913 réponses à ce sujet

[a.m.p]

pikey1969 wrote...

My post is http://social.biowar...index/10995299/ pretty much on this side of this issue if you're interested in reading/adding to the list of articles/posts in your op.

Thanks for posting, very good read.

However, you also trivialize the subject immediately after introducing it by narrowing down 'the answer' into three very simplified and arbitrarily flawed choices.

Especially this.

Will definitely link.

Modifié par a.m.p, 09 avril 2012 - 03:08 .

[a.m.p]

torudoom wrote...

Although I'll admit that I know more than a few avid gamers who frankly love that 'one man in a trillion' feeling of being the unquestionable hero of universal renown. It makes sense for developers to try to find a balance between the two impulses; I tend to think the Stargazer sequence veers a little too far into the hero aspect.

I like the fan endings that still have that honourable sacrifice at the end to fill the hero role, but which ultimately defer to the efforts of the larger group of civilisations to actually get the job done. And I agree that playing too loosely with symbolism invites a form of ridiculousness the games really don't need at that juncture.

Well yes, being 'one man in a trillion' and seeing the rest of the trillion should not be mutually exclusive. ME1 and ME3 (minus the end) definitely pulled that off, at least for me.

Have you played Dragon Age? I enjoyed the more personal focus of the second game for that reason; you played as a hero, more or less, but one whose story was one story in a city full of stories, and you certainly didn't emerge as universally loved, or even liked. Curious about your take on that. A lot of people really disliked the second - admittedly with some valid criticisms.

Dragon age 2 - not yet. Plan to, some time. Though I do know a lot about the storyline and from what I know, I might like it. And whatever that bad thing that happens in the end is, surely it isn't worse than the starchild, right? So I might have a unique perspective, being jaded by ME3. I may actually appreciate it.
I did play through Origins once so far (and liked it a lot).

[ZombieJohn84]

The fan-fic ending I chose to go with at the begining of all this was simply telling the kid 'no,' and then finding out it was a reaper VI pulling a last ditch effort to try and get you to end things their way. In that ending, you just wait and see what happens and the fleet wins based on whether or not your ems is high enough.

[a.m.p]

ZombieJohn84 wrote...

The fan-fic ending I chose to go with at the begining of all this was simply telling the kid 'no,' and then finding out it was a reaper VI pulling a last ditch effort to try and get you to end things their way. In that ending, you just wait and see what happens and the fleet wins based on whether or not your ems is high enough.

Which is generally what we're trying to do. Does that fan-fic ending by chance have a link?

[WingsBreaker]

why even brother saying "no", here is the problem, so the child have the ability to control the reapers, but rather then pulling out the reapers himself, he made shepard choose...whats the point of getting shepard to choose if he could just pull the reapers out and leave the mass relays intact, while the geths r gonna want peace because they have freewill(in my choice), so there could be long term peace without sacrifice....what they should do is instead of saying "no", they should have a ren and par choice. Just my opinion

[a.m.p]

WingsBreaker wrote...

why even brother saying "no", here is the problem, so the child have the ability to control the reapers, but rather then pulling out the reapers himself, he made shepard choose...whats the point of getting shepard to choose if he could just pull the reapers out and leave the mass relays intact, while the geths r gonna want peace because they have freewill(in my choice), so there could be long term peace without sacrifice....what they should do is instead of saying "no", they should have a ren and par choice. Just my opinion

Well, the general consensus seems to be that the starchild should be removed altogether. Because at any attempt of analyzing it, the scene falls apart on multiple levels.

As much as I personally would love to get rid of him, it isn't happening. So let's try to bypass him and his nonsense altogether, preferrably in a way that requires minimum amounts of additional content and no change to already existing stuff. That can be done by adding a high EMS option to tell him to go to hell.

[soulprovider]

CapnManx wrote...

a.m.p wrote...

CapnManx wrote...

It's stated clearly that the Reapers can't be defeated by conventional means, and that the Crucible is their only real hope. Saying 'No' to the Star Child is essentially giving up on the whole 'saving the galaxy' thing; and just letting the Reapers win.

Sheppard is consistently portrayed as someone who just wont give up, no matter the odds; so quitting just isn't an option for him/her (and therefore wouldn't be presented as one).

