95 réponses à ce sujet

[The RPGenius]

What would make it minimally acceptable to me--AKA still a terrible ending (it's always going to be an embarrassing failure of writing as long as the Star Child is there) but not one that will prevent me from purchasing Bioware products again, as is currently the case--is to give a Paragon player an option not to destroy the heart and soul of the Paragon Shepard. This could be done in 2 ways--the first would be changing the Refuse ending to have the potential for success. However, if Bioware wants to keep their childish **** You to their patrons, there's another option, and one that's very simple--just don't have Destroy kill EDI and the Geth. As long as it's not a "sacrifice the innocent for the greater good" scenario, which completely goes against Paragon Shepard's values by his own words spoken multiple times throughout the series, then the other problems inherent in Destroy (a hell of a lot of reconstruction work) are acceptable. A Destroy ending that doesn't superfluously kill off innocents for no adequately-explored reason is entirely acceptable from a Paragon's perspective, and all Bioware would have to do is change Stupid Starkid's lines to talk about the reconstructive problems inherent in Destroy and never bring up some ridiculous AI sacrificial offering, along with enable the Geth-related scenes for the ending slide. Control and Synthesis would still have their unique benefits, so it wouldn't be stacking the deck in Destroy's favor. It would be simple, it would actually hold true to the spirit and artistic integrity of the Mass Effect franchise, and Bioware would earn back my potential business. Everyone wins.

[CronoDragoon]

I think in this case those two words are synonyms. The better question is can you further improve the endings without changing them? I think you can. But I also don't believe it's worth BW's time.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 07 février 2013 - 08:26 .

[Robhuzz]

I'm at a loss myself. The foundations for that ridiculously awful ending were laid at the very beginning of ME3 so in order to properly fix the game the entire main plot would have to be redone. I think I'd go with finn, add another optional, less terrible ending without the star kid, it's 'logic' and no magic red, blue and green space beams. It would be adding something but not changing.

Modifié par Robhuzz, 07 février 2013 - 08:24 .

[JediBear]

So... along those lines, can you come up with an addition to the middle of the ME3 story that would improve the ending we have now?  I would argue that Leviathan was a small step in this direction already, so it's possible that something even more in-depth could further improve things.

I honestly don't think this is possible. Not because the ending is irretrievable, but because there's actually very little wrong with it. There's no huge plot disjunct to try to plug a hole in with a finger. The end follows logically from the beginning with a little help from the middle.

The problems with the end are *at* the end. Adding something in the middle won't make my War Assets show up in the Battle of Earth. It won't expunge other people's hated characters from loving depiction in the end sequence. It won't stop the Normandy crash from still being incredibly contrived. It won't make me spend less time holding down W, allow me to skip unskippable cutscenes, or make the extended cut Normandy Extraction scene any less silly. It won't make the ending choice any more emotionally meaningful for folks who never much liked EDI or cared about the Geth. It won't create the Boss Fight that some people really wanted, or turn the ending into a "Suicide Mission" for those who just wanted a clone of ME2.

It also won't make people who don't want to like the ending actually understand it. It's pretty explicit already, almost painfully so in the extended cut. 

Honestly, the ending is as good as it's going to get. People who didn't like it and don't like it aren't ever going to like it, and Bioware has already wasted too much time trying to please them.

[justafan]

iakus wrote...

Destroy ending:

Memorial scene, as LI hesitates, have report come over intercom: Shepard has been found alive

Replace breath scene with EDI's "corpse". Eyes momentarilly flicker.

This would also work.

Though I would say instead of EDI's "corpse" we see a flicker of her ME2 avatar on the Normandy bridge as it's leaving the garden world.

Modifié par justafan, 07 février 2013 - 08:27 .

[Steelcan]

Ieldra2 wrote...

@OP:
There are things which could help. Restoring the original cut interaction with EDI from ME2's SM, for instance, would be an early hint that the Reapers are more than killing machines. Also, seeing the geth complete their megastructure and becoming a super-powerful entity completely indifferent to organics would emphasize the organic/synthetic problem. Restoring the Codex entry about the singularity would make people understand the Catalyst better.

Basically, a lot of things could be done to root the endings more in the story. However, that will never please those who want to kill Reapers and go home covered in glory, or those for whom the ending itself is a problem and not the connection between it and the story that came before.

. They weren't already?

[Steelcan]

BirdsallSa wrote...

Shepard should be able to disagree with Control on the grounds that he believes it's wrong/foolish, not just "I didn't come this far to give up everything I have." There should also be a black and white downside to picking control. The fact that control and synthesis are portrayed as outright better than destroy is so ridiculous, considering that was the goal of the game the whole time and the other two were methods consistently used by the enemy.

