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[teh DRUMPf!!]

 I suppose Shepard's death -or- butchering his/her arms and legs off was rather unnecessary.


For the purposes of the ending, though, the geth/EDI sacrifice is needed. Not for "arbitrary downside" -- because one could do that more effectively with just about any other species/character than geth/EDI (asari/Liara would have been more devastating). It had more to do with the fact that, as a solution that relates to synthetic life, it must involve those other than Reapers.

Modifié par HYR 2.0, 26 septembre 2013 - 05:19 .

[AlanC9]

Chashan wrote..

All things considered, one certain user put it quite nicely why fundamentally DA:O's end-game worked, found in this thread over on the DA:I-board:

Fast Jimmy wrote...

What I would really like to see? Little to no option offered at the end.

In DA:O, you killed the Archdemon. Blight ended. Sure, you had some choice about the Dark Ritual or the Ultimate Sacrifice, but, all in all, it was one solution - you took the Big Bad down. The endings were still wildly varied and ranged in consequences mainly because it reacted to your choices made throughout the game, not to one big one at the end.

That's what I'd hope to see. A few choices at the end, but no Big Choices at the end. Let the choices the player has been making all game define how the game ends and where the chips fall.

But "wildly varied" there is hyperbole. DA:O has less ending variation than ME3. It has enough for Fast Jimmy, and more than a lot of RPGs (TW 1 comes to mind, or KOtOR once you realize theat the LS/DS choice will be retconned to be meaningless), but it's not a great deal of variation.

ME3 had all that in the cards for the finale: capitalize on the main steps of ME3's own plot - rallying the Hierarchy with or without Krogan support as a result of the Genophage-decision, Rannoch, Asari - and let the end-game play out with those as the main-factors towards defeating the Reaper-threat.

What would the differences be in the endgame? Purely cosmetic, as in DA:O?

Modifié par AlanC9, 26 septembre 2013 - 05:16 .

[AlanC9]

HYR 2.0 wrote...
For the purposes of the ending, though, the geth/EDI sacrifice is needed. Not for "arbitrary downside" -- because one could do that more effectively with just about any other species/character than geth/EDI (asari/Liara would have been more devastating). It had more to do with the fact that, as a solution that relates to synthetic life, it must involve those other than Reapers.

Well, there's iakus' (?) proposal to make the galactic dark age explicit in Destroy. No Reapers = no ability to rebuild the relay network.  Millions starve, Tali dies of old age without ever seeing Rannoch again, the turians in Sol die if you sided with the geth, many planets and clusters revert to barbarism.... you can come up with plenty of bad stuff this way.

[Chashan]

AlanC9 wrote...

Chashan wrote..

All things considered, one certain user put it quite nicely why fundamentally DA:O's end-game worked, found in this thread over on the DA:I-board:

Fast Jimmy wrote...

What I would really like to see? Little to no option offered at the end.

In DA:O, you killed the Archdemon. Blight ended. Sure, you had some choice about the Dark Ritual or the Ultimate Sacrifice, but, all in all, it was one solution - you took the Big Bad down. The endings were still wildly varied and ranged in consequences mainly because it reacted to your choices made throughout the game, not to one big one at the end.

That's what I'd hope to see. A few choices at the end, but no Big Choices at the end. Let the choices the player has been making all game define how the game ends and where the chips fall.

But "wildly varied" there is hyperbole. DA:O has less ending variation than ME3. It has enough for Fast Jimmy, and more than a lot of RPGs (TW 1 comes to mind, or KOtOR once you realize theat the LS/DS choice will be retconned to be meaningless), but it's not a great deal of variation.

It was variable enough, regardless, and the epilogue-slides do tell a more precise story of 'what's next' than ME's slideshow does.

You could of course say that employing slides of text is so '2009' nowadays, but then there's how F:NV handled that to consider as well.

What would the differences be in the endgame? Purely cosmetic, as in DA:O?

Would it being primarily cosmetic prior to finishing the game and hearing of the different further developments in the epilogue be such a bad thing?

