7052 réponses à ce sujet

[mirv4]

Bioware can easily redeem itself with an Ending DLC and many concerned gamers have already offered interesting suggestions. My ideas are no better than any others but I just want to point out how this is a relatively easy fix that Bioware can accomplish with minimal effort. This is one possibility among many:
--Make the DLC the true ending but it can only be accessed in a NG+ if for no other reason than to encourage people to want to replay the game.
--After the obnoxious Catalyst A.I. gives you its 3 false devil choices, Shepard spots a console or electronic board or something that he can approach instead. Once Shepard approaches this 4th option, he pulls out his omni-blade and stabs it to sever the Catalyst's control over the Crucible and allows Shepard to contact the Normandy.
--Shepard tells EDI to take control of the Crucible so that she can better regulate the energy so that only the Reapers are destroyed but not other synthetics like the Geth, or Shepard's cyberborg components, or EDI for that matter.
--Then perhaps give Shepard a timer to get to the Normandy (which has already picked up/rescued all remaining companions from Earth) like Legion's loyalty mission in Mass Effect 2.
--If Shepard fails to get to the Normandy, then only Anderson gets on the Normandy.
--If Shepard makes it, then he and Anderson get on board.
--When the Crucible fires, it destroys the Reapers, itself, and even the Mass Effect Relays. (I know many don't like that because it destroys Galactic Civilization but I understand what the Bioware writers were trying to convey: That organic societies would have to pay a heavy price to be free of the monstrous Reapers. Also provides an opportunity for a future game that I will state at the end)
--Instead of crashing on some random planet, the Normandy crash lands outside London.
--Everyone (I mean every companion character not killed in earlier missions to prevent ambiguity) steps outside of the Normandy and gaze at the ruins and transitions to a final scene: If Shepard lives, a victory speech by Anderson or Hackett. If Shepard dies, a eulogy by Anderson or Hackett akin to the Spock funeral in Star Trek II.
--If Shepard lives, then allow the player to interact with all of his companions after the victory speech to find out what they plan to do now. Like what we could do with the Quarian Admirals after Tali's Trial in Mass Effect 2.
--Then have a cinematic cutscene with narration from Shepard or Anderson or Hackett about the long term fate of Earth, Thessia, Rannoch, Surkesh, Tuchanka, and Palaven.
--If it's too expensive to bring back the actors for the DLC fine, then just get the Shepard actors to narrate an epilogue cinematic like Fallout New Vegas or Fallout 2: If the player lets Shepard die, have a cinematic scene of Shepard's funeral with every companion in attendence without speaking and then cut to credits. If Shepard lives, have Shepard narrate about the fate of all the companions, Earth, and the major races' homeworlds. Done and finished!
--Keeping the Mass Effect relays being destroyed means less stuff to change for Bioware plus it gives them an opening for a new Mass Effect story arc. The civilizations never mastered relay technology but did manage FTL drives so Earth could rebuild a small interstellar civilization in the local star neighborhood. Since most of the interstellar technology was Reaper based and destroyed, Bioware could make a new trilogy taking place a century after Shepard's death in which a new character and crew explore the galaxy trying to rebuild galactic civilization.

[DarthSyphilis59]

ssyyllaarr wrote...

I have invested more of myself into this series than almost any other video game franchise in my life. I loved this game. I believed in it. For five years, it delivered. I must have played ME1 and ME2 a dozen times each.

I remember the end of Mass Effect 2. Never before, in any video game I had ever played, did I feel like my actions really mattered. Knowing that the decisions I made and the hard work I put into ME2 had a very real, clear, obvious impact on who lived and who died was one of the most astounding feelings in the world to me. I remember when that laser hit the Normandy and Joker made a comment about how he was happy we upgraded the shields. That was amazing. Cause and effect. Work and reward.

The first time I went through, I lost Mordin, and it was gut-wrenching: watching him die because I made a bad decision was damning, heartbreaking. But it wasn't hopeless, because I knew I could go back, do better, and save him. I knew that I was in control, that my actions mattered. So that's exactly what I did. I reviewed my decisions, found my mistakes, and did everything right. I put together a plan, I worked hard to follow that plan, and I got the reward I had worked so hard for. And then, it was all for nothing.

When I started playing Mass Effect 3, I was blown away. It was perfect. Everything was perfect. It was incredible to see all of my decisions playing out in front of me, building up to new and outrageous outcomes. I was so sure that this was it, this was going to be the masterpiece that crowned an already near-perfect trilogy. With every war asset I gathered, and with every multiplayer game I won, I knew that my work would pay off, that I would be truly satisfied with the outcome of my hard work and smart decisions. Every time I acquired a new WA bonus, I couldn't wait to see how it would play out in the final battle. And then, it was all for nothing.

I wasn't expecting a perfect, happy ending with rainbows and butterflies. In fact, I think I may have been insulted if everyone made it through just fine. The Reapers are an enormous threat (although obviously not as invincible as they would like us to believe), and we should be right to anticipate heavy losses. But I never lost hope. I built alliances, I made the impossible happen to rally the galaxy together. I cured the genophage. I saved the Turians. I united the geth and the quarians. And then, it was all for nothing.

When Mordin died, it was heartwrenching, but I knew it was the right thing. His sacrifice was... perfect. It made sense. It was congruent with the dramatic themes that had been present since I very first met Wrex in ME1. It was not a cheap trick, a deus ex machina, an easy out. It was beautiful, meaningful, significant, relevant, and satisfying. It was an amazing way for an amazing character to sacrifice themself for an amazing thing. And then it was all for nothing.

When Thane died, it was tearjerking. I knew from the moment he explained his illness that one day, I'd have to deal with his death. I knew he was never going to survive the trilogy, and I knew it wouldn't be fun to watch him go. But when his son started reading the prayer, I lost it. His death was beautiful. It was significant. It was relevant. It was satisfying. It was meaningful. He died to protect Shepard, to protect the entire Citadel. He took a life he thought was unredeemable and used it to make the world a brighter place. And then it was all for nothing.

When Wrex and Eve thanked me for saving their species, I felt that I had truly accomplished something great. When Tali set foot on her homeworld, I felt that I had truly accomplished something great. When Javik gave his inspiring speech, I felt that I had inspired something truly great. When I activated the Citadel's arms, sat down to reminisce with Anderson one final time, I felt that I had truly accomplished something amazing. I felt that my sacrifice was meaningful. Significant. Relevant. And while still a completely unexplained deus ex machina, at least it was a little bit satisfying.

And then, just like everything else in this trilogy, it was all for nothing.

If we pretend like the indoctrination theory is false, and we're really supposed to take the ending at face value, this entire game is a lost cause. The krogans will never repopulate. The quarians will never rebuild their home world. The geth will never know what it means to be alive and independent. The salarians will never see how people can change for the better.

Instead, the quarians and turians will endure a quick, torturous extinction as they slowly starve to death, trapped in a system with no support for them. Everyone else will squabble over the scraps of Earth that haven't been completely obliterated, until the krogans drive them all to extinction and then die off without any women present. And this is all assuming that the relays didn't cause supernova-scaled extinction events simply by being destroyed, like we saw in Arrival.

And perhaps the worst part is that we don't even know. We don't know what happened to our squadmates. We didn't get any sort of catharsis, conclusion. We got five years of literary foreplay followed by a kick to the groin and a note telling us that in a couple months, we can pay Bioware $15 for them to do it to us all over again.

It's not just the abysmally depressing/sacrificial nature of the ending, either. As I've already made perfectly clear, I came into this game expecting sacrifice. When Mordin did it, it was beautiful. When Thane did it, it was beautiful. Even Verner. Stupid, misguided, idiotic Verner. Even his ridiculous sacrifice had meaning, relevance, coherence, and offered satisfaction.

No, it's not the sacrifice I have a problem with. It's the utter lack of coherence and respect for the five years of literary gold that have already been established in this franchise. We spent three games preparing to fight these reapers. I spent hours upon hours doing every side quest, picking up every war asset, maxing out my galactic readiness so that when the time came, the army I had built could make a stand, and show these Reapers that we won't go down without a fight.