. That is actually very reasonable....

[ZerebusPrime]

Brhino wrote...

A lot of you are missing the point here. You can't ask for "expand the destroy ending" or "make the game stop before the starbrat shows up". That would be changing the ending, and they're not changing it. JasonShepard has a good example of what I'm talking about. Change the middle so that the way you view the ending changes, even though the content of the ending doesn't.

Funny you should mention changing the middle so that we view the ending differently, because after dissecting the ending for almost a year now, I've found that the ending has made me view the middle differently.  There is a TON of foreshadowing in this game directed towards the ending and it's not something that will hit you in a single playthrough.

A couple light examples:

"Moral decisions shouldn't be made in a vacuum." - EDI, foreshadowing the decision chamber

"I'd feel better if we had a tighter plan.  Like time travel.  Or teaching the Reapers to love." - Joker, foreshadowing the stated goals of Synthesis, giving synthetics a truer "understanding" of organics.

The heavier examples go down into which decisions should or should not be made, but I won't list them here because they just start arguments and that's not what this thread is about.

[Shya]

Have a dlc of the crew going to find and resuce Shep

[mvaning]

What the endings lack are in two forms:

1) Consequences to decisions that you make. EMS is not a good implementation. Its just a number that you are trying to increase instead of seeing real consequences for what you do or don't do or rather your (paragon and renegade) choices.

2) There needs to be a happy ending choice. It doesn't have to be perfect but all of the options given are rather detestable.

a) Synthesis is horrible because it disregards the general concept of how evolution actually works. Evolution is not about becoming perfect, its about a change that happens for survival. It also disregards the idea that some characters/races have purist views. These are both themes in the ME universe discussed in the games. It is also what the reapers want. In my opinion, this is the indoctrinated choice -- it is what the reapers want but that doesn't mean "perfection"

I know that bioware has stated that synthesis is suppose to be the perfect ending. However, it is too fallible to actually work. People need to be able to related to something in order for it to be ideal. If you want to make a "perfect" ending, you have to be able to address it in a way that people can relate to it. In order to save humanity, you have to force humans to become something that they are not? That's not really acceptable. A melting pot of cultures never saves the culture that gets melted. This is acceptable if it happens naturally - but not at all if it is forced. ( aka horrible poster child for eugenics )

The destroy ending makes you kill a squad member and forces you to genocide the geth ( if you save them). This is also a not so favorable ending.

c) The control ending makes you become your enemy in order to stop them and preserve peace? It is the paragon (blue) option but how is this feasible? People can relate to self sacrifice and I think self sacrifice is acceptable but sacrificing yourself to become your enemy so that you can stop your enemy? It is not really realistic or something you can relate to. While self sacrifice is a good theme, the rest is not.


Those are the problems, now how to fix them. . . hm. .

[james1976]

How would I change it? A simple addition that shows Shepard's body being recovered, alive or dead, and their LI there as part of the search team. This serves two purposes: 1. Reuniting Shepard with their LI, and 2. Showing that Shepard wasn't left there to rot.

Even with the Extended Cut, there seems to be no effort in finding Shepard.

To me this is the only thing the ending lacks. There wouldn't even have to be any dialogue. Just the right kind of mood music for the situation that is often done in Mass Effect so well.

Modifié par james1976, 07 février 2013 - 09:11 .

[Reth Shepherd]

What's the point? There will be never a fix, because Bioware (or more likely, someone very high up at Bioware) doesn't see anything wrong with the ending. It is impossible to fix what you refuse to see.

drayfish wrote...

What deep philosophical debate was inspired by this insipid endpoint for you? What did you learn about yourself, or humanity at large? That you can excuse genocide on peaceful allies if you really, really have to? That it's okay to stop everyone else from becoming an unstoppable galactic overlord if you can just become one yourself? That in the name of peace you are willing to violate every living creature's most basic freedom and autonomy because you know better how they should live their life, or what the definition of 'life' actually is?

For some players, everything that those final ten minutes espouse as 'sacrifice' are atrocities, literal war crimes (that Shepard has repeatedly sought to prevent), now being inflicted upon the universe, against everyone's will, in the name of intolerance.

For some, the Catalyst represents everything that is hateful and racist in the universe, everything that fears the other because it is different and scary and bad, everything that tries to force life to live in the way it prescribes because it has no capacity for hope. And in the final moments of the game, after spending those hundreds of hours of gameplay you mentioned trying to undo such horrors - learning that life can in fact be measured beyond restrictive delineations like 'human' and 'machine'; that different races can work together to overcome great obstacles and except each other as equals - the game explicitly tells you to throw all that nonsense out, because such juvenile crap is not worth fighting for in the end.