I disagree. I never got the impression that fighting them was absolutely impossible. There are ways of doing damage to them that are never brought up or discussed. Arrival teaches us how to make supernovas. We have thanix cannons. Concentrated fire from several ships can take out a sovereign-class reaper. The galaxy map shows us that there are small groups of them all over the galaxy. How about we go after those? How about we apply some goddamn strategy and tactics?
The previous cycles were defeated largely because the reapers took the citadel and disabled the relay network. This cycle has an advantage. If they manage to push the reapers back from Sol, the citadel is under their control again.

Even if it would work, they can't take the time to do that; their populations are being harvested, it's not just about blowing up Reapers, it has to be done while there is still something to save.  That means keeping them from spreading to other worlds (preventing invasions was something they had absolutely no luck with, even before their fleets got thrashed). 

Since Reapers just make troops as they go, they suffer no personell shortages; every single world they attack gets swarmed with Reaper forces and would take a full scale ground war to reclaim.  Every world lost means fewer resources to work with, fewer populations to draw upon, and fewer places to seek refuge.  Think what they needed to go through in preparation for the recapture of Earth, and that was before the Citadel was taken there and the Reaper presence was reinforced.  They wouldn't even attempt it without the Cruicible.

Anyway, it was Admiral Hackett who claimed that they couldn't defeat the Reapers conventionally; I'd take the assessment of an in-universe veteran fleet commander as an 'expert opinion'.

yes but hackett also says that if the crucible didn't work he was going to throw everything they had at them to take the chance at destroying the reapers conventianally, and given that the turians reverse engineered the reaper tech i'd expect the turian fleet to be fully equipped with them since it technically has been 2 years 6 month since sovereigns demise. That puts the organics on equal footing and  the cutscene also shows that the reapers can be defeated by ships, basically all they need is to simply concentrate three dreadnoughts fire on each sovereign class reaper while the smaller ships concentrate on the smaller ones, this would greately reduce the reapers numbers and make it harder for them to replenish their numbers, This would have been a better ending because it would have left the next cycle better able to take down the reapers when they came back but bioware didn't even give us that option.

[Enichan]

Welp, after giving this some thought, I came up with my own solution for this kind of "NO!" ending. The TL;DR version is that destroying the Crucible while connected to the Catalyst AI would create similar feedback as occurred when Saren was destroyed while connected to Sovereign, rendering the Reapers temporarily vulnerable to the collective might of the fleets.

[Xyos]

I feel just giving more flexability like allowing you to spare the geth but destroy the reapers, thats it, thats all I want.

[a.m.p]

soulprovider wrote...

yes but hackett also says that if the crucible didn't work he was going to throw everything they had at them to take the chance at destroying the reapers conventianally, and given that the turians reverse engineered the reaper tech i'd expect the turian fleet to be fully equipped with them since it technically has been 2 years 6 month since sovereigns demise. That puts the organics on equal footing and  the cutscene also shows that the reapers can be defeated by ships, basically all they need is to simply concentrate three dreadnoughts fire on each sovereign class reaper while the smaller ships concentrate on the smaller ones, this would greately reduce the reapers numbers and make it harder for them to replenish their numbers, This would have been a better ending because it would have left the next cycle better able to take down the reapers when they came back but bioware didn't even give us that option.

See, it is about strategy and tactics.

Enichan wrote...
Welp, after giving this some thought, I came up with my own solution for this kind of "NO!" ending. The TL;DR version is that destroying the Crucible while connected to the Catalyst AI would create similar feedback as occurred when Saren was destroyed while connected to Sovereign, rendering the Reapers temporarily vulnerable to the collective might of the fleets.

Thanks. Linking. The more, the better.
I might have to organize the suggestions by type soon

Xyos wrote...
I feel just giving more flexability like allowing you to spare the geth but destroy the reapers, thats it, thats
all I want.

That is part of what we're trying to do. Thing is, a lot of people disagree (not me) that reapers can eventually be beaten just with the forces of the united fleet. So they come up with ideas to use the crucible+citadel to weaken the reapers and even the odds. Most of those suggestions make significantly more sense than the existing endings and are grounded in in-game lore.

Modifié par a.m.p, 09 avril 2012 - 04:53 .

