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, Shepard builds individuals.  Building a team, uniting them in a common goal, getting them focused and prepared to do the impossible.  Sometimes teaching them to sacrifice their own plans for the good of the galaxy (as in Wrex being convinced to give up the genophage cure).  In Mass Effect 3, this grows in scale massively.  Now you are working these same themes upon a galactic scale.  Convincing entire cultures to work together, ending wars (through diplomacy or choosing one side over another) that have raged for centuries (geth/quarian, turian/krogan, human/batarian), uniting them under a single banner, convincing them to join the the final fight.

And this theme, possibly the greatest core theme of the series, is thrown out the window, simply because the Catalyst says that cooperation is impossible.  Bam, everything the series accomplished, shattered right there.  The theme built up through the series, even through Mass Effect 3 on a huge scale, thrown away at the end, and Shepard, the one character who (especially as a Paragon) fights for unity more than anything else, throws it away without a look back.  And perhaps the worst bit of this is that the galaxy itself reflects this thematic change.  The galaxy, unified always by the Mass Relays, is torn apart by the destruction of those Relays.  The result of the Crucible, just as much as the conversation with the Catalyst, suddenly makes unity impossible.

Then there are our choices.  Nothing we did mattered.  The ending is based purely on the final decision and the numeric score, which gets just as large a multiplier from multiplayer as from our decisions (if not more).  Even if the videos themselves didn't reflect our decisions, the players get to know that, no matter what final choice they made, their decisions are worthless.  You united the geth and quarians.  Yay.  Except that Rannoch is on the other side of the galaxy, and the geth and quarian fleets will never make it back.  You started a war between the Krogans and Salarians by faking the genophage cure.  Yes, if they can figure out how to cross the galaxy, they'll start killing each other at some point.  EVERYTHING we did was made pointless by the ending.  The Mass Effect universe was defined by the intergalactic relationships.  The nuances between individual characters and whole races.  And those are now ended, because the galaxy is broken apart.

Then, there's the plot holes, and these go on for pages. Why does Anderson enter the beam after Shepard, yet wind up in front of her? How does he reach the console without being spotted, when there only seems to be one entrance to the chamber? Why does Shepard's gun have unlimited ammo, despite still using thermal clips? Why is Marauder Shields so easy to kill that two shots from a pistol can eliminate him, when no other Marauder in the game is that weak (at least, on the difficulty setting I was on)? How did the Illusive Man reach the room, and what was he doing there? What is the point of sending humans into the beam to be processed when there were no forces on the other side to process them?  Why would the beam for processing humans lead to a direct conduit to the shut-down switch for the entire Reaper force? How did your squadmates arrive back on the Normandy? How did the location of the final confrontation, clearly visible from space, go unknown by everyone for millions of years? Why did the Catalyst take the form of the Child? Why are these three options availible, set up, and ready to go if they were never expected to be used, or indeed never forseen, even by the Catalyst? How can the Reapers possibly have free will, as they claimed in previous games, if they are in fact controlled by the Catalyst? Why does the Catalyst, an entity of which the Citadel is merely a part, need Saren and the geth to open the Citadel relay in ME1, instead of just opening it himself to further what he admits is his own plan? Why does Joker leave through the Mass Relay before the end of the battle? Why does your crew go with him? How does EDI survive the destruction of all synthetic life, if you choose that ending? Why is the destructive force of the Crucible directly tied to the strength of the fleet you brought with you (I can see, for example, the synthetic fusion ending requiring a greater fleet strength to pull off than simple destruction, as it might require more time to trigger, but how does the strength of the fleet you take literally determine whether you just kill all Reapers or you incinerate the entire Earth)?

And those are only the ones I can think of off the top of my head, in a few minutes. There are probably hundreds more, and they are ALL introduced in only those last few minutes.

Worst of all, none of this was necessary. You were leading up to a perfect ending. Right up until the point Harbinger's beam hits, there is no problem. Had we not been hit by Harbinger's beam, we would have been transported to the Citadel. We would have had to fight through the processing forces that were on the other side, turning Humans into another Reaper. We would have to fight our way up the Presidium to the Council chamber, the control center of the Citadel, thus bringing the game full circle, back to ME1. There we would confront the Illusive Man, the logical place for him to hide out, if he was believing that he was truly in control. And again we would open the Citadel arms. And then the Crucible would arrive, and our final decision takes place.

A Prothean VI was installed into the Citadel long ago (likely by the Ilos team).  While it could have given early warning against the Reapers, it was set not to activate until the Crucible was installed and active, to prevent Sovereign (which the VI had no way of knowing was dead) from realizing that the races knew of the Reapers and were working to stop them, which likely would have initiated the purge early, as well as resulted in the VI being purged and unable to help future generations.

The VI lets Shepard know that the Crucible creates a dark energy field tuned to destroy the Reapers.  The Catalyst, the Citadel, magnifies and focuses this field into a blast that eliminates all Reapers in the local cluster.  Shepard comments that the Citadel is usually sitting in the middle of an empty nebula, so that sort of burst is largely useless.  The VI then reveals the secondary part of the plan, which again uses Reaper technology against them.  The Citadel is the hub of the relay network.  If the Citadel activates all the relays before the burst, the burst will be transmitted through the relays themselves, each relay resending it, and recreating the burst in its local cluster.  The result would be a galaxy-wide purge of the Reapers.

However, the relays are not designed for this sort of energy manipulation, the way the Citadel is.  While they can channel and focus this sort of energy burst, the dark energy field they must create is so massive that it will collapse the relays upon themselves.  Shepard comments that she destroyed a relay once, and it wiped out a star system, so that doesn't look like a very valid plan.  The VI assures Shepard that this will not repeat.  The destruction of a relay by an outside force would liberate that much energy, but this destruction is caused by the relay's own energy.  The energy will be expended in the blast that eliminates the Reapers and propogates the chain, and the destruction will be limited to the vicinity of the relay itself.