In ME1, we did the impossible when we killed Sovereign. In ME2, we began to see that the Reapers aren't as immortal as they claim to be: that even they have basic needs, exploitable weaknesses. In ME3, we saw the Reapers die. We saw one get taken down by an overgrown worm. We saw one die with a few coordinated orbital bombardments. We saw several ripped apart by standard space combat. In ME1, it took three alliance fleets to kill the "invincible" Sovereign. By the end of ME3, I had assembled a galactic armada fifty times more powerful than that, and a thousand times more prepared. I never expected the fight to be easy, but I proved that we wouldn't go down without a fight, that there is always hope in unity. That's the theme we've been given for the past five years: there is hope and strength through unity. That if we work together, we can achieve the impossible.

And then we're supposed to believe that the fate of the galaxy comes down to some completely unexplained starchild asking Shepard what his favorite color is? That the army we built was all for nothing? That the squad whose loyalty we fought so hard for was all for nothing? That in the end, none of it mattered at all?

It's a poetic notion, but this isn't the place for poetry. It's one thing to rattle prose nihilistic over the course of a movie or ballad, where the audience is a passive observer, learning a lesson from the suffering and futility of a character, but that's not what Mass Effect is. Mass Effect has always been about making the player the true hero. If you really want us to all feel like we spent the past five years dumping time, energy, and emotional investment into this game just to tell us that nothing really matters, you have signed your own death certificate. Nobody pays hundreds of dollars and hours to be reminded how bleak, empty, and depressing the world can be, to be told that nothing we do matters, to be told that all of our greatest accomplishments, all of our faith, all of our work, all of our unity is for nothing.

No. It simply cannot be this bleak. I refuse to believe Bioware is really doing this. The ending of ME1 was perfect. We saw the struggle, we saw the cost, but we knew that we had worked hard, worked together, and won. The ending of ME2 was perfect. We saw the struggle, we saw the cost, but we knew that we had worked hard, worked together, and won.

Taken at face value, the end of ME3 throws every single thing we've done in the past five years into the wind, and makes the player watch from a distance as the entire galaxy is thrown into a technological dark age and a stellar extinction. Why would we care about a universe that no longer exists? We should we invest any more time or money into a world that will never be what we came to know and love?

Even if the ending is retconned, it doesn't make things better. Just knowing that the starchild was our real foe the entire time is so utterly mindless, contrived, and irrelevant to what we experienced in ME1 and ME2 that it cannot be forgiven. If that really is the truth, then Mass Effect simply isn't what we thought it was. And frankly, if this is what Mass Effect was supposed to be all along, I want no part of it. It's a useless, trite, overplayed cliche, so far beneath the praise I once gave this franchise that it hurts to think about.

No. There is no way to save this franchise without giving us the only explanation that makes sense. You know what it is. It was the plan all along. Too much evidence to not be true. Too many people reaching the same conclusions independently.

The indoctrination theory doesn't just save this franchise: it elevates it to one of the most powerful and compelling storytelling experiences I've ever had in my life. The fact that you managed to do more than indoctrinate Shepard - you managed to indoctrinate the players themselves - is astonishing. If that really was the end game, here, then you have won my gaming soul. But if that's true, then I'm still waiting for the rest of this story, the final chapter of Shepard's heroic journey. I paid to finish the fight, and if the indoctrination theory is true, it's not over yet.

And if it's not, then I just don't even care. I have been betrayed, and it's time for me to let go of the denial, the anger, the bargaining, and start working through the depression and emptiness until I can just move on. You can't keep teasing us like this. This must have seemed like a great plan at the time, but it has cost too much. These people believed in you. I believed in you.

Just make it right.

nailed it!!!!
FINISH THE FIGHT!!!!
Showdown with harbinger and war assets. The more war assets, the better chances of success. Too low assets=reapers gonna reap. Medium-high assets= reapers dwindled down-possibly retreat to darkspace high-very high= reapers get wiped out! Epic finish! Galaxy rejoices! Blue babies are made!
Maybe you could tie up loose ends with illusive man in future dlc or in ending fix.

Modifié par DarthSyphilis59, 17 mars 2012 - 05:56 .

[Ricvenart]

I'd like to add one final comparison.

In DA2 there was a massive amount of discussion of what Anders did, and the community was truely split between thinking he was right or wrong, then further split by the reasonings why.
Ignoring the fact it seems like the Devs there have tossed out the whole plot now.
That was truely what you seem to think you were going for in ME3 and what is happening, but it's simply not, it never would be, you just have an overwhelming majority of this community grasping at every little detail to make sense of the mess you left. The 2 don't even remotely compare, it's practically an insult to the DA2 team that you think it has done the same thing. So many reasons why that worked and this didn't it's pointless to list them all, the biggest one being though it made sense within the world, DA:O foreshadowed the friction between mages and templars/chantry.

The Indoctrination theory like others have said though will save this and elevate the story and method of delivery to something of legends (so much so it's truely dissappointing it doesn't seem to be pre planned). The Community will split but it will be in a positive way (even though fights will break out).

Also agree with alot of what I read here (with the exclusive exception too those that think it's fine, I disagree, the DLC maybe should allow for them and not be in patch form so they can maintain the original game).

Modifié par Ricvenart, 17 mars 2012 - 05:57 .

[HenchxNarf]

Okay, so I do have a suggestion on something that could stand to be fixed. I thought maybe it would work on my third ng+...but it still doesn't. The Kasumi mission! It's still bugged and I can't fix it or find anything. I came farther than I did my last two playthroughs, but I still get stuck, and I really don't think I'm missing anything.

However, the journal doesn't help things -.-

[alkestis]

Bioware, you figured out how to bring us in, have us experience what we, as people, dream about - exploration and discovery, a unshakeable faith in humanity, and above all else, that we will fight to the last Alliance soldier and go down fighting to save the Universe. You made us step into the shoes of heroes, fight againt insurmountable odds, bring races together that have had their differences for centuries and fight against ourselves, the worse parts of ourselves and then, at the very end.. took it away.

I know story is important. It's why I play YOUR games the most out of the 19 games I own. I'm the person who, every year, plays KOTOR 1 & 2, re-reads Watership Down, LOTR's and other sci-fi/fantasy novels, rewatchs movies.. because those universes pull me back in, and for a time I can escape reality and imagien myself there, with Hazel, Frodo, Ripley, Kara Thrace or Commander Shepard. 
I love the Mass Effect Universe. I love ME3.. up until that last ten minutes where I was stunned. It was a beautiful heart wrenching story of bravery, sacrifice and love.
I don't want a Disney ending... but closure. To know that my Shepard, what she went through to get to that point, everything she did, mattered more than red green or blue. 

To illustrate it better - What I was prepared for was Serenity. Empire Strikes Back. Battlestar Galactica.. (well, not the entire ending of BSG, that went on forever.. LOL.) Aliens.  I'm sticking to the rough and gritty space that I love, not the happy dancing with Ewoks that makes my nephew happy.
I know the world's not perfect, that everyone doesn't get a happy ending.

I don't want a happy ending, just closure.. because when you're with your Shepard, making all these difficult choices, bargaining with all these lives in order for every to survive, you know that everyone won't. You know that you will loose good friends, family and innocent lives along the way, and sometimes, there will be payback for this (Kai Leng & Thane) but mostly there won't be that satisfaction found.

I wanted all those people who died on the Citadel to matter.. and to know that though everything had changed, it would recover. The ending with Buzz Aldrin talking wasn't enough. It just wasn't.

You find out what happened to Frodo and his companions after what they went through to save Middle Earth. You know Frodo's damaged by carrying the Ring to Mordor.. and that it's changed him, forever. But you're okay with it, because you know that Frodo was able to return to Hobbiton. Hell, even Boromir was able to return to Minas Tirith. His sacrifice for the good of Middle Earth acknowledged.
If my Shepard didn't survive the end, because of her choices.. as I've said in other places, I would've been happy with her arrival in the Dream Woods, which during my playthroughs, I feel like it's the after life, every shadow someone she knew in her life. A welcome there, with those that were lost along the way would've been closure for her making the wrong choices, not having enough allies or making sure they were prepared enough.

A memorial, perhaps, like DAO, would've helped, if Shepard had died. In space, if you made Earth a giant cinderball.
If she survived? One hell of a friggin' party on a Reaper corpse, then maybe a vacation. Hell, Shep deserves a vacation.. give her (or him) a quiet moment, sitting on a Reaper leg, drinking a beer with the surviving crew, toasting those who did and didn't make it. 