[marshkoala]

@a.m.p
Thanks for all your work!
Though you are probably right with going with the idea of ''''we are stuck with what we got", I myself would LOVE for someone to read "The betrayal of hope" thread and have a Complete change of heart and fix the darn endings......lol!!!

[Solmanian]

The earliest reported reaper attack is 37 bilion years ago. The reapers get one sovereign class and countless destroyers per 50k cycle. Do the math.
The reapers have ALOT of experience in defeating the combined forces of the galaxy... Even hacket says that they can at best hold them off. Allied forces have at best 100-150 dreads, reapers have atleast thousands if not hundreds of thousands of sovereign class reapers. You're simply outgunned and out numbered. To defeat the reapers and their technological advantage you'll need to out number their forces atleast 3-5 over (three is cutting it close, well need some fancy stretagies and bald tactics, 5 will give you a slight advantage in a straight on fight like the one over earth). Even the smallest reaper has barriers comparable to a dread.

[Ingvarr Stormbird]

reapers have atleast thousands if not hundreds of thousands of sovereign class reapers.

Source?

[M0keys]

Solmanian wrote...

The earliest reported reaper attack is 37 bilion years ago. The reapers get one sovereign class and countless destroyers per 50k cycle. Do the math.
The reapers have ALOT of experience in defeating the combined forces of the galaxy... Even hacket says that they can at best hold them off. Allied forces have at best 100-150 dreads, reapers have atleast thousands if not hundreds of thousands of sovereign class reapers. You're simply outgunned and out numbered. To defeat the reapers and their technological advantage you'll need to out number their forces atleast 3-5 over (three is cutting it close, well need some fancy stretagies and bald tactics, 5 will give you a slight advantage in a straight on fight like the one over earth). Even the smallest reaper has barriers comparable to a dread.

If this is true, the Reapers would have at least 740,000 Sovereign-class Reaper ships by Shepard's cycle

[Ingvarr Stormbird]

If this the case, they would hardly encounter any resistance 740000 cap reapers vs 200 dreadnoughts? This not even slaughter, war will end before it begins.

It was never said that they never ever lose any of them or there were indeed so many cycles when they made capital ships successfully.

I don't think their actual number was ever confirmed, anything else is speculation.

Modifié par Ingvarr Stormbird, 09 avril 2012 - 06:34 .

[a.m.p]

Solmanian wrote...
The reapers have ALOT of experience in defeating the combined forces of the galaxy.

From what we learn during the game I can only conclude that the reapers have a lot of experience defeating the fractured and isolated forces of the galaxy, locked up in their clusters. And with the protheans it took them a century to kill everything.

Allied forces have at best 100-150 dreads,

Have to ask for a source on that. Genuinely interested in any definitive numbers.

reapers have atleast thousands if not hundreds of thousands of sovereign class reapers.

We don't know that. We don't know how often the cycles produced civilizations unsuitable for sov-class reapers (like the protheans). We don't know how many other reapers have been killed during the previous cycles (we know one of the cycles had a gun that one-hit reapers and damaged planets). We know that if we fill the green EMS bar, the interface tells us our fleets are wining "battles in key locations" (just checked it).

well need some fancy stretagies and bald tactics

Discussed in this thread and many others. We can blow up stars for god's sake. the only reason we don't is because the codex says we shouldn't.

Even the smallest reaper has barriers comparable to a dread.

I one-hit one with a cain.

Modifié par a.m.p, 09 avril 2012 - 06:43 .

[Enichan]

a.m.p wrote...

we know one of the cycles had a gun that one-hit reapers and damaged planets

Was that in From Ashes? Genuinely curious, since I haven't heard about this before.

[a.m.p]

Enichan wrote...

a.m.p wrote...

we know one of the cycles had a gun that one-hit reapers and damaged planets

Was that in From Ashes? Genuinely curious, since I haven't heard about this before.

The derelict reaper from me2. TIM talks about it being shot down with some giant mass accelerator weapon, and the shot then hit a planet in another solar system (same cluster) and since then half  a significant part of its surface is a giant canyon. I don't remember the name right now, but I think we were on one of its moons in me1.

EDIT: It's Klendagon. http://masseffect.wi...Derelict_Reaper

Modifié par a.m.p, 09 avril 2012 - 07:13 .