Nope - in the final moments Shepard is compelled to embrace the Catalyst's intolerant ignorance ('Synthetics with always kill organics'), to tremble with a gun to his/her head, and agree to inflict the greatest atrocity of all time upon his/her own allies. In order to defeat the Reaper, you must become one yourself: you must decide how the universe should be, what kind of life is worth saving, and judge all of existence to fit your definition.  It is a hopeless, empty, cowardly end to a narrative that had previously been about inclusivity and belief in others.

[Twilight_Princess]

One thing I've been mulling over again is that the only ending you "live" in is the only one that didn't get the same EC treatment as blue and green (closure, more padding, clear about what happened after). It's the only "speculation!" one and that still makes me sad and angry most of all. I just can't wrap my head around  how mean spirited it was.


So much emphasis on surviving and there is no option where you do so in a meaningful way. I was talking to my sister today and we agreed that something so simple as a hand reaching for shepard's in the rubble (think the CE case art) would have changed the tone completely.  She wouldn't have been alone in the end, it would have shown she was found, and it would have looked a lot more hopeful. AND no need to hire back VA's or anything like that, it would have been as cheap as chips to do.

[AlanC9]

Ieldra2 wrote...

@OP:
There are things which could help. Restoring the original cut interaction with EDI from ME2's SM, for instance, would be an early hint that the Reapers are more than killing machines. Also, seeing the geth complete their megastructure and becoming a super-powerful entity completely indifferent to organics would emphasize the organic/synthetic problem. Restoring the Codex entry about the singularity would make people understand the Catalyst better.
 

You'd probably want to fork the geth code there, with some seeking co-existence with organics and others going for the megastructure. Otherwise you lose the only foreshadowing Synthesis gets.

[mvaning]

Reth Shepherd wrote...

What's the point? There will be never a fix, because Bioware (or more likely, someone very high up at Bioware) doesn't see anything wrong with the ending. It is impossible to fix what you refuse to see.

This seems to be the case.    Which is very sad.   They can take the view that "we can't please everyone" but this really isn't an acceptable answer.   Is it so hard to make an ending that doesn't force people to
a) commit genocide
force eugenics    or
c) become an all powerful god like creature (that doesn't make any sense)

If the whole point of the ending is to provoke the negative emotional response in regards to these subjects, then at least they could publically say that is what they are doing instead of trying to justify any of these endings as being "good."

[Reth Shepherd]

AlanC9 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

@OP:
There are things which could help. Restoring the original cut interaction with EDI from ME2's SM, for instance, would be an early hint that the Reapers are more than killing machines. Also, seeing the geth complete their megastructure and becoming a super-powerful entity completely indifferent to organics would emphasize the organic/synthetic problem. Restoring the Codex entry about the singularity would make people understand the Catalyst better.
 

You'd probably want to fork the geth code there, with some seeking co-existence with organics and others going for the megastructure. Otherwise you lose the only foreshadowing Synthesis gets.

Green gets plenty of foreshadowing. Saren and the Reaper troops.

[mnomaha]

Hyrule_Gal wrote...


One thing I've been mulling over again is that the only ending you "live" in is the only one that didn't get the same EC treatment as blue and green (closure, more padding, clear about what happened after). It's the only "speculation!" one and that still makes me sad and angry most of all. I just can't wrap my head around  how mean spirited it was.


So much emphasis on surviving and there is no option where you do so in a meaningful way. I was talking to my sister today and we agreed that something so simple as a hand reaching for shepard's in the rubble (think the CE case art) would have changed the tone completely.  She wouldn't have been alone in the end, it would have shown she was found, and it would have looked a lot more hopeful. AND no need to hire back VA's or anything like that, it would have been as cheap as chips to do.

Or, in my case, a lovely green hand reaching into the rubble for Shep. That *may* have made a difference, but then again, I really don't give a rats ass about the ending. The mod already fixed that. <3

[-Skorpious-]

For me the solution is simple - cut to the EC destroy credit slideslow after Anderson dies. Yes, this means Shepard dies as well, but it is a fitting end that preserves the characters integrity.

[Yate]

control and synthesis could use more foreshadowing

and make it a little more clear that the dreams are the catalyst trying to communicate with Shepard

that would deal with most of the butthurt

[AlanC9]

Reth Shepherd wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
You'd probably want to fork the geth code there, with some seeking co-existence with organics and others going for the megastructure. Otherwise you lose the only foreshadowing Synthesis gets.

Green gets plenty of foreshadowing. Saren and the Reaper troops.

Heh. I should have specified foreshadowing Synthesis as a good thing.

Modifié par AlanC9, 07 février 2013 - 10:01 .