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[Hudathan]

N7 Spectre525 wrote...

I swear if the Reapers invaded Earth tommorrow half the BSN would give up on the spot.
I was taught that every man and creature has a weakness that can be exploited. Nothing is invincible. So what..a few people in game lost their heart and started spouting this "we cant win through conventional means nonsense"...BULL****. Where is your fighting spirit? Shep went through and came back through the Omega 4 relay,something said to be impossible. I didn't buy this game to go out like a punk...RED,GREEN,BLUE...gimme a break.I bought it to take back Earth and kick some Reaper ass with my united fleet, but artistic integrity got in the way.

Yeah because building a superweapon and uniting the fleets and successfully saving the galaxy means 'going out like a punk'. Nice to see the types of personalities that come through when it comes to this topic.

[Pitznik]

N7 Spectre525 wrote...

I swear if the Reapers invaded Earth tommorrow half the BSN would give up on the spot.
I was taught that every man and creature has a weakness that can be exploited. Nothing is invincible. So what..a few people in game lost their heart and started spouting this "we cant win through conventional means nonsense"...BULL****. Where is your fighting spirit? Shep went through and came back through the Omega 4 relay,something said to be impossible. I didn't buy this game to go out like a punk...RED,GREEN,BLUE...gimme a break.I bought it to take back Earth and kick some Reaper ass with my united fleet, but artistic integrity got in the way.

So it is you standing naked and unarmed against the huge guy in armor with sword and shield, and I tell you: "N7, you're NOT going to beat him, better go get a gun or something", and you're going to throw yourself at him, just to prove you ahve a fighting spirit?

Reapers have a weakness that can be exploited, it is called the Crucible.

[ThaDPG]

Cainne Chapel wrote...

ThaDPG wrote...

Cainne Chapel wrote...

I agree Huda, I'm just more intrigued by how peopel THOUGHT we would win after the events of ME1 and then what amounted to exposition and side story in ME2.

Both games show you the lengths the reapers go to AND their nigh unstoppable power with what equates to TWO ships.

Now we're faced with untold number of ships with our petty armies and people somehow imagine we can beat reapers conventionally, and not only that, using weapons (outside of thanix cannons) based off of tech they WANTED us to have.

Superior fire power we just do NOT have. I mean heck Sovreign was trouncing ships left and right in ME1 even without the geth fleet.

Imagine the damage just 10 sovreigns could do given the chance, now throw in destroyers, husks, cannibals, whatever other things they had in ME2 and you got a recipe for a slow annihilation on our end,

Sovreign also had the jump on everybody in ME 1, no one was prepared or very organized when he attacked.  Now everyone knows they're coming, and the reapers have never faced a united galaxy before, which includes organics AND synthetics.  I'm not saying this could be won in one battle, it could take decades, and I'm not saying there would be no losses at all, but with all the greatest military minds of every organic species, plus the leviathans onboard now, I would say conventional victory has at least a slim chance  of succeeding for this cycle

But how so DPG when the basis of our technology, ALL OF IT, was the result of Reapers meddling, we are essentially bringing knives to a gun fight, even with the technology based off of sovereign.

They out number us, out power us, out gun us and it takes dozens of our ships to take down one of them.  We dont have supply lines anymore, they dont ahve base we canc apture and win from, nor lines we can cut off, ours  is a war of attrition against them, with the only thing dwindling is our supply of manpower and resources.

Everyone of our soldiers that goes down, is more meat for them to turn against us on the ground and they have shock and awe down pat.

ANY prolonged war favors their methods over ours, they slowly destroy our infrastructure and we quickly stop being a threat.  Dont forget we cant just KEEP building ships at the rate they destroy them.

and yes their numbers are finite, but so our ours and we depend on resources more than they do.

I'm not going to claim to have a realistic answer to this, or even try for that matter, other than what I've already posted, and I do see your point, and realize it does look pretty hopeless, but this is science fiction, how many times have we seen the protagonist in so many stories come out on top in a situation like this?  With a good enough writer, Bioware could write themselves out of this mess

[saracen16]

N7 Spectre525 wrote...