[Byronic-Knight]

Pretty much a copy/paste job from elsewhere [social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10492891/4#11151091 (I just added the dialogue back in)], as I have been posting my thoughts on this just about everywhere (pertinent), but I just now found this thread. Enjoy:

**Fair warning---This is rather long, and I apologise to anyone suddenly stumbling upon this massive amount of text.**

Catalyst: "You must choose."

Shepard: "No."

Cat: "But you must."

Shep: "Why?"

Cat: "It is the only way."

Shep: "No. . . it isn't. You said that there should be a new cycle. . . I choose one without the Reapers, without the cycle, and without you."

Cat: "Then you choose destruction?"

Shep: "Yes. . . but on my terms."

Cat: "What?"

Shep: "You allow us to grow, to thrive, for mellenia. . . and then come in and think we will go without a fight. You think your solution is better for us, but all you are doing is dominating us. You say you help us to transcend, but all you accomplish in your harvest is the enslavement of organics. . . making us tools. . . husks. You reduce us to mindless shells not worthy of life."

Cat: "It is the cycle. Otherwise, there would be chaos."

Shep: "Why? Because we create synthetics?"

Cat: "They will rebel."

Shep: "But in this cycle. . . they didn't. Their creators. . . the Quarians. . . became frightened. . . because they began to ask questions. The Geth. . . acted out of self-defense! Self. . . preservation. They were victims! And the only reason. . . there was a war. . . was because of the indoctrination. . . perpetrated by your creation! Nazara. . . Sovereign. . . caused them to rebel. . . against their own kind. . . Against themselves."

Cat: "But the cycle is to restore order."

Shep: "I have restored order! I have restored it. . . by uniting every scrap of sentient life in this galaxy capable of combating the threat you have brought. . . the threat you control. I have brought mortal enemies together. . . I have brought synthetics. . . and. . . organics. . . together, to stop this doom you have forced on us."

Cat: "Your destruction is your salvation, for you will transcend."

Shep: "Who gave you authority over what is salvation!? Your idea of transcendence. . . is no different from genocide!"

Cat (after a pause): "The peace you created was only made possible because of us. It will not last once we are gone."

Shep: "Then we will make it last. . . for as long as we can. . . without you. . . or anyone. . . determining our fate. It will be us---organics. . . and synthetics---our decisions. . . sustaining peace, or. . . ensuring destruction, without your. . . intervention."

Cat: "That is chaos. We will restore order."

Shep: "Order according to your will! Even by choosing. . . one of these solutions you've provided. . . it would still be submission. . . to that will. Predetermined options. . . provided by you. You forget. . . that I have all the cards. . . that you have left the choice to me. . . and I refuse subservience. This struggle ends here."---(S)he finds strength, and stands up straighter---"I have brought the full might of the galaxy to bear upon you. If you will not willingly leave us to chart our own future. . . with the Citadel. . . with the Relays. . . then we will destroy your creations. . . the Reapers. . . or we will die trying!"

* * * * * * * *

Then, depending on a complex algorithm---taking into account the war assets, if the Collector base, Geth heretics, Rachni, and/or Council were saved; who, from your crew, is still alive, love interest (minor perhaps, but still); paragon/renegade score; and reputation (basically, everything you've done throughout the trilogy)---the Catalyst relents, commands the Reapers to retreat and depart (because you convince It that the galaxy will be better without the them and/or the cycle), or Shepard sits down on the Citadel floor and either watches the Reapers decimate the forces you've spent the rest of the game amassing---harvesting the bodies, doing their Reaper thing---or watches the fleets of the galaxy wipe the Reapers out of existence.

Also, if the Catalyst is not convinced---therefore not making the Reapers retreat---and the galaxy's forces are triumphant---again, depending on your war assets---and maybe your reputation, paragon/renegade score and possibly love interest (giving you the strength to survive)---Shepard can bleed-out on the Citadel, which would lead to a funeral or ceremony where you see Wrex and Garrus and Liara and Tali and Anderson etc. (everyone, basically) commemorating (your) Shepard's life, and honouring all the heroic acts (s)he accomplished and deeds (s)he performed, along with the sacrifices of everyone else that died along the way.

Or, if everything is high enough---war assets, reputation, etc.---the Normandy can reach him/her in time, so (s)he lives.