I wouldn't mind if those were represented in different stages of cutscenes, ME2's suicide-mission for the most part went about that similarly. Would that require more effort for the final stretch of the game, as far as taking plot-flags etc into account? Certainly, although numbers-wise still a good deal less than the suicide-mission had.

AlanC9 wrote...

Well, there's iakus' (?) proposal to make the galactic dark age explicit in Destroy. No Reapers = no ability to rebuild the relay network.  Millions starve, Tali dies of old age without ever seeing Rannoch again, the turians in Sol die if you sided with the geth, many planets and clusters revert to barbarism.... you can come up with plenty of bad stuff this way.

And why not. The end of most wars doesn't mean an abrupt return to prosperity, moreso if infrastructure relied upon for the longest time without any alternative has been wrecked. Even moreso after an apocalyptic war of galaxy-spanning magnitude.

Modifié par Chashan, 26 septembre 2013 - 05:38 .

[Dean_the_Young]

It doesn't bother me to the extent of some people, but even I agree that the 'AI-killing wave' seemed a bit tacked on and, well, tacky. Given that it was never a convincing 'theme' to me in the first place, I'd propose the alternative-


Destroy doesn't destroy synthetics and machines. Destroy destroys element zero.

Say it's made to really kill the Reapers, but it does so by targeting element zero. At low-EMS, the Destroy Wave basically turns e-zero into bombs and detonates it- guns, ships, Reapers, etc. The e-zero basically explodes, and therefore is hugely destructive.

In the high-EMS version, the better focusing turns the cores into inert lumps, but leaves the machinery intact. New e-zero can be made, or possibly old e-zero restored, but the Reapers are dead by this point so who cares? AI's survive as a whole (their body may not move if dependent on e-zero), and the software and such still survives.

It doesn't change all the fridge horror of turning off all the airplanes in midair and basically marooning almost all the ships in the galaxy- but that, and the implicit civilization hard restart, are The Cost. Civilization is divided, forced to rebuild itself from the pre-space age, but the species are alive.

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...
For the purposes of the ending, though, the geth/EDI sacrifice is needed. Not for "arbitrary downside" -- because one could do that more effectively with just about any other species/character than geth/EDI (asari/Liara would have been more devastating). It had more to do with the fact that, as a solution that relates to synthetic life, it must involve those other than Reapers.

Well, there's iakus' (?) proposal to make the galactic dark age explicit in Destroy. No Reapers = no ability to rebuild the relay network.  Millions starve, Tali dies of old age without ever seeing Rannoch again, the turians in Sol die if you sided with the geth, many planets and clusters revert to barbarism.... you can come up with plenty of bad stuff this way.

I wouldn't make it quite as grim as all that, but you're on the right track, yeah.

It wouldn't be "no way to build the relay network" so much as "it could be years before we figure it out"  During that time the political face of the galaxy could substantially change.  Some colonies could die out, regress, or go pirate while others become powerful and prosperous.  Alliances between nearby world could be formed, creating new political and military entities based on mutual support.  By the time the Citadel government rejoins the community, the entire landscape could end up completely different, and the CItadel Council rendered completely irrelevant

As for Tali and the turians, well, I'd leave that up to the player. High EMS could end with an Allliance confident that they will find a way.  Especially with the quarians around.

So much more could have been done with Destroy than "And then all the synthetics die.  Trolol.  Umad bro?"

[wright1978]

Forgetting the disaster that is the delivery mechanism for the endings for one second. I've been thinking about how there should have been priority variants within each ending. For example for destroy.

Paragon High EMS Destroy: Tightly focused intense destroy beam, this results in complete loss of relays but not synthetics with reaper based upgrades.

Renegade Destroy: Broader spectrum destroy beam this results in relays being fine but synthetics with reaper based upgrades die.

With lower levels of EMS more specific negatives come into each equation including whether Shep lives/dies.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

AlanC9 wrote...

Well, there's iakus' (?) proposal to make the galactic dark age explicit in Destroy. No Reapers = no ability to rebuild the relay network.  Millions starve, Tali dies of old age without ever seeing Rannoch again, the turians in Sol die if you sided with the geth, many planets and clusters revert to barbarism.... you can come up with plenty of bad stuff this way.