I swear if the Reapers invaded Earth tommorrow half the BSN would give up on the spot.
I was taught that every man and creature has a weakness that can be exploited. Nothing is invincible. So what..a few people in game lost their heart and started spouting this "we cant win through conventional means nonsense"...BULL****. Where is your fighting spirit? Shep went through and came back through the Omega 4 relay,something said to be impossible. I didn't buy this game to go out like a punk...RED,GREEN,BLUE...gimme a break.I bought it to take back Earth and kick some Reaper ass with my united fleet, but artistic integrity got in the way.

Ahh, don't you just love hubris?

[Newkirill]

Tl;dr. It should not and may not.

[Rommel49]

Fixers0 wrote...

saracen16 wrote...

Fixers0 wrote...

saracen16 wrote...

Fixers0 wrote...

saracen16 wrote...
b/c it takes Mass Effect's theme of sacrifice and throws it out the window.

How so?

You do not simply beat a nigh-unstoppable enemy in conventional warfare... an enemy that survived and grew stronger over countless cycles... and expect a Pyrrhic Victory. Conventional warfare is exactly what all the cycles before have tried, and it's obvious that the end result was more Reapers. Even though this cycle is anomalous, it still developed along the paths of the technologies that the Reapers dictated: mass relays and Citade. To expect a conventional victory with pre-determined technology is like trying to break diamond with your bare hands: it just wasn't designed to happen. The only way to defeat the Reapers is on their own terms: with a superweapon and the Catalyst itself. That entails sacrifice and victory. Refusal means going down like every cycle did: fighting without winning.

And what does sacrafice have to do with this?

A conventional victory renders sacrifice meaningless. There is no downside to any one choice. There is no loss of free will, loss of corpus, or loss of life. Using the Crucible means sacrificing pride for saving the most amount of lives. Refusing it as it stands now means sacrificing lives for your pride. A conventional victory renders this concept meaningless, and sacrifice has run through every core choice in Mass Effect: you might see no downside to a choice you have made in the previous games, but others do.

Who says conventional victory doesn't require sacrifice?

The whole idea there was a "sacrifice!" theme in the series didn't add up either, that only somehow became the focus in the third installment, and even then really only at the end. Beyond that? Do things right and only one squad member is sacrificed before that point.

The idea that conventional victory is also completely and totally unattainable is contradicted right in the codex, so the thread starter has a point here. "Although clearly technologically superior to the Citadel forces, the Reapers have experienced casualties in the battles across the galaxy. This indicates that, theoretically, with the right intelligence, weapons, and strategy, the Reapers could be defeated" right from the codex entry on Reaper vulnerabilities.

It's suggested in the beginning too. Seriously, the Reapers locked down Earth's missile silos for a reason. Provided humanity had the will to deploy them, no Reaper capital ship on Earth would've survived the first day of the war. Humanity's had the firepower on hand to destroy whatever Reaper was within range the whole time, we're just not able to employ that firepower for some reason, and make no attempt to.

The math backs this up too, incidentally. Three Dreadnoughts firing on a Reaper capital cause noticeable strain to its shields, four is the breaking point (again, codex Reaper Vulnerabilities). The shell fired from a Dreadnought's main gun hits with 38 kilotons of kinetic energy (Codex Ships and Vehicles), and kinetic energy is the worst kind to use against Reapers... so 150 KT to down a Reaper's shields, the Minuteman III ICBMs in service today carry individual warheads with higher yields than that, and each such missile carries more than one such warhead (and the older warheads were far bigger).

And ironically enough, I would consider an attempt to unlock Earth's silos and nuke the Reapers on the planet to be the safer, more logical option than employing the Crucible - Earth's cities are already a mess, and god forbid, we actually know exactly what nukes do and what the drawbacks are.

[N7 Spectre525]

Hudathan wrote...

N7 Spectre525 wrote...

I swear if the Reapers invaded Earth tommorrow half the BSN would give up on the spot.
I was taught that every man and creature has a weakness that can be exploited. Nothing is invincible. So what..a few people in game lost their heart and started spouting this "we cant win through conventional means nonsense"...BULL****. Where is your fighting spirit? Shep went through and came back through the Omega 4 relay,something said to be impossible. I didn't buy this game to go out like a punk...RED,GREEN,BLUE...gimme a break.I bought it to take back Earth and kick some Reaper ass with my united fleet, but artistic integrity got in the way.