Just.. something more than a bid for you to wait for more DLC. That was brutal, after everything, to have nothing and see that after investing close to a hundred hours per character in the world you all created.So, I guess after my ramble, what I'm saying is this - An epilogue. Who ended up where. Who survived the battle for earthWhy the hell the Normandy was out where ever. Whether that was indoctrination - which if it was, brilliant, but damn, that was cruel to leave it at that and offer nothing else but confusion.

Most of all, resolution and catharsis. Please.

[ColloquialAnachron]

  So I'm reposting this from the "We're Listening" thread, mostly.


   I have
never, and I mean never, been a fan of cover-based shooters.  But
I found myself enjoying the combat quite a bit.  The vast majority of
the times I died were my own fault for not paying attention to the
environment or moving tactically.  Sometimes my Shep did roll over and
over instead of taking cover, so while I do really like the ability to
roll I think it could use some fine tuning.  Still, from a player who
plays much more for the story than the action, this was a very fun
experience.

  I was put off by the dialogue on the Normandy at
times.  I understand the need to cut down on such things, but I prefer
active dialogue with the wheel rather than, a quick string of comments. 
This was least irritating with Garrus, who often seemed to have a lot
of one offs or comments, but Liara...oi.  Her's were so short that I
could get a "Thanks thanks thanks for thanks thanks thanks for coming
by" going without much trouble.  So for me, the active dialogue that was
there was mostly terrific (Crucible aside), but I'd have liked to have
seen more of it.

  Exploration:  What happened here?  I understand
with the galaxy fighting for its life Shep probably shouldn't be landing
on a planet in search of some good spices for the kitchen, but other
than the N7 missions, I felt like there really could have been more
landing and exploration type missions.  The fuel was irritating as well,
mostly since I upgraded my Normandy's tank to hold 1500, but apparently
the Alliance felt such storage was pointless.  I did like the scanning
streamline and the Reaper effect though.

   Vega vs. Allers.  I know
I'm in the minority here, but I understood and quite liked Vega.  Allers
though...I don't mind Jessica Chobot (sp?), but I really don't
understand why with two established journalists, an entierly new one was
necessary.  Just me though.

   One complaint I do want to make,
outside the ending because I'm certain at this point Bioware knows I am
definitely holding the line on that issue.  Final assault, I was really
let down by not seeing more of my gathered assets in the field.  Where
were my 2000 vorcha?  Or any of my mercs?  What about my Volus bombing
fleet, I'd think that would come in handy for a creeping barrage no? 
And the Rachni, seriously all they have left to give are some workers? 
The final assault cinematics, much like the ending cinematics felt very
one size fits all rather than built around my actions.

   Ending:   I'll be perfectly honest, I do want a happy ending.  To me this means Shep and LI walking off in to the sunset (yes, the blue babies would be nice), and some kind of closure with Shep and the rest of the crew...mostly Garrus for me, but something in the vein of the Comm officer options on the last mission would be cool too.  Basically to me, Bioware has done a really good job of making me feel like Shep and the crew/squadmates old and new, are like family, and I'd really love an ending that shows them in that nature.  (Shep as Earth's new Councillor?  I don't know...)  Wishful thinking I know, but one must wish.  If the picturesque happy ending isn't possible, I'd still like to see the actual ramifications of the actions you've taken throughout the series.  Unrelated to all this, I simply did not like the Starchild device.  This might have been where the plan was going all along, but honestly it wasn't just that it made no sense and felt totally out of place, it was that I had zero emotional investment towards it.  It'd be, to stay with Mac's "First Matrix" line, if instead of fighting Smith at the end, Neo had the Architect conversation.  And I mean in the first Matrix.  It's that unimmersive.  

  So that's my wish list.  I want to make very clear that other than the ending, my other complaints/changes feedback are hardly game breaking or hugely problematic for me, they just came to mind.  It's just that I really love the series and loved this game so very much right up until the end.  I know that we all have to let Shepard go very soon, but I simply can't see it being like this.
 

Thanks and hold the line.

[vir6]

HenchxNarf wrote...

Okay, so I do have a suggestion on something that could stand to be fixed. I thought maybe it would work on my third ng+...but it still doesn't. The Kasumi mission! It's still bugged and I can't fix it or find anything. I came farther than I did my last two playthroughs, but I still get stuck, and I really don't think I'm missing anything.

However, the journal doesn't help things -.-

I think your map updates the consoles/people you need to use.

Modifié par vir6, 17 mars 2012 - 05:58 .

[Clamatowas]

90% of the game was AMAZING!!!!

Stuff that was not up to YOUR standards or OURS.

1.Tali's Face
2. Lack of closure at the ending
3. Lack of choices.
4. To many plot holes.
5. Everyone was pretty much ****ed and nothing we did matterd.
6. We get that this is the last of this trilogy, So at least give us closure

[Messier87]

Most of these suggestions have been great reads. I'll focus on minor criticisms that I've seen discussed over the course of last week.

War Assets

I like how some of the acquired war assets, (Destiny Ascension, Turian and Quarian fleets, etc.) are shown exiting the Charon Relay in the cinematic for the fight for Earth. These visuals give the player a sense of accomplishment: we spend time and effort to collect these assets to see how they play a role in the final battle (not just for achieving a special ending). However, many crucial assets seem to be missing (Salarian and Geth fleets, Rachni, and so on). We also never see how our former and current squad mates are handling the battle on Earth. Of course I'm not suggesting all assets be represented, but it would be nice to see additional scenes for major war assets we've acquired throughout the game. 

Love Scenes

I've thoroughly enjoyed playing through ME3 with Liara and Tali as love interests. Unfortunately my sample size is small, but these two characters have provided compelling and well-written romance arcs that have managed to make me concerned about their well-being by the end of the game. However, it seems to be the case that characters who were romanced in ME1 have more substance and intimacy in their love scenes. All I ask is for there to be consistency. 

For example: to appeal to the request for a 3D representation of Tali's face, have an additional intimate scene that focuses on her big revelation. I'm in the group of people that actually likes the way Tali looks. You all took a big risk knowing the impossibility of satisfying all of us. In my opinion she's beautiful, but I think her fans deserve to see her presented as an animated model. 


Overall, it was an amazing journey and I appreciate you all taking the time to listen to our feedback.

Modifié par Messier87, 17 mars 2012 - 06:04 .

[GiBBsBoT05]

RedTail F22 wrote...

Romance: and no, not the scenes
My problem is with the romantic relationships. I was looking forward to the consequences of having two romances. To say I was really excited for something and was really dreading it at the same time was something I have to give credit to Bioware for. Its not an easy emotion to try to get someone to feel. But in ME3 I felt the ball was kind of dropped. Here's why :

-My Shepard was truly in love with both LI so choosing which one shouldve been....
        1) Extremely difficult
        2)A key point in the romance storyline part of the game (instead it was easy to miss)

- I wanted to have both of my LI on the Normandy with me, or at least very active in Shepards adventures
        1) It would allow for some great dialogue between the LI and Shepard (or shepard and crew) as both are pressuring him/her to decide
        2) Another great way to add/ show the emotional pressure on Shepard as he progresses through the game and it gets the player more emotionally involved. (imo a nice gift for playing the 1st two Mass Effects)


I just thought that the consequences promised to us lacked in the consequences. What I fel we got was "pick her or her, ok move on" thats it. I was kinda dissapointed. 

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


Other than that and the ending I thought the game was perfect. Well done
    

Yes, it was weird to dread and yet anticipate the repurcussions of your infedelity lol. Yet I was also dissappointed in the way the game was just like, "Okay, choose one cause you can't have two lovers duh!"

[JudgeRAW00]

I dont care so much about Shepard dying. I can live with it if it makes sense. But a way to tell that kid to eff off would go over great with me. Why can't Shep do that? Shep saved the Geth, so why would he choose to destroy them? Shep knows that the other races can't get home without the mass relays, so why would he destroy them? The synthesis ending would be like if black abd white people combined in the sixties rather than accept each others individuality. Why would Shep, who respects the independence of the other races and synthetics, decide to eradicate that independence?

So yeah, Shep telling the kid to eff off and we'll defeat the Reapers through our own power sounds like a good idea. Then the kid is revealed to be Harbinger, and an epic battle ensues between Shep and Harbinger. Maybe with squadmates along with Shep.