No matter if the Reapers retreat or the galaxy's forces win and Shepard lives, it leads in to a celebration, with Shepard all bandaged up, next to his/her love interest, surrounded by everyone, and (s)he is there for the commemorations of all those lost in the war against the Reapers, him/herself reading whatever names were on the placard in the Normandy, followed by a brief epilogue detailing the remainder of his/her life, then fade to black, then credits roll. THEN cut-scene with Buzz Aldrin with his grandson talking about 'The Shepard'.

* * * * * * * *

Also, in a separate post [social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/11079453/7#11085029], I made the suggestion that the Background and Reputation you choose at the very beginning [Earthborn/Spacer/Colonist and War Hero/Sole Survivor/Ruthless] would decide what plays in the epilogue.

Say you were a Spacer War Hero. Then your Shepard would take over Hackett's position---who retires.

Or if you were a Ruthless Spacer, you would be an N7 instructor, and it would show Vega in a class being lectured.

Or if you were a Colonist Sole Survivor, you would retire to some semi-idyllic planet, where you're on a beach sipping drinks with Garrus, and your love-interest walks up and sits next to you. Or, if you romanced Tali, you would be seen sitting on Rannoch with her. . . without her mask/helmet.

Or if you were an Earthborn War Hero, you would sit on Earth's (new) Council, since it is implied (at least) in the very beginning that at least some of them died in the initial blast.

Or if you were. . . (you get the idea)

Modifié par Byronic-Knight, 09 avril 2012 - 07:41 .

[a.m.p]

Byronic-Knight wrote...
*walloftext*

Thanks for posting. Linking this to the first post.

Some remarks on stuff I didn't like (meaning, the rest I did like):
1) I don't think an epilogue detailing the remainder of Shepard's life is necessary. The ideas people have for their characters are too diverse, no amount of in-game variables is enough to extrapolate. Example: my Shepard is a spacer/war hero. There is no way in hell they would drag her into Hackett's job. And if an epilogue like that was dropped on me, I'd be less than pleased. Just show the immediate aftermath, show the characters, who's dead, who's alive, then let them go, they can figure the rest out themselves.

2) The stargazer. No. Just no. It is the final twist of the knife in the guts of ME. Aldrin or no Aldrin, it should go. I have said everything I have to say on the stargazer here.

Modifié par a.m.p, 09 avril 2012 - 08:12 .

[Byronic-Knight]

a.m.p wrote...

1) I don't think an epilogue detailing the remainder of Shepard's life is necessary. The ideas people have for their characters are too diverse, no amount of in-game variables is enough to extrapolate. Example: my Shepard is a spacer/war hero. There is no way in hell they would drag her into Hackett's job. And if an epilogue like that was dropped on me, I'd be less than pleased. Just show the immediate aftermath, show the characters, who's dead, who's alive, then let them go, they can figure the rest out themselves.

Hmm. . . I hadn't considered your example concerning epilogues (in that, you wouldn't do what the epilogue said you did, etc.). It was just a thought, and that was only my suggestion. 

Out of curiosity, what would you do if you survived? 

a.m.p wrote... 

2) The stargazer. No. Just no. It is the final twist of the knife in the guts of ME. Aldrin or no Aldrin, it should go. I have said everything I have to say on the stargazer here.

I didn't really have a problem with the stargazer scene myself. . . until I read what you had to say about it.

Yeah. . . Shepard cult. Creepy. 

Modifié par Byronic-Knight, 09 avril 2012 - 08:33 .

[a.m.p]

Byronic-Knight wrote...
Out of curiosity, what would you do if you survived?

Well, let's wander into fanfiction territory. You brought that on yourself.
By the end of me3 she has a really short and simple wish list: kill reapers, grab Alenko, get married, have kids, go somewhere where there are no reporters, politicians and guns (had enough of each). Now, how much of that is achievable obviously depends on who survives, whether the relays blow up, etc. In best case scenario I can totally see them dragging her back into big galactic politics (of the behind the scenes kind, without reporters) a few years down the line, because she's a peacekeeper (krogan/everyone else relationships, anyone?) and the only person to whom everyone will be willing to listen.

That's what I mean by impossible to extrapolate. Somebody wants little blue children, somebody just wants to have sex with Liara. Someone wants to be the president of the galaxy and someone wants to seize control of the blue suns, or something.