Yeah because building a superweapon and uniting the fleets and successfully saving the galaxy means 'going out like a punk'. Nice to see the types of personalities that come through when it comes to this topic.

I played this trilogy fully expecting my Shepard to die. But I did not expect my Shepard to roll over like some Punk to some bratty AI/KID and meekly pick his own death. This wasn't my Renegade Shepard,I dont  now who that guy was.
And as far as succesfully saving the galaxy,thats a matter of opinion because from what I saw in my original ending pre-EC the galaxy was fuqqqed up.

[Cheesesack]

I like how some people just say 'no' without even stating their reasons, or even reading the thread fully. I'm all for open depate and a difference of opinion, but you should at least back up your statements.

I cann see the arguments against such an ending, but claiming it would require no sacrifice or loss of life is a bit absurd. If anything, it would require the most sacrifice or loss of life out of any ending. That's why it doesn't invalidate the Crucible options; they are a quicker, easier, and cleaner way to win than slogging it out with the reapers and losing hundreds of ships in the process. They all do come with a price however, so it boils down to a moral choice, which is the very center of what defines ME. Eg. Do I choose destroy and wipe out one species (the Geth) but leave the rest unharmed, or do I go for a naval victory and lose large amounts from all races, but no one race goes extinct? That seems to be very in-keeping with the feel of the game.

And no, sacrifice is not a major theme in ME. If anything, it's the opposite. Wheras others might accept the inevitable loss, Shepard stands and fights. ME2 was a sucicide mission yet you can get everyone out alive. The geth/quarian war is one of the most bitter in all of history, yet you can rally both sides and not lose eithers support. There are practically no points in the game where you're forced to make a sacrifice, either of yourself or others. The only examples I can think of other than the inevitable sacrifices of war (which does not consitute a 'sacrifice' theme) are Kaiden or Ashley on Virmire, the krogan or the salarians in ME3 (not really a sacrifice since you just lose their support, not the species) and the ending, which is what's being addressed and 'altered' here anyway. That's not enough precedant to say that sacrifice is a major theme.

[GimmeDaGun]

N7 Spectre525 wrote...

Hudathan wrote...

N7 Spectre525 wrote...

I swear if the Reapers invaded Earth tommorrow half the BSN would give up on the spot.
I was taught that every man and creature has a weakness that can be exploited. Nothing is invincible. So what..a few people in game lost their heart and started spouting this "we cant win through conventional means nonsense"...BULL****. Where is your fighting spirit? Shep went through and came back through the Omega 4 relay,something said to be impossible. I didn't buy this game to go out like a punk...RED,GREEN,BLUE...gimme a break.I bought it to take back Earth and kick some Reaper ass with my united fleet, but artistic integrity got in the way.

Yeah because building a superweapon and uniting the fleets and successfully saving the galaxy means 'going out like a punk'. Nice to see the types of personalities that come through when it comes to this topic.

I played this trilogy fully expecting my Shepard to die. But I did not expect my Shepard to roll over like some Punk to some bratty AI/KID and meekly pick his own death. This wasn't my Renegade Shepard,I dont  now who that guy was.
And as far as succesfully saving the galaxy,thats a matter of opinion because from what I saw in my original ending pre-EC the galaxy was fuqqqed up.

That "some bratty AI\\KID" is the reaper overmind, their creator and the idea and purpose the reapers share and follow fanaticly, without compromise. It's their god and collective conscious and knowledge. There you face "the thing that should not be", the entity no one ever had the chance to encounter before (except its own creators whom it destroyed and harvested). It's not some random kid, but the ultimate reaper, The Guardian, The Citadell, the creator of the mass relay network and the Cycle. Maybe it was a bad move from the writers part to make it look and sound like the kid who's death has been haunting Shepard since the invasion of Earth. That's why people may get the idea between the Catalyst somewhat wrong. 