[solo77]

instead of rehashing on the endings being changed, which i do feel need to be re-worked, i will address a couple other things.

while James Vega is kinda cool for a character i honestly dislike him greatly because everything about his stats and skills screams Krogan and we have a very distinct lack of a Krogan squadmate. as such i blame Vega for the lack of a Krogan squadmate. please if there is any way to add a Krogan as a squadmate even if it is paid DLC it would be very appreciated.

seriously Krogan are just too damn awesome not to be available as a squadmate.

another thing is the lack of a final boss. it felt great and i got a rather large sense of accomplishment for taking down the human-reaper final boss in ME2, somehow working Harbinger or the Illusive Man as a final boss would have made the end more satisfying on an accomplishment level of actuall beating a big bad.

as for multiplayer while great it could use some improvements, Turians should be able to roll around because unlike the Krogan they are not as able to soak up damage.

and for supply packs, there could stand to be some that specifically give supplies (medigel, missile launchers, ect.) some that specifically give weapons upgrades and weapons. these could be expensive ish. of course character unlocks could be in them on occasion.

it also could not hurt to have created multiplayer characters not have any points spent on powers immediately that way one could choose what powers they want from the start. for example on my human sentinels i dont use tech armor but warp and throw and the other 2 passive powers. yes i understand most people do use tech armor, but the option to not have any points spent on it or other powers on class creation would be nice.

granted there could be a way to reset the powers that i am not aware of. in that case i retract the last statement.

oh and before i forget a paragon/renegade option to tell the Turian Councillor while air-quoting "ah yes reapers, i thought you dismissed that claim. "

[HenchxNarf]

vir6 wrote...

HenchxNarf wrote...

Okay, so I do have a suggestion on something that could stand to be fixed. I thought maybe it would work on my third ng+...but it still doesn't. The Kasumi mission! It's still bugged and I can't fix it or find anything. I came farther than I did my last two playthroughs, but I still get stuck, and I really don't think I'm missing anything.

However, the journal doesn't help things -.-

I think your map updates the consoles/people you need to use.

I've gone everywhere and used the maps :/ But I'm trying again, just in case.

[UrdnotGrunty2]

I enjoyed every bit of the game until the end. Sure there were small things I can nitpick (to much Auto-Dialogue, couple bugs, female shep potentially has 0 male LIs (I play male shep so no biggie for me)) nothing major. The endings are my major complaint

I felt like the endings were way to similar, and there really wasn't anyway to change the end effect, just very minor differences. Second there are tons of plot holes (such as mass relays, squad mates teleporting, star child in general, etc.) and it just didn't fit with the Mass Effect Universe as a Hard Science Fiction, literally the only way to explain any of it was space magic, and that is never good for a hard science fiction.

I wanted a larger variety of endings where not all of them end up with Shepard dead, or Shepard separated from his squad. I wanted at least one happy ending where it was possible for Shepard to have his blue babies with Liara, and then other endings such as Shepard sacrifices himself, heck maybe even a coward out ending, just a big noticeable variety. When I finish Mass Effect 3 my first thought shouldn't be, "What did I just watch?" or "What did I do wrong?" and head straight to the forums for answers. It should be more like Mass Effect 1 and 2, and Dragon Age: Origins where im like "Dang that was a really good game." Because honestly the ending is the last thing you remember, it's the closing act, it better be good.

A good, satisfying ending (for Mass Effect endings like y'all promised and failed to deliver) is the biggest thing for a story, if the ending is not good, then it doesn't matter if the journey to the ending was pure genius, because there would be no point to the story without the end. The journey is important to really enjoy but the destination is just as important, especially since when you play through a good journey you expect a good ending, if you don't play through a good journey then you won't expect a good ending.

I would like alternative endings (more endings), or go with the indoctrination theory and just try again to get a better ending. I would prefer the latter but any way to get a satisfying ending and I am good.

[Jobrill]

Make the ending make thematic sense. That is the number 1 thing I want.

On my Paragon Shepard, I just spent the whole game Learning about the truth behind the Geth, Reconciling them with the Quarians, AND talking to my AI friend about humanity, what it means to have free will, and watched her start a romantic relationship with a human.

So why should I just sit down and accept that the Catalyst is right? Why should I believe that the cycle will continue? I have just bought together the nations of an entire galaxy and proven it wrong. I am watching Synthetics and Organics work together right here, right now. I am proving their premise is useless and their "solution" nothing more than an atrocity enacted by scared, short-sighted little creatures. Why can't I tell the Catalyst this?

And on the 3 endings... One of them is literally what Saren wanted. To merge Organic and Synthetic in hopes of both appeasing the Reapers and ascending to a higher state of being. One of them is what TIM wanted, to control the Reapers. Just about every Shepard will (and must) tell them that they are full of it, that it will never work, that the Reapers have them controlled. So why does she suddenly drop all of that, nod mutely, and agree with the Cataclyst Kid? Why doesn't she/he fight back?

With these two ideas in mind, why can't Shepard take a 4th option, or at least find out that the Catalyst kid was lying through its teeth about the Destroy option to save its own skin, and it won't kill off non-Reapers? (I also, though this is less of a big deal, like the idea of the Catalyst kid shifting to other forms Shepard knows, like the Virmire Victim, Anderson, or his LI/Best friends. Not all of us are THAT enamoured of the kid).

The first 2 games taught us a lot about not trusting the surface impressions of people (Krogan, Geth, Rachni, etc), of celebrating differences, of overcoming adversity, and the like. This ending flies in the face of all of that, forcing back into slavery to the cycle, turning us into stagnant cyborgs, and/or plunging the galaxy into a technological dark ages.

The Normandy crash is also nonsensical. When did Joker come pick up my crewmates, almost all of whom were on the surface of the earth, at least 2 of which were on the front lines of the Hammer charge with me? How did he do it without getting shot down? Why did he then fly away, and fast enough to get close to pluto for the explosion of the mass relay? Joker and all of my squadmates are loyal to me. They will and have followed me into hell itself, on literal suicide missions, so why are they fleeing the battle? What purpose does this serve? How does this make any sense whatsoever?

The destruction of everyone on the Citadel and the Mass Relays themselves was discouraging and not fun for 2 main reasons:

1. The Citadel and the Mass Relays make the game universe. They provide the means for communication, fast travel, and support. The Codex has made it relatively clear that FTL travel won't get you anywhere outside of a given cluster in anything approaching decent time. So you've essentially trapped the combined armies of the galaxy inside the Sol system, or at least in the local cluster. Krogans and Quarians who finally got their homes and cultures back will suddenly never see them again. Quarians and Turians may die from lack of food they can actually eat. Wrex will never see Bakara or their children ever again. There will be many colonies out there, of all nations, that may or may not actually be self-sufficient, and cut off from the rest of the galaxy, may find themselves starving, exposed to the elements, or forced to revert to more primitive lifestyles just to survive. The crashed Normandy, for example, full of all my friends, such as Tali who will never see her homeworld again, and Jaavik, who won't be able to keep his promise to visit the graves of his comrades, or EDI, who, even if I choose an option where she survives, will probably "die" when her blue box and surrounding equipment run out of power or get damaged by the climate, animals, or etc, is probably one of the best examples of this (Especially when you get into the icky questions of genetic diversity, consent, and sexual orientations they'd need to navigate if they decided to sustain the colony past 1 generation). But I imagine even many established colonies will sputter and die when cut off from their lifelines.

But even if you ignore this, The Mass Relays and the Citadel gave the game some great flavor. The massive Relays, the majesty of the Citadel, the iconic look of the Presidium and the drive of the city in a sea of stars... all gone to make an unclear point about Nihilism and inevitability.

You've made the galaxy not just smaller, but downright claustrophic, and in such a way that all the work I did unifying the galaxy is effectively undone. People will be scrabbling for years, decades, maybe even centuries to get back to the stars in any meaningful numbers, and while they do, billions of displaced or stranded people will die, and many people will never see their homes again, most of them being people I personally summoned to the Sol system.

I mean, seriously, when the less downer ending is to refuse as much help as possible and send as many people away as possible so they maybe have a chance of seeing their homes and families again at the end of the game, something is wrong.

2. I spent at least a good 4-5 hours after the Cerberus attack on the Citadel helping C-Sec, Civilians, and Military personnel arm themselves, gather intelligence, and set up defenses to ward off another attack. To find out that all of that was for nothing and that almost everyone I met there is dead, some of whom I have know for 2-3 games, from Dr. Michel and Kolyat and Commander Bailey to Ereba, The Refugee Teen, and the Batarian Prophet who was so desperate to help his people regain their faith?