Thus, you have two options when firing the Crucible: Eliminate all Reapers in the Exodus cluster, or eliminate all Reapers across the galaxy, at the cost of the Mass Relays. Paragon or Renegade. And now everything comes into play.

For Paragons, the destruction of the Reaper's galactic stronghold on Earth, and the complete control of the relays offered by the Citadel, the forces you bring in go into a new battle, taking the fight to the enemy. The fleets jump together, as a single massive unit, hitting system after system. We see geth and quarians working together to retake Thessia. The Krogan, Turians, and even Rachni working as a team to push the Reapers off Khar'shan. The Batarians and Humans teamed up to clear Palaven. It is the ultimate, final war. A war of extinction as the might of the entire galaxy is brought to bear on the enemy, one system at a time. And, if you aren't strong enough, you'll lose.

Your choices come into effect here, through a lot of little scenes.  If you never gained the support of the batarians, a group of indoctrinated batarian ships join the Reaper attack, launching a surprise assault on the rear of your forces, possibly assassinting Admiral Hackett.  This can be countered by other forces, depending on what extra ones you have obtained (say, the Volus dreadnaught, or the Drell/Hanar forces).  If you sided with the geth, a few quarians who made it out of the system come back in dealing suicidal strikes against your forces, or vice-versa.  There is the potential for a ton of little scenes here.  But the end result, if you have enough war assests to hold through, is the Paragon ending.  A galaxy, united, with the Reapers defeated.

For Renegades the universe is now different. The Reapers are destroyed, everywhere, but the relays are also inactive. The armada brought with you will never see their home again. Earth cannot support them. A small armada (ie: low war asset total) is left, barely alive, cooperating and struggling for existence on a burned world. A larger armada (ie: higher war asset total) tears itself apart through infighting. But, if you did everything (huge asset total), you have the galaxy's most brilliant minds in one place, for the Crucible project, and they have the Citadel. They work together to open the Citadel relay. They figure out how to control it, to direct it to send things where they want, not just to and from dark space, because it can work without a second relay at the other end, apparently. They beam forces across the galaxy, not just to their homes, but to where they are needed. Asari, Quarians, Turians, Geth, Batarians, Salarians, Humans, Krogan, Rachni, Elcor, Volus, Hanar, Drell... All start to work on a new project, the creation and emplacement of new Mass Relays, a new system, reconnecting the universe.

The good Renegade ending plays out slower, a few scenes every couple of months or even years.  The decisions play out through the races rebuilding.  You see Salarians making strikes against the Krogan before they can reorganize.  You see the Elcor culture collapse because you didn't help them evacuate and they didn't have enough colonies to survive.  Just a lot of little binary toggle scenes based on your decisions.  A completely different set of them than the Paragons, but just as many.  And in the end, no matter the cost, the galaxy is safe from the Reapers.  That's the Renegade way.

Those are the endings I want. Ones that do justice, to the series, and to our choices.


EDIT:  Almost forgot.  In either ending, before the Crucible, fires, Harbinger makes an appearance, trying to stop it.  Having rushed up from the Earth after Shepard got through, Harbinger reaches the Crucible.  Harbinger fails in any case, but depending on war asset total, or decisions, Shepard can die here.  For example, even if war assets were usually low enough that Shepard would die, if the Destiny Ascension was saved, it keeps Shepard alive.  Maybe one other, similarly important war asset could do the same thing.

Modifié par Skyblade012, 17 mars 2012 - 05:43 .

[Flammenpanzer]

JoeLaTurkeyII wrote...

The plot holes brought up in this brilliant article must be corrected:

http://www.gamefront...fans-are-right/

Star child is a joke, and his reason for wiping out organics a bigger one

If the devs read and respond favorably to this, I'd be happy.

[RedTail F22]

Phattee Buttz wrote...

Brief Note: I don't care if it takes you 6 months or a year to do this, just don't rush it!

 It'll kill me but if it means that we end up with great quality then by all means take your time. I'd would love to have a finished product 6 months down the road rather than an unfinished product next week.

[Darth_Trethon]

GiBBsBoT05 wrote...

If I could change one thing, it would be the destruction of the Mass Effect relays. Not because I didn't like that they were destroyed, but because it dampens my hopes of a Mass Effect MMO that takes place after ME3

That and I would just like to have the hope of knowing there is a possibility for more adventures in the galaxy with Shep that takes place AFTER ME3's ending - you know, if you survived.

While I would never in a trillion years in any way shape or form support the idea of an MMO(nor will I ever buy one at all, ever) I do think that the mass relay situation needs to be clarified. Organics can either create or discover more conduits similar to the one between Illos and the Citadel.....perhaps uncover the schematics of how the protheans made the one they had and then the present pecies can take it from there and build their own.....they can make two in each place since the one made by the protheans is only a one way trip or they can continue to develop them and go from there.

Modifié par Darth_Trethon, 17 mars 2012 - 05:41 .

[ElPres]

Let me begin with some notes of praise.  The game was nearly flawless.  From the start right until the finale, I have not a bad word to say.  I've stated my feelings on the endgame in other threads, so here I will only list what I feel could be (reasonably) done to improve the endgame.  

The starchild.  As of right now, he makes no sense.  The ME2 human reaper seemed a bit of a stretch at the time, but at least that had some tie-in to the rest of the game.  The starchild seems to come out of nowhere, however, and the inability to question his circular logic is frustrating.  Additional dialog options are a MUST to make the starchild scene at all believable.  Give us a chance to argue and resist his pointlessly arbitrary choices.  Speaking of those choices, give us a reason to choose one over the other.  Currently, you're just picking between your favorite form of genocide.  Make them different.  Make them have a point.  

