279 réponses à ce sujet

[David7204]

These sound a lot more like obligations than opportunities.

At the end of the day, I really don't see how a dozen species, twenty different characters, and a half dozen choices could be integrated in a meaningful away.

That's about 35 different variables. And that's probably a really low estimate. You want everything to 'make a difference,..well how many differences are there to make in the first place?

Modifié par David7204, 28 septembre 2013 - 11:10 .

[Deverz]

David7204 wrote...

These sound a lot more like obligations than opportunities.

At the end of the day, I really don't see how a dozen species, twenty different characters, and a half dozen choices could be integrated in a meaningful away.

That's about 35 different variables. And that's probably a really low estimate. You want everything to 'make a difference,..well how many differences are there to make in the first?

I wanted to see my squad mates in action. I wanted to see a cutscene of the Rachni helping out and killing Reapers. I guess what I really wanted was a combined cutscene of different events. Like if you saved the Council, you get to see the Destiny Ascension. Something like that. And I don't mean making a difference by having different variable outcomes like the Suicide Mission, I  just wanted to see my war assets in action.

I think there should've been a lot more variety depending on what you collected for the final battle.

[AndyAK79]

StreetMagic wrote...

AndyAK79 wrote...

I regret I am unabe to recommend a good nun.

One of my highschool principals. She was a cool nun. From Boston (say it with an accent...). Smoked and even dropped the occassional cuss word at times (maybe just with me... or to me, to be exact).

Thank you for the reccomendation, but that doesn't sound like a very good nun.

[AndyAK79]

Deverz wrote...

I wanted to see my squad mates in action. I wanted to see a cutscene of the Rachni helping out and killing Reapers. I guess what I really wanted was a combined cutscene of different events. Like if you saved the Council, you get to see the Destiny Ascension. Something like that. And I don't mean making a difference by having different variable outcomes like the Suicide Mission, I  just wanted to see my war assets in action.

I think there should've been a lot more variety depending on what you collected for the final battle.

Of all the complaints leveled on this forum, I will grant this one wholeheartedly and without reservation; the Rachni were a missed opportunity.

Modifié par AndyAK79, 28 septembre 2013 - 12:17 .

[wright1978]

Deverz wrote...

All I'm saying is they should've tied your squad mates into the retaking of Earth somehow. Like the cut dialogue suggests, seeing Jack with her students or Zaeed & Grunt fighting Reaper forces. I don't really think there should've been 20 seperate cutscenes for every character but there should've been something to signifiy that they're making a difference. Edit: The radio chat didn't really cut it for me.

And also the Rachni queen, Geth and Krogan etc. They are all missed opportunities.

I'm still very much of the opinion some sort of suicide mission on a grandscale should have been present.
Former squaddies, major assets & non used current squaddies could have been assigned tasks during priority earth. Their fates could have been then dependent on presence of other assets.

But Bioware instead deciding to have the non-used squaddies hiding on the Normandy playing poker.

[Pressedcat]

Reorte wrote...

Pressedcat wrote...

The same way we allow for ships in the mass effect games to travel faster than light and humans to use biotics to hurl objects around using the power of their minds; because we willingly suspend our disbelief in order to allow BioWare to tell a story set in a future where technologies that do not currently exist are everyday. Mass Effect is not hard science fiction; a lot of the explanations they give for how things work do not stand up to scientific scrutiny, and yet we willingly overlook this all the time.

Sure that's a cop-out, but as you yourself said; you overlook certain other aspects of the game because you like them. I could say that I don't like biotics, and to me the explanation for how it works is severely lacking: "sure, so human foetuses were exposed to this 'element zero' in the womb and now they have super-powers... kinda like Radioactive man then?" [Rolls eyes].

If BioWare says that in their fictional world it is possible to build a super-weapon that can target and destroy all AI in the galaxy, you just have to take their world for it. It's not like you haven't done it before.