That's more than a little discouraging, and I wish that if the Citadel was a lost cause you'd not let me get my hopes up by helping to bolster it, or at least telegraph it more or spend more time on it. In addition, There's a difference between death as a meaningful plot device and death as an easy way out of a narrative. Mordin and Thane's deaths were meaningful. Everyone else's? Not so much.

Finally, I will admit I do not need choice as much as some, though I understand why they want it. I understand sometimes you have to cut corners and give the Illusion of choice. But I will say that I want a happy ending. I will accept a bittersweet ending (and the current ending is not bittersweet, it is completely dark), if it makes thematic sense with the last 3 games (and the current ending does not).

But see, I don't think a happy ending is too much to ask for. Over the past 3 games, all the way up to the last 10 minutes, these games have been about triumphing over impossible odds. Shepard does despair sometimes, and bad things DO happen, but the whole point is that she soldiers through and Triumphs. ME1 ended on a very triumphant note, and while ME2 bogged us down again, you could choose to end happily, with all your squadmates back alive, the ability to finally tell TIM where to shove it, and so on.

So is it really that unexpected that, after 5 years, some people might think a happy ending isn't too much to expect? Make it hard to work for, sure. Maybe you need to rescue the Rachni so they can save Wrex and the Krogan from being disentegrated. Maybe you need to save Jacob and Miranda both so they fight back to back and keep each other alive. Maybe you need to rescue the Grissom Kids so they can throw up shields that save another couple squad members (And so Prangley and Rodriguez can be badasses some more). Things like that, like ME2, where if you made the right choices ahead of time and made a few decent snap calls on the final battlefield, you could come out in Triumph.

If it is too much to expect, so be it. I can headcanon the Reapers turning into Icecream while I ride a magic flying carpet over Paris with my LI, or whatever. But at least give me an ending thematically consistent with the rest of the games, whose continuity makes sense.

And hell, some closure might be nice, even if it's DA:O Style slides about what each race and surviving crewmember did after the war (Assuming you retcon the planet crashlanding) (Gabby and Ken better finally get married) (That or Gabby finds a man/woman/Turian who treats her better than Ken).

In closing, if I could ask every Bioware Writer, PR/Community Management type, Producer, Director, and Executive to read two articles, they would be the following:

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

This is one of the best articles I have seen about why we do not like the endings, laid out in what I feel is a generally respectful and well spoken tone. I mostly agree with points 4 and 3 and ESPECIALLY 2.

http://social.biowar...ndex/10022779/1

This OP, posted on these forums, gives an excellent argument for why many of us are not convinced the ending is even very sensible from a storytelling point of view. There is genuine literary criticism to be done here, and I especially think it's valid to point out that the ending really did not fit thematically with the rest of the story. Theme is important. This is why Mordin's death scene is a masterwork, but Shepard's death just makes me confused and a little angry.

I still love this series. I still love Mass Effect 3. If I ignore the last 10 minutes of it, I only have 3 complaints: The marginalization of some ME2 characters, especially LIs like Jack, Miranda, and Jacob, the Lack of Female aliens, especially Turians and Batarians, and the lack of real models for unmasked Quarians, Male and Female alike, but at least Tali if you can only do one. The gameplay, the quests, most of it was all good. Amazing even. If you removed the last 10 minutes, this might easily be my favorite game of all time. As it is, I can't get past those 10 minutes.

I'm glad you're taking this feedback, and I hope you use it to craft a new ending worthy of such a phenomenal franchise.

[Milvushina]

The game was excellent in every way except for the wrapping up. Honestly, I think all it would take is a little more explanation to clear things up. If you want to show that the crew lived, or Shepard lived, or that he saved everyone when he lost his life, just show those things in a way that's clear. Otherwise people are left feeling they don't know what happened. Something was sacrificed but for what? I just wanted to watch all the repercussions play out at the final battle.

Yes, a chance at a happy ending would be nice for Shepard after all this time, but I think any ending that makes sense would work as closure to the story.

[KustomDeluxe]

To start, thank you for listening and you have my apologies for those on here who get personal & negative.

As to the endings:
1) Wider choices are the name of the game. I can't imagine a "redesign" of the entire ending being possible and honestly, it seems like a lot to expect. But an addition to the ending seems appropriate. Give us more options than the 3 presented to us. Allow players to challenge the star-child/god in a heavier and more complete manner. If players paragon score is high enough, let them instill a sense of doubt in the god/AI/child and possibly lead this into a confrontation with Harbinger as the AI/god decides to put the players resolve to one last test. If renegade is higher, let players hack & or shoot their way out of the problem entirely and somehow make the catalyst into the Reaper-vulnerability-maker or something along those lines. If players have low EMS scores, show the crucible getting blown away by a handful of Reapers as the galaxy's fleets fall-back in defeat before Shepherd even has the chance to do much of anything. In general, make it seem like the choice's we've been engaging in throughout the game affect the ending we receive. If someone powered through all the story missions and didn't do anything else, then the Crucible is destroyed end-of-story. This provides a wonderful avenue for having a very bleak ending where the good guys actually lose, but still can provide continuity & hope for players if we got some mention or cinematic of one of the "beacons" Liara was seeding throughout the galaxy being found by the next sentient race in the universe. We lost, they might not kind've feeling.

2) While all the ending machinations are going on with Shepherd & the god-child, interrupt the conversation with the star-child/AI/god every now and again with radio chatter. Seems like it would be easy to do and could answer many of the questions one would have about what is going on on a larger scale. If the parameters are met have a salarian talking about how the krogan are advancing and they need to fall in on the flank to support. If parameters are met have somebody mention rachni taking down Reaper forces. If parameters are met have a quarian ship request assistance and have a geth ships fly to its rescue (Possible moving dialog: "Creator _____ we are on our way."). If parameters are met have somebody mention volus bombers, or the elcor "living-tanks", or the Mechs we got if we recruited the Omega bandit/mercenary groups, or the SPECTRE squad we could recruit. Mention some of the names of the individual ships we found scattered across the galaxy. In general, make it feel like the "war assets" we've collected throughout the game have more of an effect in the battle than determining which of three endings we unlock.

I wouldn't even be one to complain if there was no way to make it out alive, but make it seem like the sacrifice is necessary and proper and not just a result of the star-child/god/AI telling us we have to die to "save" the galaxy.

Thank you for your consideration & thank you for your hard work.

[Actinguy1]

Two simple fixes:

1) Drop the Normandy crash scene. I get it, but it's awful. At BARE MINIMUM, make sure you don't show our final squad mates at the crash site.

2) Go back and look at ME2's suicide mission. We were making a major choice every couple of minutes, and these choices had immediate consequences. I lost 40% of my squad (Tali, Thane, Grunt, Miranda), and I LOVED it. I should be making these choices on Earth. Turians, do this! Jacob go here! Batarians, retreat! More DOTS! More DOTS! Okay, stop DOTS!

[Ticonderoga117]

Mev186 wrote...

hippanda wrote...

IV. On the Catalyst, the Normandy scene, and where it all went wrong:
These last 5-10 minutes of the game are on the same level as Mass Effect: Deception when it comes to blatantly ignoring established lore and throwing continuity out the window.

The big reveal of the Catalyst's existance seems to contradict the entire premise of ME1. Why does Sovereign describe the Reapers as "each a nation, independent" if the Catalyst actually controls them all? Why does the Catalyst just casually refer to them as reapers, in spite of the first 2 games making a pretty clear point that it was a label invented by the Protheans and not themselves? Why did Sovereign have to be the one to activate the Citadel relay if the Citadel was alive the whole time? Why didn't the Catalyst bother to undo the signal tampering the Protheans did or, if it was incapable of doing that itself, call in Sovereign in the thousands and thousands of year-long period between the protheans extinction and the rediscovery of the citadel by the Asari and have IT fix the problem? The list of issues goes on and on. Most of them could probably be explained, but the explanations aren't obvious, and at the end of the way we were left without one.