As for your renegade Shepard, he could still easily refuse any kind of cooperation with the AI (the Catalyst doesn't want to cooperate either, but has no other choice at the moment) and let the Cycle continue, or dare to make the hard decision and destroy the reapers along with everything else which is partly reaper tech (the geth and EDI for instance). Even controlling the reapers wouldn't be completely alien for a renegade Shepard who is famous for his pragmatic "the end justifies the means", "whatever it takes" attitude. At least that's how I see it. A renegade Shepard would sacrafice anything without a second thought anyday if it means that he achieves his goal: destroying or harnessing the great enemy he's been fighting for so long. I mean come on... a renegade Shepard sacrafices the whole Council just to kill one reaper or lets the Illusive Man get his hands on the most dangerous piece of technology humanity ever encountered (a base designed for creating a reaper from living organic beings) just to serve "the cause". Think about it this way. 

Modifié par GimmeDaGun, 31 août 2012 - 07:49 .

[Almostfaceman]

Cheesesack wrote...

WARNING: Long. TL;DR at the end.

Alright, so after playing Leviathan and EC DLC (I got EC late, and Leviathan was just around the corner; since it supposedly impacted the ending in some way, I decided to wait and play through the ending again once I had both of them), it seems more and more like we should have an option to successfully defeat the Reapers through 'conventional' means. Now, allow me to back up my argument and respond to the common responses I've seen to similar ideas on this forum:

Firstly, when I say conventional, I don't mean that we show up, blow them out of the sky and that's that. What I mean is simply that we don't rely on the Crucible and the Catalyst's forced options where we simply deffer to the leader of our greatest enemy. In other words, we refuse, but are no defeated by doing so. This could be achieved in several ways, but primarily, I imagine it would involve successfully destroying/routing the main Reaper fleet at Earth through the combined might of all our war assets. With their primary strength broken/albeit at incredible loss for the organics, the Reapers are systematically pushed back. After decades of bloody, intense warfare over multiple fronts, the last remnants of the Reaper forces are driven back into dark space, there to plot and scheme and leave the way open for a possible future return.

That's obviously just an idea, but I feel something like that is a believable scenario (based upon what I'm going to say in a moment). Any 'conventional victory' should be achieved at great cost and the sacrifice of many, many lives. This would not be a happy ending per-se, but it would allow Shepard and his/her squad to surive and have a potential future without using space magic.Now, there are two main things to consider with such an ending; storyline concerns and gameplay concerns. Allow me to explain further:

Firstly, this ending would follow on from the Refusal ending that EC introduced. At the moment, we simply fail when we choose this ending (it is similar to the 'choice' to do nothing and eventually get the message that the Reapers have destroyed the Crucible). It is clear that Bioware either intended for this to be an almost 'joke' ending, something done just to appease fans who wanted a refusal ending and to say to them 'haha, this is what you idiots get for suggesting such a dumb thing, see, you fail', or, it is a way to leave themselves open to future possibilities.

The ending I'm suggesting/putting forward as a possibility would be akin to the variations we currently have. Each of the other endings have slightly different effects (or are not avilable at all) based on your EMS. I suggest a similar spectrum for the refusal ending. As it currently stands, we do not yet have enough EMS to achieve the best refusal ending. The one we see currently is what happens if you try to refuse, having just completed the core game. Your war assets are not strong enough to defeat the Reapers and they win. the cycle continues.

This is where DLC comes in. As it stands, with EC dropping the minimum requirement for the 'best' ending (the one that requires the most EMS where Shepard lives) to 4000, there is currently no in-game use for all that extra EMS. Leviathan introduces a ton more war assets and undoubtedly and future DLC will do so as well. It is already possible to achieve the 4000 EMS without playing any multiplayer and without even achieving/finding everything in the game. In short, it's relatively easy, similar to the ending of ME2 where you can get the 'best' ending just by ensuring you play all the missions in the game. One has to ask, if it's already so easy to get enough EMS for the 'best' ending, what's the point of adding more? The short answer is, it could be useful for achieving a successful conventional victory, which would require a much higher EMS.

Leviathan DLC introduced not just more EMS, but a storyline way in which Reapers can be defeated. These Leviathans utterly owned the Reaper you see in the DLC; imagine what more damage the could do. They are shown to be powerful, more powerful than the Reapers in some ways. Yet, at the moment, this means nothing. We still get shoehorned into our crappy endings, despite having Reaper-killers on our side. My point is that every DLC we get is going to add not just more war assets, but more in-game ways in which it becomes possible to defeat the Reapers conventionally. For such an ending to work, it has to be not only difficult to achieve, but also make lore sense (then again, looking at the ending as it stands, this is debatable). With each DLC, Bioware can introduce more unexpected allies, more powerful tech that's uncovered; ways in which we can hope to kill the Reapers. Otherwise what's the point? I already have the 'best' ending, and considering how the ending stands, any additional stuff I uncover is pointless. Who cares if the Leviathans are helping me? It changes nothing.