No, it doesn't work like that. Some nonsense cop-out is inevitable if you want FTL travel in your story, so I don't have an issue with that (unless some complete and utter genius has worked it out in the last few days for real). Biotics is just as much nonsense but it also gets a by for being established right at the start. Any fictional universe can get away with slipping in a few extra bits of nonsense in order to set things up. After that though I expect to stick to things that can work, and not just pull stuff out of thin air because the writers decided they want it in there and couldn't think how to make it actually work. "Absolutely anything can happen" is a really drama killer.

Not to mention the fact that the Crucible represents the combined efforts of scores of cycles' technological developments and innovations, the absolute pinnacle of engineered creation. It is way beyond anything seen in Shepard or anyone else's lifetime. It is not something Macgyver jimmied together in a couple of minutes. If anything deserves a little suspension of disbelief, it is the Crucible.

If anything deserved to be really carefully thought out and made to work entirely consistently with the established universe and reality it's the Crucible. Anyway, as I've pointed out several times before destroying all AI is a much harder task than destroying just the Reapers. It clearly happens only because the writers want it to and don't care about putting the pieces together properly.

You can dismiss it if you want, but you're doing so because you don't like the ending and have decided you are no longer going to collude with the BioWare writers, not because this one thing amongst all others stands out as uniquely unbelievable.

No, it doesn't stand out as uniquely unbelievable but the timing of it is hugely important. The scope of the unbelievable event also matters hugely. Unbelievable but minor is easy enough to ignore or forget. Lazarus was equally unbelievable but the story moved on and past it. You can word it like that if you like but it's misrepresenting the point somewhat. It's entirely reasonable to say "If something happens that I don't like there had better be a damned good reason for it" and providing one is one part of being a good writer. Besides, even if I had liked how the game went I'd still have been disappointed with the lack of thought - it would very much be "enjoyed in spite of ..."

You're right that my whole 'BioWare wrote it so you'll just have to accept it' argument was pretty weak. I can only plead tiredness, grumpiness and a failure to properly explain myself there. You're entirely right; you don't have to accept any lunatic premise BioWare puts forth at the last moment. My drawing an equivilance between the hand waving of the CrucibleI and Biotics does also not read the way I meant it to: Biotics are one of the founding premises you buy into in order to accept the ME universe, whilst the workings of the Catalyst are only revealed right at the end of the day. My argument was more that the precedence had already been made for accepting the 'unlikely', so that when the Crucible comes along, it is only fair to at least give it a fair chance.

Thinking about it, you are also probably right that it would be easier for the Crucible to target solely the Reapers, rather than all AI. To target the Reapers you only need to understand the Reapers to a certain extent, whereas to target all AI you would have to target something fundemental that all AI hold in common. Within the realms of possibility still, but arguably far harder. I guess I'll just have to fall back on the whole 'Geth and EDI contain elements of Reaper coding, and it is this the Catalyst targets' headcannon. I'm ok with doing this because I can draw enough of a parallel between this targeting of 'software' by the Crucible and the action of the marker on Shepards mind in ME1, the Protheans' weird 'reading' ability', the Reapers' ability to Indoctrinate numerous different species and the hacking of the Geth in ME2. They could all be perceived as targeting software (organic or machine), at least enough for me to give the Crucible the benefit of the doubt.

And that at the end of the day where we differ: the willingness to give the Crucible the benefit of the doubt. I had a positive enough reaction to the end of the game to leave me willing to do so, whilst you did not. There are plenty of reasons to argue why the Crucible shouldn't work (and indeed I would agree that the presentation of the Crucible in this game was weak enough to give you more than enough reason to question its viability), but I would argue there is enough precedence in this game of fluffy science to also accept the Crucible might also work as portrayed. It all boils down to the personal choice of where you decide to draw the line.

Hopefully with a little rest my position is a bit clearer.

[Fixers0]

Mass Effect is Ruined.