Furthermore, the Catalyst's entire existence seems to be a huge, walking contradiction. I'll start with a general definition of the word catalyst - something that instigates change. This is the polar opposite of both the Catalyst's self-identification as an opponent to change ("chaos") and the Catalyst's track record of billions of years of maintaining the status quo ("the cycle"). More importantly, the Catalyst is a synthetic with the self-described interest of preserving organic life (albeit "in Reaper form"), again directly contradiction his notion that the created always rise up against their creators.

But perhaps most importantly of all, you're not allowed to call him out on his nonsensical "logic." The Catalyst is not the first "godlike" presence he or she has stood before while being openly defiant (Sovereign, Harbinger). Why the sudden change of character? This whole thing seemed like a perfect opportunity to make at least one of your decisions actually matter (brokering peace between the Quarians and the Geth), but your character remains silent and obedient, instead. For most of us, this out-of-character performance by what is supposed to be the player's character completely shattered the immersion.

At the end of it all, we're given a choice between 3 equally depressing endings. Although each of the endings has its own philosophical implications, they all share the same practical implications (relays destroyed, the fleets and the armies you gathered are stranded on Earth, Shepard (usually) dies, the Normandy goes AWOL, etc.), and that is why most of us say the game really only had 1 ending.

And it's those practical implications that make it seem like a lot of the choices we made were all for naught. Finally patched up relations between the Turians and the Krogan? Great! They'll probably never see each other again within the lifetime of anyone who participated in the battle against the Reapers (Asari included). Saved the Rachni? Who cares? They're just as cut off from the rest of the galaxy as everyone else, so the implications of their continued existance is entirely meaningless. Saved Wrex and cured the genophase, ushering in a new, "enlightened" age of the Krogan? I guess it's too bad he's stuck on Earth for the foreseeable future, leaving Tuchanka to fracture back into its pointless and bloody clan wars.

Speaking of the Normandy, the best way to describe that scene is "wtf?" I imagine this scene was supposed to be the "sweet" part of the "bittersweet" ending, but the interpretation of this scene by the great majority of players seems to have been the polar opposite. I imagine the developers were trying to convey a sense of hope for the future with the crew landing on a garden world, but the "practical implications" (Tali and Garrus dying of starvation) ruins any potential for happiness.

Additionally, it's never explained why: (1) your crew got back onto the Normandy in the first place, abandoning the ground battle, or (2) why Joker decided to take the Normandy's crew on a field trip, abandoning the space battle. Again, the implications here aren't good. Absent an explanation of these bizarre behaviors, the player is left wondering why everyone he or she loved abandoned you at the final hour, fleeing from the battle against the Reapers in a seemingly cowardly fashion.

Also, that wave of energy from the Crucible wasn't kind to the Normandy - you can clearly see the ship's engines being torn off. This adds further weight to the implication that the fleet you gathered and brought to Earth is stranded barring extensive ship repairs at best, and that's assuming everyone else gets to be as lucky as the people on the Normandy were in surviving the ship being torn apart and crash-landing on the nearest planet/moon.

The list of issues with the practical implications of the ending (singular) goes on and on, and it's a big reason why a lot of us feel like there's no reason to do a 2nd playthrough of ME3 or to purchase any DLC that doesn't address the endings - the complete absence of our choices being realized at the end of the game totally kills the game's replayability.

Agreed! This is probably one of the best arguments against the Starchild's existance. It deserves to be reposted.

Pretty much this. How to go fixing it though? That's a bit of a harder question. Basically, I think it would be REALLY cool if those war assets (you know those things we've been collecting ALL game) show up somehow or don't if you didn't actually get them. Example: That volus dreadnaught of awesome with all Thanix (sp?) cannons. It would be really cool if during a CGI scene of it laying WASTE to some reapers. Or, seeing how this could be a big pain in the butt after the game is done, give us something akin to Fallout 3/NV's slides, this is the asset, this is what it did, did they live or die. Now obviously I don't think this should be done for EVERY asset. That's silly, but atleast the "major/elite" assets should be shown. What would also be neat is if those assets that have sub-entries (like the Marine one) is affected by wheather or not one of the sub-entires were found or not. Through this kind of approach, the WA's take on more "life" than just "Yay... I have enough assets for the non-crap ending." Just a thought.

Next, talking to the AI-child-thing. Sure, keep the current endings. They have some merit with that more philosphoical background, but we really need an option to Paragon/Renegade our way through this wheather or we did something earlier in the trilogy or have enough cajones (reputation) to do it. There was a link to a site on deviantart that I think would be great for implementation for this part. Basically, after Shep tells Starchild off, they sit back and watch as the fleet/ground forces duke it out, all the while the Starchild keeps taunting Shep, trying to cast some doubt. Etc. etc.

However, I think we, the consumers who have been with the series for 3 wonderful games, Shep, and the remaining crew of the Normandy to have the CHANCE for a really good ending. Not rainbows and all that as hey, LOTS of people just died, but basically what was outlined in the Jeremy John's review. While this may not be in a cutscene form, I will certainly be fine with an approach again along the lines of Fallout.

Oh, finally thought. Multiplayer required for this "perfect" ending is a big NO! Multiplayer should only enhance our chances to get this endings, ie, "I really don't feel like scanning that one cluster, I'll play multipler to give me a boost." None of this "Galatic readiness at 50% stuff by default. It's 100% and the multplayer adds on to it. Ok, this latter bit probably won't apply, but the former is a MUST. It's unfair for those who don't have good or any net at all to be locked out of this. Granted, they're probably already SOL, but GOTY editions or DLC discs could fix that.

[Ploate]

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

[Billabong2011]

I really dislike the indoctrination theory but not because it isn't justified - people have really put thought into this analysis and it's quite loyal to the established lore of the Mass Effect universe (I personally just didn't care for it because, to me, it seemed odd that after all the contact Shepard's had with the reapers, it's so 'convenient' that he finds himself being indoctrinated NOW). So if Bioware doesn't wish to kill themselves in the editing rooms, the indoctrination theory fits, though I personally don't feel it's the best solution.

As for what I DO want, there are no specific events I want to occur. Only the following:

1. A justified conclusion to the series. Endings that stay true to the narrative world created and maintained in all three games (what we have no contradicts almost everything the franchise stands for).

2. Choice. There should be more variations in the endings than just the color of the explosions - it doesn't have to be anything huge (although the reapers winning being a possibility would be a daring move that I feel most fans would LOVE), just something that communicates to the player that every decision he or she made actually held some weight.

3. Sincerity. The 'impact' the Catalyst was intended (or so I felt it was intended) to have on the player as being profound because the child's death haunted Shepard had an adverse effect on me - I hated this representation (and quite frankly I hated the boy's impact throughout) because it felt as though he were merely an ingenuous device meant to evoke emotion - there was nothing natural about his plot arc that elicited any kind of stirring in me, and so I found it insulting to have him shoved down my throat once again at the game's' conclusion. I'm not asking for him to be removed, but I am merely offering an example of what I found to be 'insincere' (this, moreover, goes along with a 'justified' ending, just in terms of emotional resolution rather than story resolution).

That's it. But I have to say, as horribly as we've reacted to the endings, this game truly was a masterpiece, which is why there has been SUCH a heavy backlash against its conclusion. It's hard to enjoy the rest of the brilliance of this franchise when the end result renders all of it moot, not just 'meaningless' in that you can't 'win' the war (honestly if everybody died no matter what and it were done justifiably, I'd be fine with that), but in that it contradicts everything the narrative established over the course of the three games.
But I digress.
Anyway, thanks, Jessica!

[Yue Fairchild]

This is a really really long drawn-out post so bear with me. I'm just complaining about everything I didn't like in Mass Effect 3, so some of it might just be nit picking, but I want to get all this off my chest. Also, understand that I adored Mass Effect 3 up until the ending, these are just what kept me from really calling it perfect.

Why do you get the black default N7 armor at the beginning, and have to go through a mission before you can customize it? I understand that we don't have any armor parts unless it's a new Game+, but evenMass Effect 2 gave you a chance to change your colors before you were on a full-blown non-tutorial mission.

I liked Vega, actually. I just wanted to say that; I was all set to hate him and then he turned out to be pretty cool. Plus, as a femshep, it was nice to be able to talk to a male squadmate without it turning romantic automatically. That bothered me about Kaiden and Jacob, that anything short of being a dick to them was construed by the game as me wanting their ****. So props for fixing that.