So I propose that for the 'best' conventional victory ending (there could be several in which the organic races suffer varying degrees of loss, including perhaps some of your squad-mates), you would require a very high-EMS score. Not just that, but you would have had to have the DLC that grants in-game reasons as to why you are able to achieve what others have not. We've already seen a hint of this with Leviathan; arguably, they alone would be enough to win the war outright. You would also have to have made smart choices throughout the trilogy (although perhaps discounting ME1 since PS3 owenrs do not have it). It is like the geth/quarian conflict; you need to have played ME2 and made the right decisions to get the best outcome. I do, however, believe that multiplayer should not be essential as again, not everyone has access to it. Having achieved all of that, you choose to refuse the Catalyst and actually succeed, even if it is narrowly and the price is very high.

I'll come to the arguments against such an idea/theory in a minute, but first, I want to say that I can see this being a very popular ending. We were already given 'Refuse' as a concesion to fans who were annoyed at being forced to essentially obey our geatest enemy. As it stands, there is no way to 'win' on our own terms; we just have to accept what the Catalyst tells us and pick an option that he has decided is acceptable. This goes against not just Shepard's personality, but everything the ME franchise represents. Every theme of overcoming impossible odds or the idea that cooperation can achieve great things is thrown aside. Instead, we are forced to agree with an illogical liar who shoves the idea that organics and synthetics cannot coexist down out throats despite the fact he is obviously wrong. I'm sure many players want to be able to tell him to sod of, reject his amoral 'solutions' and actually survive the procss. We do not win or even prove anything by accepting the Catalyst's solutions; the only way to 'win' is by rejecting him, them, and blowing him and his Reaper fleet to hell. Such an ending would, I'm sure, be extremely popular. It proves that we are better than the Reapers, not just their obediant little servants.

Now, here are the arguments I've seen against why this shouldn't be an option:

1. It invalidates the plot with the Crucible.

This is not true. The Crucible project is introduced right at the start of the game. At this point, it appears to be impossible to defeat the Reaper's conventionally, so the only logical thing to do is turn to the Crucible as a means to defeat them. This is because, at this point, no one knows about the existence of the Leviathans, or believes that the quarians and the geth could ever make peace etc. Even if they did, it would still make perfect sense to construct the Crucible. You can never have too many back up plans or alternatives when the entire galaxy is at stake. Even if the chance of defeating the Reapers in open warfare was 75% and this was known to be the case, it would still be in everyone's best interests to construct the Crucible. As Shepard goes through the game, he/she uncovers these potential game-changers, like the Leviathans  and whatever is included in the other pieces of DLC. It is this that makes he/she and others realise that maybe conventional victory is possible. The Crucible is still seen as a better plan however, as it seems more 'certain' to succeed. It is not until the final choice to refuse, after hearing what the Crucible actually does, that Shepard decides to go for broke and try to win it 'conventionally'. The Crucible choices are still available, and they would be just as valid choices.

2. It invalidates the other endings by creating a new, 'best' ending.

Again, this seems to be a rather silly argument. In ME2, there is a very clearly defined best ending, where everyone lives and survives the so called 'sucide mission'. It's stated time and again throughout the game that you aren't expectd to return from beyond the relay, and that even if you do, you should be prepared to suffer casualties. However, it is possible, through skill and exhaustively completing everything the game has to offer, to achieve the impossible and get everyone out alive. This is clearly the best ending, yet does it invalidate all the others? If one best ending erases the need for other endings, why did they even bother to include the ability for squad mates to die, or the cutscene where Shepard dies? They're not the best endings and therefore irrelavant. Of course, this makes no sense. There should always be a spectrum of endings, to reflect that not everyone is able to
willing to get every last little bit of support, or make the right choices in certain situations. ME3 also has this, with different levels of 'goodness' in the endings. There is already, technically, a 'best' ending where Shepard lives and you require a higher EMS to get it. Does this invalidate all the other endings? No, so neither would a 'conventional victory' ending. It's not even clearly a better choice, as choosing something like 'Control' with the Crucible saves many more lives by immediately ending the threat, and not forcing the glaxy to suffer massive losses fighting the Reapers conventionally.