[Iakus]

Pressedcat wrote...

You're right that my whole 'BioWare wrote it so you'll just have to accept it' argument was pretty weak. I can only plead tiredness, grumpiness and a failure to properly explain myself there. You're entirely right; you don't have to accept any lunatic premise BioWare puts forth at the last moment. My drawing an equivilance between the hand waving of the CrucibleI and Biotics does also not read the way I meant it to: Biotics are one of the founding premises you buy into in order to accept the ME universe, whilst the workings of the Catalyst are only revealed right at the end of the day. My argument was more that the precedence had already been made for accepting the 'unlikely', so that when the Crucible comes along, it is only fair to at least give it a fair chance.

Thinking about it, you are also probably right that it would be easier for the Crucible to target solely the Reapers, rather than all AI. To target the Reapers you only need to understand the Reapers to a certain extent, whereas to target all AI you would have to target something fundemental that all AI hold in common. Within the realms of possibility still, but arguably far harder. I guess I'll just have to fall back on the whole 'Geth and EDI contain elements of Reaper coding, and it is this the Catalyst targets' headcannon. I'm ok with doing this because I can draw enough of a parallel between this targeting of 'software' by the Crucible and the action of the marker on Shepards mind in ME1, the Protheans' weird 'reading' ability', the Reapers' ability to Indoctrinate numerous different species and the hacking of the Geth in ME2. They could all be perceived as targeting software (organic or machine), at least enough for me to give the Crucible the benefit of the doubt.

And that at the end of the day where we differ: the willingness to give the Crucible the benefit of the doubt. I had a positive enough reaction to the end of the game to leave me willing to do so, whilst you did not. There are plenty of reasons to argue why the Crucible shouldn't work (and indeed I would agree that the presentation of the Crucible in this game was weak enough to give you more than enough reason to question its viability), but I would argue there is enough precedence in this game of fluffy science to also accept the Crucible might also work as portrayed. It all boils down to the personal choice of where you decide to draw the line.

Hopefully with a little rest my position is a bit clearer.

I once saw a quote on these boards that dealt with the lazarus Project, but applies just as well, if not more so to the Crucible

"It is one thing to suspend disbelief.  It's another to hang it by the neck until dead"

[Mathias]

Fixers0 wrote...

Mass Effect is Ruined.

The first two games are still incredible, but Mass Effect 3 and it's ending, without question, absolutely ruined the choice mechanic in the trilogy. Choices really only amount to flavor touches but that's about it. You can go through the trilogy making bad decisions and getting people killed, and you can still end up with the three endings.

[KaiserShep]

Mdoggy1214 wrote...
You can go through the trilogy making bad decisions and getting people killed, and you can still end up with the three endings.

This is technically incorrect, since there's high and low EMS Destroy and Control, the latter of which has both a paragon and renegade version, and Synthesis is not even available if you didn't get everything necessary for it to be presented.

[conjmk]

The problem with the ending isn't that its "not happy" but the fact that there is no closure what-so-ever.

[Display Name Owner]

@ OP

I mostly agree, except for point 3. Surely removing the happy ending has the same effect of removing the element of choice? There's no best or worst outcome, so there's still no choice. As for point 4, whilst it's true that a happy ending would lack drama, dramatic doesn't necessarily equal good.

Still, I agree, a happy ending just wouldn't have been fitting. Then again, I'm not a writer, so maybe someone else could have come up with a way to make it work. Either way, I think Shepard dying after making the final push alone is a nice end for him. Now, I wouldn't have been against a happy ending if it were just one of several options. But then the problem is how to implement that without alienating some players.

[KaiserShep]

I rather dislike the idea of the protagonist dying no matter what, and would disagree that it's necessarily fitting, given that this is, after all, a game with varied endings. Thankfully, the game permits you to avoid that.

isnudo wrote...
 But then the problem is how to implement that without alienating some players.