And here we begin to add to what is there.

The only way I see to retcon the starchild and salvage the ending is to give in to the indocrination theory.  Throw in some whispers, some visual tweaks...change it so Saren advocating synergy...shove harbinger's voice in there as we're choosing our destiny.  Then, if we resisted (either by choosing destroy or by perhaps talking the starchild into revealing himself as harbinger) show Shep being pulled from the rubble as the Normandy leads a head on assault on Harbinger.  From here on in, give us a *real* ending. 

The suicide mission in ME2 was brilliantly executed.  In the end, you could succeed, but die if nobody was there to haul you into the Normandy.  Depending on our war assets, it may be Wrex digging us out.  Or Grunt.  Maybe a Geth prime, or a Salarian.  Maybe you ran through super quick and don't have anyone to rescue you.  

The survivors make their way to the *real* citadel and begin the final push to open the citadel arms.  Give us a big fight.  Draw on the Suicide mission and mix it with the War Assets we've picked up.  Lets look left and see a krogan charge holding off a dozen brutes while STG snipers pick off banshees on your right.  Show Jack's biotics protecting a turian platoon as the beam drops them off on the citadel.  Show Bailey's militia holding out in a fortified store.  Make the army we've assembled mean something.

Give us some kind of final battle.  Maybe Harbinger has shown him the error of his ways and 'assumed direct control' over the illusive man.  Perhaps we run across the reaper-ized versions of some of our old teammates.  Maybe bring in Marauder Shields big brother looking for payback.  The Reapers know what we plan...why wouldn't they use their BEST troops to defend the citadel's controls?

And at the very end, after we've done the impossible or died trying, show us what we were fighting for.  Who lived?  Who died?  Did we save galactic civilization or did the galaxy merely survive?  Give us closure, but also give us variety.  Give us a reason to do it all again differently.  Make us want to do it *BETTER* the second time through.  
Because with the ending we have right now, I'm just going to let Marauder Shields kill me.  Once I reach that point, I know it's all the same.

[krazzedbug]

Reign Tsumiraki wrote...

 Ah, perfect! I already wrote up what I think would solve the problem...

*copypasta*

1.  Only change the ending starting from the last scene with Anderson/Shepard/TIM. Everything about the ending before that stays the same, with a few changes. 

2. Completely ignore the God-child-spirit. It conflicts and contradicts the "Protheans fooled the citadel" basis in ME1. This was important. Cut it out entirely.

3. Make several choices based off of war readiness, and how many assets went into the Crucible. Such as:

Very low: Launch a giant EMP burst that destroys all Reapers, AI, Citadel, Relays, most technology, ect, as well as sacrificing earth. Shepard dies. Normandy crashes, and everyone aboard dies.

Low: Same, but without damage to earth. Shepard dies. Normandy Crashes. Crew dies.

Medium-low: Burst that only destroys all AI. Shepard dies. Normandy Crashes, Crew dies.

Medium: Burst that destroys all AI in the Sol system, and the Reapers. This allows the Geth to live, but EDI dies. Saves the Relays, but not the citadel. Shepard dies. Normandy crashes, crew survives.

High-Medium: Releases a burst that disables the Reaper Shields across the galaxy, allowing the fleet to easily kill the rest(Reapers are weak without their shields, as ME1 shows. A single torpedo from the Normandy killed Sovereign without it's shields) Shepard lives. Normandy damaged, but does not crash, and the player is treated to a small cutscene of the Normandy and the fleet blowing up a few reapers. 

High: Sends out a burst attuned to the Reaper core (The Geth provide the information. They studied reapers, remember. If they are not available, the Quarians provide it, having researched the Reaper corpse on their planet) causing the Reapers' reactors to overload and die. However, the Reaper core just happens to be identical to the Core of the Citadel as well. The Citadel overloads and blows up. Shepard lives. Relays stay intact. Player is treated to a cutscene of the Reapers blowing up, troops on the ground rejoicing, as well as the Normandy picking him and Anderson's body up before Citadel explodes.


Very-high: Sends out a pulse that kills only Reapers. All tech stays intact. Shepard lives. Relays intact. Citadel intact. Player is treated to the cutscene above, minus the citadel explosion. 

In addition, the endings shown in the "original" game would be available. These would be available on the left side of the dialogue wheel, while the ones I have proposed would be on the right. Synthesis would be unlocked at the Very-High level, and Control would be unlocked at the High-Medium level. Destroy would be available no matter what.

To complete the Synthesis, Destroy, or Control ending, the player takes the elevator up to where the Original ending takes place. This way, they do not have to design an entirely new environment. The animations and flashbacks for these endings would stay the same. The only difference in the cutscene after this would be no Normandy crash.

The options of the three highest unlocked options would show up on the right of the wheel on the right side. For instance, someone who had Medium assets would get the option of killing all AI everywhere, all AI in the Sol system, or all technology everywhere without damage to earth.

The dialogue wheel would look like this, if someone had 100% of all assets.
                                Synthesis              Take down Sheilds
                                                __________/ 
                                               (                       )
                 Destroy    --------(                          ) ---Kill reapers, Destroy Citadel
                                               (                       )
                                                -----------------
                                               /                      
                                      Control                Kill all Reapers
4. Include a small, text and scene ending. Small clips of certain occations from the various decisions made will show. This will vary by ending.

EXAMPLE: Geth and Quarians rebuilding, all species rebuilding the invaded home planets, ect.

5. A small scene with Anderson and Shepard before Anderson dies, about what Shepard will do if the Crucible works. Shepard can then respond in a variety of ways depending on what options he is presented with because of the war assets claimed. Anderson then says the whole "I'm proud of you" spiel, wishes you luck, then dies.

EXAMPLE: 

Retiring and living in peace, finally, with LI(or alone, if that is the case).