3. It's unrealistic, the humans/other organics don't have enough power to destroy the Reaprs.

Perhaps not at the moment, but that is the point of the DLC. Each DLC released will add more war assets and in-game reasons as to why we may be able to face the Reapers in a head-on-battle. Things like the Leviathans are massive advantages for the organic side, and could almost single-handedly turn the tide of battle. At the moment, it takes 4000 EMS to get the 'best' ending. It is possible to get almost triple that in the game, and future DLC is only going to add more and more. The fact that we can get so much is evidence that a better ending should, and may be made, attainable.

4. Bioware have said they aren't changin the ending any more.

This isn't a change per-se, it's not even a true addition. Remember when they said EC would not change the ending, just expand upon it? Well, they gave us a new choice. It was a logical expansion of what was there already. A proposed conventional ending does not change anything; it does not re-write or replace any existing content. It just makes the outcome of a particular choice play out differently, in a way which logically makes sense. It could easily be considered additional clarification and expansion, not alteration.

5. Defeating the Reapers conventionally goes against the feeling and themes of Mass Effect.

I would argue the exact opposite. A conventional victory fits far better with the established ME lore than using the Crucible to insta-win. Firstly, let me also point out that Bioware clearly doesn't give a crap about the themes and lore of ME. This is evidenced by a complete change in tone during the ending, and suddenly shifting the focus to synthetics vs organics. The absurdity of both this and the Catalysts arguments for it have already been discussed elsewhere. ANyway, ME has always been about two things; strength through cooperation and achieving the impossible. A conventional ending showcases both elements nicely. Shepard has always been known for never giving up, for finding a creatine solution to problems which others see as insurmintable. He/she has repeatedly done the impossible and defied everyones expectations. A conventional victory is just an extension of that theme. It also shows the fact that through cooperation, including the cooperation between synthetics and organics, it is possible to transcend your limitations. Compare that hopeful, uplifiting message which resonates with the established tone of the universe to the crappy, Reapers let you wind scenario of the Crucible. By picking any of the options, you are essentially giving in to the reapers. You haven't won, you've just chosen which slightly less bad option you want your enemy to enact. The Catalyst is the one who wins. Shepard is reduced to a toady who gives in to his/her greatest enemy. That doesn't fit with the themes of the ME games at all.
To use a slightly controversial comparison, imagine when the US killed Osama Bin Laden. The troops have just stormed his hideout and confronted him. Osama then gives them three option: 1) You can kill me, but the population of a random country will die and all planes will be destroyed. 2) You can assume control of my terrorist organisation, but you all die in the process. 3) You can convert everyone in the world to Islam against their will so that I will no longer be 'forced' to commit terrorist activities. Of course, choosing any of those options is morally repugnant and what's more, you're giving into the demands of your greatest enemy. The best course of action is just to shoot him and be done with it. But what if killing Osama caused the US to somehow lose the war and everyone dies? That's the current statee of the refusal ending.

Right, I think that covers everything I wanted to say. Now, I'm not sure whether Bioware is actually intending something like this, although there have been some hints that they are. If not though, they should strongly consider it as an option. Here are just a few interesting points I thought of to spark conversation:

1) Why are we getting more war assets when it's already easy to get the best ending (even without playing any MP)?

2) Leviathan and EC had full voice-actor work. This is different to the post-ME2 DLC which only had Shepard and a few other characters. Could this be hinting that the DLC's we're getting are story-relevant enough to require a full cast?

3) Any DLC set during the game is essentially pointless (form an overall stroy point of view) if the endings remain exactly as they are.

4) There have been supposed leaks about a possible plan to create additional ending content which ties in to a series of post-launch DLC. I do not know the legitimacy of this statement however.

TL;DR: The possibility exists that Bioware will/should add the ability to win 'cinventionally' as a result of choosing the refusal ending. Such an ending should be implemented, and fits with the existing lore and gameplay in ME3.