Kelly dying offscreen unless you romanced her was horrible. Why would you do that? Same for Conrad; unless you did a sidequest in ME1 that's really easy to fail, he dies, no chance to stop it? I'll admit, "Did I help? ;-;" was great, but it doesn't excuse the execution (pardon the pun...) of the thing.

Kai Leng didn't really work, I don't think. I really wanted to hate this guy, to see him as the anti-Shepard badass dragon to the Illusive Man, but he just came off as incompetent  and kind of a lousy character. Maybe if he had more actual successes to his name than Thessia, to show him as a threat and not just some annoying ninja that a half-dead Drell on vicodin could defeat, he would have been cooler.

Why was there no explanation for Anderson leaving the Council if you didn't pick Udina? That bugged me. I see why it had to be done, considering the Cerberus occupation, but that leads to another question: Why was this not foreshadowed at all? Udina was a jackass in 1 and 2, then in 3 you make him almost likeable, and then OH WAIT NO HE WORKS FOR CERBERUS out of nowhere? I would have liked to see more of his fall, or at least more of him being a dick before the occupation.

Kal'Regar and Rana Thanoptis dying offscreen was horrible; Tanoptis suddenly being Indoctrinated doubly so. It makes sense, given what she was up to, but both of those characters were really cool, and should have been 'show, not tell' moments. If you couldn't get Adam Baldwin, then I guess that makes sense, but come on, just killing him in an e-mail?

The Kid being the only figure that haunts Shepard's nightmares is sort of jarring, especially if you played a background like Conolist/Sole Survivor. Why couldn't we see flashbacks to Shepard's parents, her old unit, (insert applicable NPCs from other backgrounds here), or even more recent stuff like whoever blew up on Virmire, Mordin, Legion? Why is that stupid kid the one that Shepard obsesses over? Yeah, I get it, he symbolizes who we couldn't save, but even that falls flat because there are so many other examples of that from all three games!
I'd like it if in cutscenes, your weapon didn't default to the Avenger assault rifle. A lot of times I didn't even HAVE an AR with me and it still showed up. That nags at me, especially when sometimes your equipped weapon DOES show up and other times it doesn't.

Probably too late to change, but I wish we could have had more temporary squadmates like Anderson. That would have been neat.

Loved everything about Rannoch, except two things: When we see Legion meeting Shepard, why is it a generic ManShep or FemShep in a Cerberus grunt uniform? Why couldn't we see our current Shepard's face there instead,  even better if we could see the uniform we were wearing in Mass Effect 2 somehow. Moving on, Tali's face. TALI'S. FACE. Why do you only see it when she kills herself? Shouldn't that represent failing Tali, being the circumstance in which you DON'T see it? Why was it just a photoshopped stock photo? It's TALI'S FACE! How did this not get more work put into it?! I'm not even a real big Tali fan and I'm offended by how this was done!
Some allusion that going to the Cerberus base kicks off the endgame would be nice, just a 'This is it, Commander: Are you ready?" would help. Maybe it was there and I forgot, but I don't think so. Sorry if it was. I did like the Cerberus base. Kai Leng's boss fight was kind of a letdown, but I guess it worked. Would have been cooler if we could have a real duel with him somehow, but I guess that would just be a bunch of quicktime events. Loved the ending interrupt with Kai Leng. That was great, though I would have loved it better if we saw our class's omniblade instead of defaulting to the Soldier one.

Earth was a neat mission, but it felt like it was a letdown. Something cool would have been some kind of space battle, though I don't know how you could really pull that off. Maybe Shepard manning a turret on the Normandy in a shmup level kind of thing? I don't know. Might just be gilding the lilly. On Earth, we could have done with seeing more of our squadmates, fighting alongside them, helping them set up beachheads. That ties into the temporary squadmates thing again. I enjoyed getting to say goodbye to everyone, and Liara's gift made me tear up a little. Would have liked to see more of the guy from the first trailer.

Okay, enough stalling. Let's talk about the ending.

The first let-down was never getting to fight Harbinger. He's been set up as the Big Bad, and sort of puts a face on the Reapers, and we never get to fight him. I'm not sure how that could have been done without just protecting more turrets like with the Destroyer, but it feels like a cheat to give us a named Reaper bad guy and we never get to kill him. On that note, killing the Destroyer by protecting a truck and shooting it, then protecting another truck and shooting it, was kind of un-epic. I remember reading a leak that talked about switching between the Mako, the Hammerhead, and controlling the Normandy to fight a Reaper on Rannoch, something like that would have been really cool. The fact that there were Makos rolling around and you never got to get in one was just sad.

Your armor being turned into generic armor for the ending bothered me, and so did the limp. I understand it made things seem more dire, but going THAT slow was kind of painful. The Citadel was a  letdown. It appearing over Earth just like that reminded me of the ending of the G1 Transformers cartoon, where suddenly Cybertron was in Earth's orbit. The lack of action, or even failing that, of things happening on the Citadel was annoying. Talking to Anderson was weird, I never saw him follow me, and I have no idea where he was. There was only one pathway, and we never saw him, or heard him outside of radio contact. Where was he? How did he get to the terminal before us?

The confrontation with the Illusive Man was neat, but I think it was a mistake. It makes that feel like the final boss, which just detracts from the Reapers and doesn't work for what happens in it. It feels so much like a retread of Saren that it just made me very uncomfortable. What I DID like was his last line. That got to me.

Everything about the Crucible and the Catalyst was a mistake. I can't be nice about this. The plaform suddenly rising up into the ceiling was weird. The Kid being the representation of the Catalyst was cheesey and off-putting. Why not Saren? The Illusive Man? Anderson? Harbinger? Sovereign? The Virmire Survivor? Shepard him/herself? You took a step toward that by mixing Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer's voices to make the Catalyst's, that was pretty boss. Not even trying to explain, like, 'I'm taking a form you can speak to" was frustrating. But having it as the AI that made and controls the Reapers was just...a letdown. The Reapers shouldn't have been explained, or if you HAD to, why not that dark energy thing you hinted at so much in mass Effect 2? The "synthetics will always destroy organics" concept is completely invalidated by the fact that Rannoch can end in defeating the synthetics or even making peace, and on a more personal level by Tali's friendship with Legion. It doesn't work with the themes expressed just hours ago in-game, or in the game as a whole. The Geth want nothing but to be left alone, it's the Reapers that drive them to conflict every time, and yet we're supposed to believe they could destroy everything, when the only synthetics doing any real destroying are the Reapers themselves? It. Does. Not. Work.

I take issue with the way the choices are presented too. The Control ending is fine, everyone kind of expected something like that for renegades, but it would have been neater if, say, the Crucible and Catalyst transform into a body for the Shepard Reaper or something, rather than just seeing yourself get electrocuted and then the Reapers go away. Why again does that destroy the Mass Relays? The destroy ending destroying the Mass Relays, I don't like it, but I guess I get it. It destroys reaper tech, but if that's the case, why do the Geth die? Why does EDI die? Obviously the answer is "to make the choice less cut and dry," but there are too many plotholes to justify it. Not to mention the lighting. The Illusive Man is advocating for Control while Anderson is advocating for Destroy, yet Control is Blue (Paragon), and Destroy is Red (Renegade?) Which brings me to the Synthesis ending. First off the whole thing reminded me of Beast Machines. I don't know if that was intentional, but it made it impossible for me to take it seriously. It's the one I chose, but I didn't like it at all. It just comes out of left field, it makes NO sense in any way. How did the story allude that this was ever an option? Why does Shepard jumping into the Catalyst cause it? Yeah, I get it, s/he's a cyborg, but what? Is it some kind of End of Evangelion thing where a Giant Naked Shepard hugs everyone and they turn synthetic? And why does THAT destroy the Mass Relays? Here's a thought that would have been a lot cooler, just a thought, but. It would have been really cool to see the Synthesis ending's advocate as Saren, since he's the only guy in the entire series that suggested a Synthesis situation.