Saying “This device will probably destroy the citadel and kill us, so it does not matter.”

Continue to pursue peace and justice as a Spectre.

Become a diplomat/politician and guide humanity

Ect.

6. Any teammates that were with you at the time you got shot by the reaper will run towards the teleport-beam and make it to the Citadel ahead of you, thinking that you died, and that they need to finish what you started. Upon arriving there, you meet up with them and get to the console. They also get manipulated by TIM, but only you are able to "break free" by shooting or talking down TIM. 



Anyway, that's my whole view on it. 


THIS WAY:  
Players can get the endings they want, the player can still sacrifice themselves to get the endings they want, the Devs can have the endings they want, and originally intended. The only thing this really cuts is the stupid spectral Ghost-child-God thing, which was ridiculous in the first place. 

How does this sound? I tried to address every concern and viewpoint, and combine them into one good ending that I think would please everyone. 

Now this is what i call a good sounding idea.

Modifié par krazzedbug, 17 mars 2012 - 05:42 .

[Garrison2011]

Basically what everyone else has been saying. If you guys have actually been planning the whole indoctrination bit then continue from where you left off but let us really be able to shape the ending to how we want it to end. None of us expect Shepard to come out of this without scars, if he or she comes out of this at all, but an ending where the entire universe we've come to know and love doesn't completely fall apart would be nice. I thought that Liara would have foreseen the whole relay destruction thing and taken appropriate steps to find a way around it or at least preserve several key relays. Shepard living to the end and actually being reunited with his or her LI and crew would be of course nice... Though this should only be achieved if you make the right choices, etc.

Modifié par Garrison2011, 17 mars 2012 - 05:41 .

[recentio]

Thank you, ma'am, for this opportunity. I am happy to try to be helpful, specific, and constructive with my feedback. I'd like to comment first on the structure of a video game as an interactive narrative and then say how I feel that structure changed significantly in the final scenes of the game.

Like a film, a game is made up of a progression of dramatic "beats." A beat consists of a conflict/action and a resolution/reaction. In a film, all of these beats are scripted and completed before presentation to the audience. In a game, however, some of these beats are interactive and are completed *by* the audience during the presentation. For example, when I see a husk attack Shepard -- conflict/action -- I use my control of Shepard to direct her to shoot that husk -- resolution/reaction.

One of the reasons I loved Mass Effect far and above all other games was the nature of the beats that I, the player, was entrusted to complete. Specifically, I loved that I was able to drive several of Shepard's most important relationships with other characters by choosing who she talks to and when and some of what she says to them. I also liked that I was able to steer, just a little bit, the main plot. This held true through almost all of ME3. But then...

> Losing meaningful control over the final beats of the story was a horrible feeling.

Because:

• I disagree with the Reaper god's dogma that cybernetic life is irrevocably fated to anahilate biological life. Instead of being allowed to disagree with this shallow-thinking notion, I could do nothing but play along with it. (Even just being able to object before being forced to choose would be better.)
• I care about what happens to Shepard's crew and LI. These are relationship that have been built up over the course of three games. Yet in every ending, I am helpless to alter their fate in any way.

Where are the people who fought by Shepard's side in every moment except for some reason the last one? Where were they going? Why were they going? Is it conceivable that Shepard might ever see them again?

These are important questions to me.

Maybe some players don't care what happened to them or see being marooned as a good thing. I'm afraid I don't share that view. The fates of Shepard's crew are story elements that I had always had significant control over. Suddenly, that control was wrenched away from me to force a thoroughly unexplained and positive-only-because-they-aren't-dead event to happen. Why? Why why why why why?

I'm left feeling impotent and duped. Like I was lead to believe what I did would influence what I care about in that world only to have it all mean nothing in the end. They are stranded I don't know where or why no matter what I do. That is information I *need* to understand. And I didn't pay $60 just to have to make it all up in my own head. I don't want to be left with "LOTS OF SPECULATION." I only want to have a little bit of speculation left when it's all over.

> The distribution of player beats to developer beats changed profoundly in the final moments of the game.

I understand and appreciate the poetic beauty of destroying the Mass Relays. That's a clever idea, and I like it (as long as the war's survivors can indeed find ways to go on). It was poignant.

But I don't understand the godchild's reasoning because it is based on an assumption I think is false. And I really, really don't understand what happened to the Normandy and her crew.

I would be happy if: Shepard and her crew/team were together in the end just as they had been together all throughout the first 2.95 games. Shep is not a solitary hero figure; she's the leader of a team. That team is something I would like to be able to save (at least some of) in at least one ending option, if possible, please. ME2 was absolutely BRILLIANT in this regard.

Thank you very much for listening. I appreciate it, and I hope you know that I would not spend time raising my voice if I did not care. I like Bioware and want you to be successful. I like Mass Effect and want it to be the greatest game I've ever played. It's so close...so very close...

I would not mind paying for a DLC that included an expanded/optional ending, if one were made. I don't want rainbows. A simple: "Shep/LI were together in the end" would be enough. Though, a fuller explanation/epilogue for the whole crew would be nice. I care about them all.

Best of luck to you in gathering responses and dealing with whatever you are dealing with right now, ma'am. 

Modifié par recentio, 17 mars 2012 - 05:51 .

[IsleySilverlord]

1. I hate the current endings because they don't make any sense. As you can see in almost all the post and forums we would like our choices to actually have any impact, therefore having (for example) :** Good ending (hard to get, Love Interest included) **Neutral ending: not too good not too bad. **Bad ending (everything destroyed, chaos, worst you can
Come out with)

2. After 5 years, I need to know what happens to my squad, romance, and universe in general. No, I can't be told

[Joykilledme]

I think you need to take the Indoc theory run with it!