See, I disagree that the geth/EDI are sacrificed merely to detract from choosing Destroy.

At best, it's half-true, but even then is still missing something very important....

It needs to be said first that the Catalyst's problem *is* your problem. People fail to realize this; they think that the end of the game concerns them with a "different" problem, when in reality, that problem simply mirrors the overarching conflict through three games. Solving the issue of organic-synthetic conflict begins with the one at hand: galaxy-Reaper war. You're being asked to set a precedent for all future conflicts of the same nature... whether you like it or not!

Which leads us to the important part: whatever you're choosing, you're forced to be consistent about it.

You cannot choose Sync -- the supposed option of lasting peace between both sides -- without including the Reapers in that peace. That would be inconsistent, as the players would not be setting aside their own personal fears or grievances as is required in any peaceful resolutions. It's sort of the same deal in Destroy: you cannot genuinely champion such a peace, but turn it down when faced with the one synthetic entity you call an enemy, either. Those effects on synthetic relations must be applied fairly to all. And Control, for all intents and purposes, is a compromise between the two.

That, ofc, is focusing solely on the organic-synthetic aspect of it the final decision and ignoring all other issues.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

It doesn't bother me to the extent of some people, but even I agree that the 'AI-killing wave' seemed a bit tacked on and, well, tacky. Given that it was never a convincing 'theme' to me in the first place, I'd propose the alternative-


Destroy doesn't destroy synthetics and machines. Destroy destroys element zero.

Say it's made to really kill the Reapers, but it does so by targeting element zero. At low-EMS, the Destroy Wave basically turns e-zero into bombs and detonates it- guns, ships, Reapers, etc. The e-zero basically explodes, and therefore is hugely destructive.

In the high-EMS version, the better focusing turns the cores into inert lumps, but leaves the machinery intact. New e-zero can be made, or possibly old e-zero restored, but the Reapers are dead by this point so who cares? AI's survive as a whole (their body may not move if dependent on e-zero), and the software and such still survives.

It doesn't change all the fridge horror of turning off all the airplanes in midair and basically marooning almost all the ships in the galaxy- but that, and the implicit civilization hard restart, are The Cost. Civilization is divided, forced to rebuild itself from the pre-space age, but the species are alive.

Don't forget to include all biotic organisms.

If people thought eradicating the geth was bad, now it's all asari and a fraction of all organics.

And this is with a reasonable explanation. 

[wolfhowwl]

Yes, the relays should have been destroyed outright.

[Dean_the_Young]

HYR 2.0 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

It doesn't bother me to the extent of some people, but even I agree that the 'AI-killing wave' seemed a bit tacked on and, well, tacky. Given that it was never a convincing 'theme' to me in the first place, I'd propose the alternative-


Destroy doesn't destroy synthetics and machines. Destroy destroys element zero.

Say it's made to really kill the Reapers, but it does so by targeting element zero. At low-EMS, the Destroy Wave basically turns e-zero into bombs and detonates it- guns, ships, Reapers, etc. The e-zero basically explodes, and therefore is hugely destructive.

In the high-EMS version, the better focusing turns the cores into inert lumps, but leaves the machinery intact. New e-zero can be made, or possibly old e-zero restored, but the Reapers are dead by this point so who cares? AI's survive as a whole (their body may not move if dependent on e-zero), and the software and such still survives.

It doesn't change all the fridge horror of turning off all the airplanes in midair and basically marooning almost all the ships in the galaxy- but that, and the implicit civilization hard restart, are The Cost. Civilization is divided, forced to rebuild itself from the pre-space age, but the species are alive.

Don't forget to include all biotic organisms.

If people thought eradicating the geth was bad, now it's all asari and a fraction of all organics.

And this is with a reasonable explanation. 

In previous versions of 'nerf e-zero', I always pictured biotics as getting, well, mostly-benign lumps. Asari would have to deal with not bending the universe with their minds, but little more than the humility check. Geth, which had their own e-zero cores, would be crippled and/or stuck until their non-e-zero dependent bretheren could reach them.