Byronic-Knight wrote...
I didn't really have a problem with the stargazer scene myself. . . until I read what you had to say about it.

Yeah. . . Shepard cult. Creepy. 

Welcome to my personal hell.

[Solmanian]

@BK, first I'd like to say that some decent writing, you realy managed to capture shepards style. Alot of those things I can see shepard saying. But it all falls apart in the sheprds last words. Aside from the fact that if you destroyed the geth, shepards entire argument is invalidated. In the words of udina: for leverage u need sticks and carrots, and shepard is in short supply of both. The forces shepard assembled are outgunned and outnumbered atleast a thousand to one (I made the calculation in another thread, suffice it to say it centered on the fact that the reapers had litaraly billions of years to build up their forces. They have experience in defeating the combined might of the galaxy, and have like 600,000 KO's on there belt.), and there's no way around it no matter how high your ems is, with thousands (more like hundreds of thousands) of dreads on their size, the reaper EMS is in the 7 digit. Every military commander shep talks to, tell him they just don't have the numbers to defeat the reapers conventinaly. Let me be clear: even if the fleet took on the reapers one at a time, the reapers would still win by attrition... the fleet job was only to buy time for shepard, the crucible is the only leverage they got. The sensible thing is to play on their self preservation and threaten to use the destroy option if they don't capitulate. If shepard destroy the reapers, organic life will evolve unhindered and (by reaper logic) will create the synth that will destroy them, causing the reapers to completely fail at their objective (can't realy understand why starchild even telll you about that option). Instead of an automatic mission failure, the reapers can choose to retreat and wait (they're pretty good at it) until either the worst case happens and synthetics try to wipe organics, or the memory of shepard becomes a myth and nobody remember how to stop them. Between hope, and alittle hope it should be a no brainer for a reaper.
When you end your argument with: now GTFO of our galaxy! but leave all your cool toys (citadel&relays) behind... It completely deflates your argument. The citadel and relays are a means of control, meant to force galactic civilization on technological path designed by the reapers. shepard demanding the, to be kept... Is like an addict telling his dealer that he's going clean, and then proceeds to rob him of a yearly supply of crack at knife point. a real facepalm material. What great about the destruction of the relays is that it forces the galactic civilization to break away from that dead end, and evolve freely (The writers litaraly said it). people are too attached to the citadel and relays. they are just things.

[a.m.p]

Solmanian wrote...
*solid wall of text*

Please, paragraphs.

Modifié par a.m.p, 09 avril 2012 - 09:03 .

[a.m.p]

@Solmanian
A few posts earlier:

a.m.p wrote...

Solmanian wrote...
The reapers have ALOT of experience in defeating the combined forces of the galaxy.

From what we learn during the game I can only conclude that the reapers have a lot of experience defeating the fractured and
isolated forces of the galaxy, locked up in their clusters. And with the protheans it took them a century to kill everything.

Allied forces have at best 100-150 dreads,

Have to ask for a source on that. Genuinely interested in any definitive numbers.

reapers have atleast thousands if not hundreds of thousands of sovereign class reapers.

We don't know that. We don't know how often the cycles produced civilizations unsuitable for sov-class reapers (like the protheans). We don't know how many other reapers have been killed during the previous cycles (we know one of the cycles had a gun that one-hit reapers and damaged planets). We know that if we fill the green EMS bar, the interface tells us our fleets are wining "battles in key locations" (just checked it).

well need some fancy stretagies and bald tactics

Discussed in this thread and many others. We can blow up stars for god's sake. the only reason we don't is because the codex says we shouldn't.

Even the smallest reaper has barriers comparable to a dread.

I one-hit one with a cain.

If we add to that different scenarios that people have come up with, regarding weakening the reapers by using the citadel and the crucible in unconventional ways against them - see my OP for a pile of examples, I don't see any unbeatable forces.

As to the argument that the relays are somehow limiting galactic civilization and it's technological progress, that's just a silly metaphor. They are not sime kind of magical device that automatically stops people from researching FTL. Yes, they are convenient. Now that we know their origins and that they can be used as a trap, we'll just launch the same FTL research we would have if they blew up.

Except without killing that galactic civilization that we're trying to save.

Modifié par a.m.p, 09 avril 2012 - 09:15 .