Have 3 endings. Three endings not but just a choice but by actions... within each ending have a Paragon and Renegade side of the story to that ending.

Ending A- Happy ending with Paragon Shep being able to live happily with her LI in where you choice to stay with the Alliance with your LI (or without if you never romanced) or you retire in where if you romanced you get to have "Blue babies" as your own games have indicated. Renegade Shep would be able to go back to being a Spectre dictating what you want as good cop bad cop just like the premise of the first game! Or taking a seat upon the Council dictating and bending things to your will! Also being able to take your LI along for the ride if you did!

Ending B- Consisting of Victory with Sacrifice. In where Paragon Shep can sacrifice herself to end the conflict or Renegade can die fighting in a blaze of glory! Fighting to the death!

Endinc C- Can consist of total loss through not having enough War Assets and just getting hammered not making much of a difference no matter if you picked the Paragon or Renegade choice.

These can all happen by running with the indoctrination theory! Have Shepard wake up rather Indoctrinated or not depending on what you pick in the current ending (or lack there of) If you picked Destroy you'll be free from indoctrination although badly injured making your fight an uphill battle.

If you picked Control or Synth have it be different levels based on what choice and rather have one or the other have a situation where you have to actually fighting under the influence! or one where you can't control your actions and its up to your squad to break you free from indoctrination just long enough to defeat the reapers with Victory through Sacrifice or letting your hard work and War assets kill the reapers leading to Endings A or B.

Ending C would come from not having enough War Assets in where indoctrinated or not you loose. Devastating lose!

[Fapmaster5000]

 The ending was severely lackluster compared to ME2.

In ME2, your choices (and teammates) mattered to the ending.  You had to allocate them to specific tasks, and had to have upgraded both them (loyalty) and the ship (upgrades).  The combat was ON TOP of this brilliant mechanic.

You had the potential to take this to the next level, gathering entire nations as war assets, and deploying them much like squad members (ie: shock troops are needed to take this firebase, do you send Krogan, Turians, or Humans).  The more resources, the more options, the better your odds of success.

This could be mated with the squad system from ME2, creating a layered Strategic/Tactical event, with your three man/woman/alien team pinned in the center, fighting through.  It would have been awesome.  

All it would have taken was audio assets, or, awesomely, some triggered scenes (like fighting for the door in ME2).

Instead, there was ONE scene with no relation to the ending fights, and then a choose your color ending.

Adding insult to injury, there was no conclusion, no denouement.  The story ended harshly, abruptly, at the climax, which was immensly unsatisfactory.   Piled on that, the ending was this nonsense about synthetics vs organics (which a paragon playthrough disproves) and the starchild.  The themes of ME that many loved (unity, overcoming incredible odds, the triumph of idealism even in the darkest places) were chucked out the window, Shepards character was assassinated into accepting the nonsense from the starbrat, and we got three different completely unsatisfying ends.

There's a reason the Indoc ending has gained so much steam.  It's a better ending.  It gives confrontation with Harbinger (currently lacking), it leaves room for the final showdown that the game lacked, and it lets Shepard (and, more importantly, the ME galaxy) stand up and slap that petulant starchild down hard.  It may cost more, but it would be a victory WON, not a "victory" given.

And if you do that, for God's sake, leave a conclusion for the characters.  We've come to love them.

(Perfect ending optional, but probably appreciated.)

EDIT:  Like someone said, this needs to end with the TEAM, not Shepard solo.  ME was always about the team to me, Shepard was simply our window into their world.  Without them at the end, it's just hollow, win or lose.

Modifié par Fapmaster5000, 17 mars 2012 - 05:44 .

[Gringo2585]

I will completely agree with a lot of other people that 99% of the game was fantastic. Ive been a fan of mass effect since the first one came out. However, the endings to the mass effect trilogy need to be more varied than "The color is different".

If ive done everything prefect in the series I feel that I deserve a good ending with my LI and the characters ive become attached to. If I was a dick and put a bullet in the brain of half the people I met I want to see that reflected. I just want to see that my decisions in the series mattered and the consequences of those decisions. If i spared wrex and kept the female alive I want to see that the krogan went on to be a great contributor in the galactic community or something like that. If not then maybe they become the same force they once were and threatened the galaxy. Like Dragon Age Origins did I want to see how my actions shaped the world I left behind.

Also I wouldn't mind endings where the mass relays dont get destroyed and galactic civilization isn't crippled forever.

[sevenbears]

Some stuff I would like, framed with what didn't work for me:

• I didn't get the emotional payoff that I wanted because the emotional tone just kept getting sadder and sadder until the end. For me, it's not so much about whether a story is happy or sad at the end; it's about having an emotional reversal at the end of the story.
  
  Shepard was really beat down through the missions leading to the end. So narratively, I feel like for the ending to pay off, that emotion needs to reverse -- unexpected triumph, an "I can't believe we did it!" moment. Instead, it felt to me like resignation. She'd done everything she could to be presented with the completely baffling StarChild, and she just accepted it at face value. Shepard is a fighter, so for her to just believe the thing that created the Reapers to me means defeat.
  
  I like sad endings too, but such an ending needs a different lead-in. Say we'd had Shepard going in confident and hopeful, hitting a moment of near-triumph, and then realizing there's no way it's going to work without something terrible happening. Then you have another resonant reversal.
  
  The reversal is key. You can't have a last act that's just happy happy happy all the way through -- there's no conflict. But at the same time, I don't think sad sad sad works either.
  
  
• I either wanted to see more information on how the choice I did make panned out or I wanted more choices that I could better relate to as the character of Shepard.
  
  I do get that the galaxy is very
  different based on the three choices we get, but we don't get to
  actually see that difference. The other two games have always felt like
  "make some choices and see how they play out." And
  I agree that we got that throughout the game and I loved it. But this
  last huge choice, we don't have any idea on the impact it really has.
  