Thing is, I would bet that this already happened with the current ending.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 28 septembre 2013 - 07:49 .

[Killdren88]

I hold Dragon Age: Origins as the standard of how Endings should be done in games. People can have the ending they want from the bitter sweet to the sad, to the full on happy ending no one was left out, everyone got what they wanted. If all games had the option variety like Origins I can assure you ME3 would have a much more positive response.

[Reorte]

KaiserShep wrote...

Mdoggy1214 wrote...
You can go through the trilogy making bad decisions and getting people killed, and you can still end up with the three endings.

This is technically incorrect, since there's high and low EMS Destroy and Control, the latter of which has both a paragon and renegade version, and Synthesis is not even available if you didn't get everything necessary for it to be presented.

I actually enjoy multiplayer and as a result of that I can get the  highest EMS endings even if I play SP as badly as possible.

[KaiserShep]

I keep forgetting about that damn multiplayer.

[In Exile]

The problem isn't the lack of a happy ending - though ME1 and ME2 were about nothing other than happy endings - but stupid endings/

[Azaron Nightblade]

Killdren88 wrote...

I hold Dragon Age: Origins as the standard of how Endings should be done in games. People can have the ending they want from the bitter sweet to the sad, to the full on happy ending no one was left out, everyone got what they wanted. If all games had the option variety like Origins I can assure you ME3 would have a much more positive response.

I couldn't agree more - when it comes to endings DAO is Bioware's masterpiece as far as I'm concerned.

[Storin]

Pressedcat wrote...

KaiserShep wrote...

rashie wrote...

Why can't there be both sad and happy endings? Just wondering where this thought that you can't do both is coming from.

I keep coming back to the suicide mission dynamic, and while it's a much smaller scale, and more simplified concept, it's a fair example of how to vary your ending. You can have teammates die, or get everyone out alive. You can determine which outcome is the most satisfactory to you. Heck, if you really like the grim fail ending, you can get that too.

The problem with the suicide mission is the only way to vary your ending is to deliberately make sub-optimal choices. Sure you can get teammates killed, but to do so you either have to skip content, avoid using the persuasion mechanic, or make foolish choices when it comes time to assign tasks. People can die, but at least for me, in order for them to do so I'd have to go out of my way and meta-game to get those deaths.

This is completely, patently false. I lost a squadmember during my first run of ME2 and two during my second, despite doing all the loyalty missions. The choice of who to deploy to what function during the suicide mission isn't something you can easily guess. In both cases, my ending varied without me deliberately making "sub-optimal" choices. I had to look up a guide online to get everyone out alive on my third run. This is a pointless argument, anyway. People can choose whether or not to do this, or play whatever way seems right to them going in, possibly leading to bad things happening.

[davieo4592]

Most of the choices in mass effect 2 were actually really darn obvious. Except sending Mordin to escort the crew. I still don't get that one.

[KaiserShep]

Mordin is not the only one you can send Chakwas and crew back to the Normandy with. I once sent them off with Zaeed and they all came back alive.

[magnuskn]

Mass Effect 2 had a happy ending on a *suicide mission*, if you worked hard enough on it. Your arguments are invalid.

[KaiserShep]

And I guess that's really the thing. It doesn't do much good to argue against something that would most likely be optional. If you want a happy ending, then it could just be something that requires a lot more effort gathering whatever or upgrading this or that, and if you think such a thing just doesn't fit for the story you're playing, you can avoid it.

[Gorguz]

It's not about a sad ending. Sad endings are fine. It's about cheap exploits, plot holes, asspulls, and many other things. You started two threads in defense of the ending, without the comprehension of the criticisms that have been made. You are wasting your time trying to bring points to some idiotic things that the hater mass didn't cared about, and I would waste my time trying to explain the whole critics to the game to one of the many idiots that "if somebody criticizes the ending, it's because he wanted a happy ending", so I have no choice but to leave you to your lack of intelligence.