It would be nice if it does happen, but I don't think it will.

It's nice to see, though, the passion to improve the game has not diminished. 

[GimmeDaGun]

Cheesesack wrote...

I like how some people just say 'no' without even stating their reasons, or even reading the thread fully. I'm all for open depate and a difference of opinion, but you should at least back up your statements.

I cann see the arguments against such an ending, but claiming it would require no sacrifice or loss of life is a bit absurd. If anything, it would require the most sacrifice or loss of life out of any ending. That's why it doesn't invalidate the Crucible options; they are a quicker, easier, and cleaner way to win than slogging it out with the reapers and losing hundreds of ships in the process. They all do come with a price however, so it boils down to a moral choice, which is the very center of what defines ME. Eg. Do I choose destroy and wipe out one species (the Geth) but leave the rest unharmed, or do I go for a naval victory and lose large amounts from all races, but no one race goes extinct? That seems to be very in-keeping with the feel of the game.

And no, sacrifice is not a major theme in ME. If anything, it's the opposite. Wheras others might accept the inevitable loss, Shepard stands and fights. ME2 was a sucicide mission yet you can get everyone out alive. The geth/quarian war is one of the most bitter in all of history, yet you can rally both sides and not lose eithers support. There are practically no points in the game where you're forced to make a sacrifice, either of yourself or others. The only examples I can think of other than the inevitable sacrifices of war (which does not consitute a 'sacrifice' theme) are Kaiden or Ashley on Virmire, the krogan or the salarians in ME3 (not really a sacrifice since you just lose their support, not the species) and the ending, which is what's being addressed and 'altered' here anyway. That's not enough precedant to say that sacrifice is a major theme.

I think sacrafice was always one of the major themes of the ME series (even for paragon Sheps): sacraficing your companion on Virmire, destroying the genophage cure, even killing Wrex if it is necessarry, sacraficing the Council or half of the human fleets, participating in a suicide mission which could easily put your comrades through life threatening peril (it's the game which makes it too easy to make it a simple shakedown run), destroying or sparing the Collector base, sacraficing 300 thousand batarians and whole star system... and I think I don't have to recite every single possible sacrafice in ME3. It is a crucial part of the story. In the end you have to make the ultimate sacrafice, it is only a question in what way or with what aim you do it. 

I see where your preference for conventional victory comes from, but I still don't see how it would be possible. The reapers are far superior (it has been very well established during the whole series) and are winning the war (harvest), hell they are winning the battle at Earth at the very moments Shepard is facing the reaper overmind (no matter how great an army he could put together). No one ever could destroy the reapers before (there were far more advanced and organised civilizations who couldn't - just think about the Protheans or the ones who managed to come up with the idea of the Crucible at the first place ) and even if this cycle is an anomaly in many ways (which is just another theory... there could have been similar cycles before), it still does not have the means to destroy the reapers without some kind of miracle or tool... and no, Shepard - even if he is not your every day soldier - is just one piece of dust struggling against cosmic winds. 

Modifié par GimmeDaGun, 31 août 2012 - 07:47 .

[Cainne Chapel]

Also dont forget we still managed to do what most cycles couldnt do even ifw e did lose

We killed more than one reaper.

shepard alone has his count at 3 (1 Capital and 2 Destroyers) still, historically speaking thats more than any other cycle could come up with (by 2 destroyers no less)..

So even if we DID lose we still have that feather in our caps as a cycle (Plus im sure we've taken down at least a fw more capital ships in the interim)

[Conniving_Eagle]

Cainne Chapel wrote...

Also dont forget we still managed to do what most cycles couldnt do even ifw e did lose

We killed more than one reaper.

shepard alone has his count at 3 (1 Capital and 2 Destroyers) still, historically speaking thats more than any other cycle could come up with (by 2 destroyers no less)..

So even if we DID lose we still have that feather in our caps as a cycle (Plus im sure we've taken down at least a fw more capital ships in the interim)

[Hudathan]

N7 Spectre525 wrote...

I played this trilogy fully expecting my Shepard to die. But I did not expect my Shepard to roll over like some Punk to some bratty AI/KID and meekly pick his own death. This wasn't my Renegade Shepard,I dont  now who that guy was.
And as far as succesfully saving the galaxy,thats a matter of opinion because from what I saw in my original ending pre-EC the galaxy was fuqqqed up.