  Mostly, I wanted a way to deal with that last point in a way that wasn't just "believe what this random entity who's admitted to creating your enemy." Time and time again, Shepard has been told "choose this or that" and she's always had at least the option to say "No, here's how it's going to go." It doesn't ring true for me that she doesn't find another way here.
  
  DA:O and DAII are good contracts. DA:O has some fantastic choices through the end and you get to feel the impact of them. With every ending, you have to compromise somehow. But you get to choose what you'll compromise. If you and Alistair want to run off into the sunset, you have to bring something possible terrible into the world. If you don't want Alistair to dump you, don't make him king. Sure, you might have to go back and replay if you don't do it right the first time, but you can make choices based on the end game you want.
  
  Even with DAII where you can't choose what happens, you do get to choose how you react to it. My Hawke has to admit some very selfish desires when the whole Anders thing went down.
  
  I can replay the game with a different ending, but because I feel locked into a weird choice and because I can't see what the result was, it doesn't feel like it will actually be different.
  
  I really wanted to save the galaxy that we experienced throughout the game. The moment I fell in love with ME was when I walked into the office of the volus and elcor ambassadors and got to see the depth of culture. In lots of ways, the galaxy is nasty, but it's also beautiful. I loved it and saving it was my motivation to fight the Reapers. I expected them to be wounded and broken at the end, but I thought it would be there. If it still is there after any of the three endings, we have no evidence to that. And in-game codexes make it seem unlikely that what I loved will survive. That it's not much different than if the Reapers had wiped out the advanced civilizations.
  
  I can see some folks getting this out of the Synthesis option, but I don't. But I don't think I can save what I love by fundamentally changing what it is.
  
  I'd like the question of what is up with the Normandy to be resolved. How my crew got there, where they are now, if it's even remotely possible for them to survive. I can make up some stuff, but it just doesn't sit right in my head. It seems like something that was just executed in a very confusing manner.

[Piarath]

What I'd like is a chance at alternate endings. Beyond what we were given, or in some way expanding on what we were given (though if at all possible, I'd like to remove the whole 'Reapers are really just trying to help' and star child nonsense; say they lied, retcon it, I dunno. I prefer the Reapers as unfathomable terrors from Dark Space) to include;

A; A happy ending for those who want it, where Shepard essentially lives on (somewhat variable depending on choices, you know, to include a love interest if you had one/they didn't die, etc- honestly this shouldn't be an issue since you tease about Shepard living and all that jazz anyway)

B; Your bitter-sweet ending. Shepard sacrifices him/herself (maybe as a means to obtain the same ending above, where everyone lives happily ever after, only Shepard died to achieve it due to a lack of resources or whatever) or something to that effect.

C; Your sad/dark/edgy ending or whatever that seems to make some of the other people happy.

I feel those are better, clearer choices for the endings then what we got. Ultimately, I want CLOSURE, I want an epilogue, and I want to hear that- regardless of the differing endings- in the end it was all worth fighting for in some way and that we DID, in fact, save the Galaxy (and perferably without nuking the Geth/EDI if we so choose because, you know, there our friends- Mass Effect 3 is already riddled with beautiful, deep, emotional sacrifices. We don't need to OVER do it there, I feel). Let us feel like we've BEAT the game, not left it behind. Let us know this world we've come to love, through Shepard, is preserved by our actions (either by leaving the Mass Relays alone- honestly you don't need to destroy them just because they're 'reaper' tech- or letting us know they rebuild; which in that scenario it seems most likely they'd rebuild relays from salvaging the tech, I mean, since that's their science now like it or not). Give us truly multiple endings (I understand the endings as they are now have variations, but that's not multiple endings and no, even if ME1 and 2 didn't have them, we don't care- that's what you promised here. Multiple endings have been done in your games before, you can do it here), give us closure (through the use of an epilogue, none of this 'use your imagination' stuff that people have been insultingly throwing around), and let us feel like we've won the game at least. Since that's the point. HOW you choose to do this- through use of the indoctrination theory or other such fitting plot devices- is in the end up to you, but these are the things I would like to see in ME3. Well, aside of a last boss battle (seriously, too video gamey? It's a video game, we're ok with it) but that's not entirely necessary.

Your game was beautifully wrought, and deserves a beautiful set of widely varying endings that fit into the lore, and allow us to choose how our Shepard ends their tale. Being able to come back here and say, "This is how MY Shepard ended her story and this is why I like it!" would be the most. Awesome. Thing. Ever.

Edit: And can we have the fleet matter more? Seriously. I mean, we spend two whole games building up how a united Galaxy can defeat the Reapers, that's why Shepard is trul dangerous, blah blah blah and in the end that fleet does nothing, it all comes down to using a magic device to one shot all the reapers. I mean, really, might as well not have had the fleet around and just used Shepard's 'awesome skills' from the first game to build this, slip in, and do it all alone. I made a super awesome galactic wide fleet. It should have beat the snot out of the reapers- maybe with the HELP of the Crucible, but certainly not leaving it to the Crucible ALONE.

Please and thank you.

Modifié par Piarath, 17 mars 2012 - 05:47 .

[McScroggz24]

Condsidering you do get to see what Tali look's like by veiwing the photo she gives you, I would greatly appreciate if in a DLC story mission you get a chance to see her face in person. It should be optional for those that haven't looked at the photo or didn't get the photo, namely as a natual progression of the romance with her.

[seitani]

Ending can be sad and not unicorns and butterflies thing. Sadness you got right in the ME 3 ending but all the wrong reasons. Ending should include major sacrifice, personal emotion and also closure. Starchild part was the one that rub me wrong.