So, the ending cutscene. You see nothing of the story you've developed over the last three games. That's a huge strike against it that just infuriates me to no end. Here are some more of those. How did your crew get back on the Normandy? We saw all of them fighting on Earth! Why is Joker flying away from Earth with our apparently teleporting crew members anyway, and why is he going through a Mass Relay here and now? Why does he have to crash on some planet and that's the ending? Because it was a pretty scene? HOW DID YOUR CREW GET THERE? I'm repeating that because it bugs me the most. The second biggest problem is, again, the Mass Relays being destroyed every time. In addition to the fact that it makes no sense for Control or Synthesis, why does this have to happen from a narrative standpoint? This should be the grand finale, the great ending that answers all our questions, while I guess leaving room for Mass Effect 4 or Mass Effect Online or something like that. Furthermore, the destruction of the Mass Relays is a  crazy thing to just dump on us at the end of the game. All it does is make us go AJFKSJSH WHAT and raise questions that aren't appropriate to bring up in the ending cutscene to the final game in a trilogy.  Furthermore, the fact that a sizable amount of the galaxy's population is now stuck in Earth's orbit, a planet that's been ravaged by the Reapers and before that was implied to be in lousy shape and somewhat overpopulated WITHOUT millions of aliens to take care of...Sits ill, at best. 

That's the end of my criticism of Mass Effect 3. Now what you could do to fix it? If I were in charge of Bioware, I'd put out a patch that changes the whole Tali's Face fiasco. Let's say you don't get to see her face if you kill her, but if you save the Quarians or make peace with the Geth you can see her. I'd like if she looked more alien than a human put through a few Photoshop filters with weird hands. Those curscenes where Shepard is holding an Avenger instead of his/her equipped weapons would have to be fixed, and the scene with Legion would at least apply your face and hair, and maybe if you're importing a save, the importer could make a note of what casual clothes Shepard was wearing and give the hologram those. Kelly would be there for Shepards that didn't romance her, and Conrad could be saved through a Paragon interrupt. You'd get e-mails or hear conversations that imply Udina's not on the level, Anderson would have a throwaway line at the beginning about how he couldn't take the politics and gave Udina his seat to return to the Military. Just having an explanation would be better.

As for what I'd do to the ending? Total overhaul. let's start at the end of the Earth mission. After you wreck the Destroyer, you get to look up into the sky. You see the Crucible move into position around the Crucible...only for a massive, gigantic Reaper to dock on the Citadel and fuse with it and the Crucible, while a familiar voice echoes through the sky across Earth...

"ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL."

Harbinger has taken over the Citadel and the Crucible! You and Anderson form two teams to assault Harbinger; Anderson takes Wrex (if he's alive, otherwise a random marine) and Big Ben, and you pick two squad mates to use the Beam to enter the Harbinger/Citadel/Crucible and fight through it to the control center, while damaging his core systems and fighting off Indoctrination. I'm not sure how this would play out, but maybe you occasionally relive moments from your history twisted to be more hopeless. A burning Eden Prime where Saren kills Jenkins, Kaiden, and Ashley in front of you. A Reaper instead of a Thresher Maw destroying your squad on Akuze, which is now made of your Mass Effect 1 squadmates instead of Alliance marines. A Child Shepard helplessly trying to escape a Reaper invasion of Mindoir. Horizon, with more husks and an Indoctrinated Kaiden/Ashley. The Collector Base, but everyone's dying. Stuff like that.) Again, I only played Colonist/Sole Survivor so I can't come up with stuff for other backstories, but that little bit would help tie the ending into your choices. Speaking of that, you could occasionally get bonuses based on your war assets, like a few Rachni minions to follow you for a while, or the Geth hacking Harbinger's systems. Either way, you eventually get to the core of Harbinger, the Crucible, where Anderson's team is held at gunpoint by the Illusive Man. Things would play out a lot like the original ending; Shepard's been worn out by the Indoctrination attempts. and can't fight the Illusive Man properly. Harbinger can't exert full control after the damage you've done though, and you can eventually either get TIM to kill himself or just shoot him. It ends with one more fight against Harbinger through TIM, probably a callback to the Saren-Sovereign fight, and then you're given the choice.

You can take control of Harbinger's systems, becoming the new Harbinger; you sacrifice your physical form for control of the Reapers. You can activate the Crucible, doing massive damage to the Citadel due to its integration with Harbinger, or...some third thing that is, hopefully, not Synthesis. If you choose to activate the Crucible (which uses the  Citadel to send raw energy into every Reaper, which is connected to the Citadel as a part of their design. Or something. The point is we don't try to explain the Reapers! Either way, destroying the reapers ends with you running for your life. Based on your war assets, some combination of you, Anderson, his squad, your squad, and the Citadel survive, and we get a cutscene of how your decisions effect the galaxy rebuilding and stuff, and THAT'S the ending.

Just a few thoughts.

Modifié par Yue Fairchild, 17 mars 2012 - 06:06 .

[Skyblade012]

Blackmind1 wrote...

Darknessfalls23 wrote...

I been thinking about, the people that want Shepard to live versus the people that are fine with Shepard dying, I think you could have a paragon option to save prevent from shooting Anderson but it will lead to your own death instead Then getting rid of the Star child and three magical choices ending because that's what bothers most of us.

I liked the star child and the philosophical questions he brought up. It just felt a little out of place.

It was out of place.  He can exist, sure.  Just not in Mass Effect.  They can stick him in some other game or series.  Somewhere he belongs, where he doesn't tear apart the characters and the game's themes and basic principles.  He needs to be wiped from the ME universe though.  He does not belong here.

[FilmDirector554]

WULONGmerc wrote...

FilmDirector554 wrote...

Scrap the Star Child. If you can't come up with a coherent explanation for the Reapers, that's fine. Sometimes explaining your greatest mystery ruins the credibility and suspense behind it. The goal is to destroy the Reapers. Don't suddenly appear and say they're the "good guys" and that they're helping the organics by murdering them to protect them from synthetics. Remember, Sovereign said that the Reapers simply are. They are eternal. Before them, organic life is nothing. An accident, etc. Stay with that. It's good. So yeah, the question of where the Reapers come from? THAT is something you can let the audience speculate on.

Also, a final boss battle. I know it seemed too "video gamey" at the time, but this is a video game. Games like BioShock managed to deliver on all its themes, characters, etc, and they still had the classic end boss fight. And you know what? It was awesome and didn't take away from anything. You guys built up the Illusive Man for a boss fight in Mass Effect 3, and before that in Arrival with Harbinger. Your two boss fight candidates are right there.

Give us endings influenced by our choices throughout the entire Mass Effect saga. Make everything count. Don't give us A, B, and C endings. You promised multiple influenced by our choices throughout the series. Deliver on this.

London: This is truly a suicide mission. Let us assign our war assets. Let us assign our crew. It would have been great to see more going on during the push through London and the battle in space.

Let me save the day. I don't care if my Shepard dies, but let me FEEL like a hero. Let me feel like my hours of playtime, money, emotion and heartache in this personal journey to save the galaxy meant something. There's too much crap going on in our own world for bittersweet endings, but include one just to have an ending where everything falls apart. And you know what? Give us an end where Shepard DOES live. Cause why the heck not? He's Commander Shepard. He works miracles. But most of all...give us closure. I want to see what happened to my team, earth, and the rest of the galaxy.

And look, you guys showed a Mass Relay exploding and wiping out an entire system. Don't back out on your previously established logic. It's too late. But hey, if you want to have an ending where the relays go up, use it in a bad ending where you're manipulated into pushing the wrong button or something.

This is Mass Effect 3. This is the end of a trilogy. It's the end of the massive space opera Mass Effect. Not Blah Effect. Pull out all the stops and crank it to epic. Give the player the greatest climax and resolution in the history of gaming.

This isn't the second and third Matrix films. This is your The Return of the King.

Thank you.

I stand to applaud.    Btw, whenever, to this day, if I watch ROTK to the end I cry cuz it so wonderful.

Thanks, and yeah, ROTK is pretty epic.

[hanshotfirs]

I kind of ascribe to the indoctrination theory... that being said, Shepard wakes up in London, having survived Harbinger's blast, and is able to gather his remaining team and destroy the reapers. Yes, the galaxy is forever changed, and a lot of good people have died... but there is hope for the future.

Even if every ending but the "best" ending has Shepard dying, that's ok. Having Shepard survive SHOULD be difficult, it should be challenging to live, that's the point of war, isn't it? But I've had a lot of friends and family make it back home to their families after going to war.

All throughout ME3, we see the losses, and people being separated. I think it's also important to show the reunions that happen after someone comes home from war safe and sound and be able to go back to their lives.

I know I'll come up with more later... but I guess my main point is that after a war ends, there has to be hope for a better day. Yes, we got glimpses of that... but it's not cathartic to only have it hinted to us.