So what would 'your Shepard' have done besides using the Crucible? Unless your Shepard is actually not concerned with doing whatever it takes to save the galaxy.

[GimmeDaGun]

Cainne Chapel wrote...

Also dont forget we still managed to do what most cycles couldnt do even ifw e did lose

We killed more than one reaper.

shepard alone has his count at 3 (1 Capital and 2 Destroyers) still, historically speaking thats more than any other cycle could come up with (by 2 destroyers no less)..

So even if we DID lose we still have that feather in our caps as a cycle (Plus im sure we've taken down at least a fw more capital ships in the interim)

Most probably other cycles managed to destroy reapers themselves, but this is the first cycle where a small group of people by their leader's guide managed to discover their existence before their arrival and interfered with their plans (in which the prothean cycle played a huge part... without the protheans resoursefullness it wouldn't have been possible). 

So the prothean Cycle was an anomaly itself. They managed to send the message to the next one and helped preventing the automatic nature of the reaper invasion by reprograming the keepers. Souverign turned to Saren and the getho out of desperation if you think about it. The reapers had to attack in a completely new manner. There was no surprise attack on the heart of galactic civilization or shutting down the relay network...

[Binary_Helix 1]

Conventional victory was not only possible but advertised in the trailers and pre-release hype.

[GimmeDaGun]

Binary_Helix 1 wrote...

Conventional victory was not only possible but advertised in the trailers and pre-release hype.

False advertising does not mean that it is possible...

[AlanC9]

Binary_Helix 1 wrote...

Conventional victory was not only possible but advertised in the trailers and pre-release hype.

Was it? I didn't see anyone promise that we'd beat the Reapers by shooting them with dreadnoughts.

[saracen16]

GimmeDaGun wrote...

Binary_Helix 1 wrote...

Conventional victory was not only possible but advertised in the trailers and pre-release hype.

False advertising does not mean that it is possible...

I had no recollection that "conventional victory" was advertised at all.

[DJRackham]

GimmeDaGun wrote...

Binary_Helix 1 wrote...

Conventional victory was not only possible but advertised in the trailers and pre-release hype.

False advertising does not mean that it is possible...

It means it should have been possible  <_<

[GimmeDaGun]

DJRackham wrote...

GimmeDaGun wrote...

Binary_Helix 1 wrote...

Conventional victory was not only possible but advertised in the trailers and pre-release hype.

False advertising does not mean that it is possible...

It means it should have been possible  <_<

What kind of logic says that a basically unbeatable enemy can be destroyed by canons and missles? I still can't see it. The battle at the end would have turned into a butchery pretty fast if it wasn't for the Crucible... I mean look at the size and firepower of the reaper armada.

Modifié par GimmeDaGun, 31 août 2012 - 08:35 .

[Cainne Chapel]

Binary_Helix 1 wrote...

Conventional victory was not only possible but advertised in the trailers and pre-release hype.

How so? Other than take earth back?

Which technically you STILL do, you just have to give up everything to do it. so to speak

[Binary_Helix 1]

LOL

Nowhere was the Crucible advertised at all. What was shown was the SWORDS fleet and various other battle scenes that displayed conventional fighting. Even Bioware knows what's popular in trailers. Plus the pre-release hype about choices.

Modifié par Binary_Helix 1, 31 août 2012 - 09:48 .

[Rip504]

Leviathan DLC. There is NO war,only the Harvest. Lmao @ Conventional Victory.

[Binary_Helix 1]

GimmeDaGun wrote...

DJRackham wrote...

GimmeDaGun wrote...

Binary_Helix 1 wrote...

Conventional victory was not only possible but advertised in the trailers and pre-release hype.

False advertising does not mean that it is possible...

It means it should have been possible  <_<

What kind of logic says that a basically unbeatable enemy can be destroyed by canons and missles? I still can't see it. The battle at the end would have turned into a butchery pretty fast if it wasn't for the Crucible... I mean look at the size and firepower of the reaper armada.

The circumstances of this cycle were so unique that a conventional victory was pretty much what almost every fan expected.

Modifié par Binary_Helix 1, 31 août 2012 - 10:06 .