If the game had ended in the scene where Shepard and Anderson sit side by side looking at the space both dying that had been good ending. That scene was sad, fulfilling, personal and emotional. Keith David and Mark Meer put a lot of emotion in that scene and made it feel personal and very real. After that show destruction of the reapers and clips of moments with the crew mates maybe text epilogue and roll the credits that would have been it 10/10 game.

Modifié par seitani, 17 mars 2012 - 05:44 .

[CDHarrisUSF]

• Shepard doesn't roll over for anyone... not for Saren... not for the Illusive Man... not for Harbinger... and certainly not for this star child. It was out of character for my Shepard to just take everything he said at face value.
• The kid is almost literally a deus ex machina. That is just lazy writing. Someone should have pushed back against that idea.
• If he realizes the cycle won't work anymore and is willing to let Shepard use the Crucible to end the cycle, why are they even bothering to fight at all? If their stated goal was to protect life and the cycle is going to end anyway, why are they continuing to kill people when they could just accept their loss and leave?
• The Crucible is treated as a MacGuffin which works via space magic. The energy required to cover the entire galaxy with a strong enough pulse to do anything breaks all sorts of laws of physics. Even a gamma-ray burst from a star collapsing into a black hole wouldn't be enough.
• For some reason, it was built to have three completely unrelated functions. Of the two which make any sense whatsoever, one of them (Destroy) is activated by shooting it... which doesn't seem like a very elegant user interface for something so advanced.
• The Synthesis option makes no scientific sense at all, even with the suspension of disbelief of Element Zero. There is no such thing as "synthetic DNA." Even if there were, it wouldn't be compatible for blending with organic DNA. Even if we let that ridiculousness slide, there is no ****ing way for a pulse of magical space energy to convert people into cyborgs.
• The theme of synthetics rebelling against their creators and wanting to destroy all organic life is not sufficiently established in the series to be the driving force of the Reapers. Mass Effect 3 reveals that the only reason the Geth fought the Quarians turns out to have been the Quarians' fault. Oops, we made our slaves sentient? Let's solve it with genocide. The Geth then had a chance to wipe them out when Quarians retreated. The Geth did not take the opportunity specifically because they did not want to destroy life and were only doing so out of self defense. The only rebelling against one's creator was done by EDI, but her creators were the bad guys and she came to learn good traits (honor, friendship, love, etc) from Shepard.
• The premise also relies on several other assertions with nothing to back them up. It asserts that sentient organics are more inherently valuable than sentient synthetics. Why are organic neural networks (brains) more valuable than synthetic neural networks (AI) if they both end up at the same end result of a sentient being? It asserts that the loss of the former is worse than the loss of the latter. It asserts not only that synthetics will rebel and try to kill their creators, but that they will kill ALL organic life. Based on the sheer amount of ground they would have to cover to do so, it's practically impossible. It also asserts that the guaranteed genocide of countless sentient beings (both organic and synthetic) every 50k years is better than the slim chance of life being wiped out... even though it would be almost guaranteed to come back sooner or later. There are more, but I'll stop there for brevity's sake.
• Assuming they have their heart in the right place, which is highly suspect, they are going about their goal (insure organic life's existence) in the worst, most traumatic way possible. They turn a species into horrific monster versions and turn them against themselves. To show how easy it would be to come up with something better, I had already thought of a better method by the time the star child's monologue was finished. You are even presented with the necessary technology in a ME3 side quest. The Reapers could have instead collected DNA samples from all different types of plants and animals and kept the futuristic equivalent of our current-day seed banks. Just wait in hiding until organics get wiped out. Then, swoop in and reboot life via cloning technology (the same way an extinct animal was brought back for the war effort in a side quest). If necessary, destroy aggressive synthetics first. See? You get the same end result (keep life from being completely wiped out) without the nasty genocide and removal of free will.
• Let's assume for a second that star child's hypothesis (synthetics will destroy all organics) has merit. Synthesis is presented as getting rid of the problem. It does not. Pure organic life will arise again through abiogenesis as before. Pure synthetics will be created again. The end result is that there will be pure organics, cyborgs, and pure synthetics again... right back to where we started. In the process, you have to violate the free will of every being in the galaxy... for nothing.
• Why is the Destroy option indiscriminate (kills Geth and EDI) while the Control option is focused only on the Reapers (and both take down the relays)? If a signal can control just them, why could it not be made to temporarily disable them (overload? virus?) long enough to win by conventional firepower? Clearly, someone just wanted Destroy to arbitrarily seem more Renegade than it needed to be.
• How did my squad get back on the Normandy? The nearest star outside the Sol system would take at least hours to reach even using the fastest FTL described in the ME universe. Plus, the energy behind him was focused (like the beam bouncing between relays) rather than the spherical pulse. So, they had to be using a relay for some reason. Why was Joker in relay transit? They stand right beside you as you lead them to their death time and time again... and they suddenly choose now to run away when the fight needs them the most?
• Liara, who made Shepard promise that she would never lose him again and had recently agreed to spend the rest of her life with him (or as long as his short human life would last), is now stranded on some random planet and her bondmate might be dead... again... but she looks happy (or at least content) when she steps off the ship? She should at least look sad, if not completely devastated.
• Despite confident claims to the contrary prior to launch, people have carefully analyzed all of the possible war assets (looking through saves and game files) and concluded that it is not possible to reach the necessary 8000 TMS (4000 EMS at 50% RR) to get the Shepard Lives scene without playing any multiplayer or supplemental experiences (iOS, etc).
• If the Mass Relays are destroyed (assuming they don't wipe out entire systems like in Arrival), the entire fleet is stranded in the Sol system. Unless they brought enough supplies to last the long FTL trips back home, many will probably starve to death. It also gets rid of an important and distinctive characteristic of the series.
• All of the endings look like palette swaps of the same cinematic. What happened to the supposed variety that was said to be possible because it was the last game in the trilogy? There should be everything between a triumphant victory and a crushing defeat as possible outcomes.
• None of my decisions across 100+ hours of gameplay seemed to pay off in the final sequence.
• The star child sequence sucks all of the momentum and emotion out of the ending. The lead up to it is sufficiently epic, then it just hits a brick wall. The only emotion I felt was anger that the ending had elicited no emotion from me at all... despite the developers clearly showing that they were capable of it. The love scenes between Shepard and Liara were beautiful. The simple moments when Shepard lets down his guard and shares his vulnerability with her were touching. The part where they lie on the bed, look up at the stars, and muse about running off to hide somewhere and live in peace until the war catches up with them brought a tear to my eye. If I were in Shepard's place, I would have seriously considered it. Watching her world burn before her eyes on Thessia with no way to stop it and nothing to show for it was brutal. Mordin and Legion's sacrifices were fittingly bittersweet. The last moments with Anderson (including the cut dialogue) looked like the ending would be right up there with the rest of them... then it trips and falls flat on its face right in front of the finish line.
• The ending is extremely abrupt and doesn't provide closure for almost any of the major storylines.
• Personally, I would prefer for there to be the possibility of a fan-service happy ending (little blue babies on Thessia, house on Rannoch, etc) even if you have to play on the hardest difficulty setting and pretty much unite the entire universe against the Reapers to get it. After all the sacrifices Shepard has to make along the way (including dying for them once already), he deserves the rest.

I could probably go on for a while longer, but I think I've rambled enough as is.

[mjh417]

SamFlagg wrote...

(Posted in this thread because I totally was taking to long and ended up after the lock in the other one)

Jessica,

First apologies for what I'm sure is the wall of text
flying back and forth which is contributing to the discussion being so
unhelpful right this second.  I would say people have to adjust to
actually having someone here.  Many of the articles laid out by some of
the posters do include the generalities of what we currently think was
wrong, but I can offer some concrete suggestions that reflect my
thoughts, and hopefully reflect the thoughts of others.

While the endings our our primary concern I'd like to address Earth and then a couple quality of life issues as well.

1.) War
assets - Many of us feel rightly or wrongly that we logically expected
war assets to appear either in game or in cutscenes during the take back
of Earth.  And the war assets I'm referring to aren't the space ships
above (Though those are awesome) they are the ones on the ground.  We
really really did want to see Elcor Living Tanks and bands of Krogans
charging reapers.  We wanted to see scenes of our ME2 squad mates
holding there own somewhere on the battlefield.  We expected the battle
on Earth itself to be so much grander

2.) I think a lot of us
expected Earth to be far more similar in tone to the ME2 suicide mission
where we could task crewmates and have their survival depend on our
choices previously in the game.  With the number of times Commander
Shepard is told that he was going to lose people, it was surprising that
no one on his current squad met that fate, and the ones who typically
would (Thane and Mordin) had already been heavily foreshadowed to
finding redeption through death (For the record, Thane Mordin and
Legions deaths were so pitch perfect that we find how perfect those were
out of balance with how much of a problem we had with the ending)

3.)
The section where you sprint towards the beam of light and harbinger
attacks all the way through having Anderson die next to you is
beautiful.  It's all emotional, and most of all it's personal.

4.)
Our main issues lie with the God-Child, we find his arguement
uncompelling because we don't see his logic, and we are angry most of
all because Shepard has been a character of definance against the odds
for 2.99 games.  And in the darkest hour, he does not have the option
really to simply reject the assertion that synthetics and organics will
always be at war (And the entire Geth Quarian plot line seems to make it
far more likely that Organics will try to wipe out synthetics than the
other way around.  We find fault with his reasoning and are for the
first time in the series unable to challenge it.)

5.) The ending
consequences for Shepard come down to three shades of death (discounting
the breathing), and the mass relays destroyed in all of them.  While
there may be an underlying philisophical discussion about destroying the
reapers controlling the reapers or merging all synthetic life, this is
far overshadowed by the very immediate practical problem of destroying
all relay travel and stranding fleets in the Sol system.

6.) I
believe this could have been handled better by having some options where
Shepard lives, but relays are destroyed, or shepard dies, but the
relays go on, or even Shepard picks the control option and the reapers
leave earth and the relays alone but go and reap the rest of the
galaxy.  The practical consequences of the three options are so similar
that their philisophical difference becomes irrelevant.  (To that end I
think many would've been happy for an option to be defiant, sacrifice
yourself, have the crucible simply bring down the reaper barriers and
make them easily destroyed by the assembled fleet, and hey if you have
enough EMS you can even save shepard.)

7.) Closure.  In this it
could've been done with a heroes funeral, or if he survived a simple pan
and scan of the area with his surviving squad mates and a "Let's go
home" moment.   We feel that many of the plotlines that were apparently
solved are undone because all the people necessary to good outcomes
(Like having Wrex on Tuchanka) are stranded in the sol system.  We're
not all asking for a Star Wars Medal Ceremony, we'd be perfectly fine if
it could be a bittersweet view of all we lost, but also at what we
still had.  (And if there are enough varient endings someone can get the
star wars medal ceremony, but that's the point we wanted the endings to
be divergent)

8.) The cut scenes were 80% the same.  There really isn't a way to not be unhappy about that.

The
other quality of life issues are: The Journal, The Face Import,
Multiplayer having too much of an impact on readyness, and the Shepard
Shame Talk  (when the models actively look away from each other while
talking)

Now I will point out that this depth of feeling is
because of a real sense of attachment to all of the characters in the
universe.  The deaths for the characters who had them were all pitch
perfect, which is why the lack of sacrifice in the last part of the game
of anyone on the most dangerous battlefield followed by destroying the
entire relay system is so jarring.

^THIS!!!!!!!!!!!! 100% all the way