E-zero exploding, however... I was thinking 'it's too small', but now I can't NOT think of it. Synthetics like the Geth and EDI would still explode, thanks to their e-zero cores, but now I have a vision of the Destroy wave racing across Thessia...

[KaiserShep]

wolfhowwl wrote...

Yes, the relays should have been destroyed outright.

This is pretty much full on extinction if the story is to be consistent. I'm glad they didn't stick to this.

[Iakus]

KaiserShep wrote...

wolfhowwl wrote...

Yes, the relays should have been destroyed outright.

This is pretty much full on extinction if the story is to be consistent. I'm glad they didn't stick to this.

Not rupture like in Arrival.  But forcing the races to figure out how to build their own would be a good way to show how the galaxy must stand on its own now.

[KaiserShep]

Meh, I don't particularly care for that idea. I actually prefer what we got in the high EMS destroy ending.

[Iakus]

KaiserShep wrote...

Meh, I don't particularly care for that idea. I actually prefer what we got in the high EMS destroy ending.

Eh, I'm willing to settle.  As far as the relays are concerned at least

[AlanC9]

This isn't any different from what we already have in Destroy, is it?

[AlanC9]

HYR 2.0 wrote...
It needs to be said first that the Catalyst's problem *is* your problem. People fail to realize this; they think that the end of the game concerns them with a "different" problem, when in reality, that problem simply mirrors the overarching conflict through three games. Solving the issue of organic-synthetic conflict begins with the one at hand: galaxy-Reaper war. You're being asked to set a precedent for all future conflicts of the same nature... whether you like it or not!

Precedent? Like a common-law court? This sounds like the old drayfish argument.

[StarcloudSWG]

Mcfly616 wrote...
 not arbitrary at all. Anything that targets the Reapers would also target EDI and the Geth. Both have Reaper Tech.

Actually, only EDI has physical Reaper-tech.

Geth are entirely software. The code fragments Legion used to upgrade to AI status are just that; fragments. There's nothing that's distinctly 'Reaper' to target.

Code is code; it's generic, interchangeable, and is basically just an instruction set to processors. So, having the Geth be destroyed, but still having functional starships, that's a complete logic fail on the developer's part.

I blame that on Mac and Casey creating a hostile work environment for the only science-minded writer on the team, even before Mass Effect 3 started development, and driving him away. That's why Legion and Edi suddenly developed 'Pinnochio' complexes.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

AlanC9 wrote...

HYR 2.0 wrote...
It needs to be said first that the Catalyst's problem *is* your problem. People fail to realize this; they think that the end of the game concerns them with a "different" problem, when in reality, that problem simply mirrors the overarching conflict through three games. Solving the issue of organic-synthetic conflict begins with the one at hand: galaxy-Reaper war. You're being asked to set a precedent for all future conflicts of the same nature... whether you like it or not!

Precedent? Like a common-law court? This sounds like the old drayfish argument.

lol, never that.

I'm not saying the galaxy will be forever honor-bound to doing whatever Shepard did, just that it kind of sets the tone for that particular issue. Destroy kind of reaffirms the existing attitude. Control and Sync, OTOH, take a big step in the other direction.

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

This isn't any different from what we already have in Destroy, is it?

Kinda.  Except it isn't shown to be any kind of impediment or sacrifice.  Instead we get Shepard for Ed to slaughter allies .

How eagerly would people be to pick destroy if the geth and EDI survived but the years decades perhaps centuries of extremely curtailed interstellar travel was focused on?  Would such an arbitrary second sacrifice be seen as needed?

[KaiserShep]

I like to think of it as mass deactivation than slaughter

[OdanUrr]

cooldonkeyfish wrote...

I personally believe that Bioware did a pretty alright job with the ending choices - except of course the destroy one. I believe that by making it so "the crucible does not discriminate" and therefore destroys ALL synthetic life instead of just the reapers was a bad choice.
I prefer to use my renegade femShep who is a tough on people and has no difficulty making hard decisions, but still holds a strong morality.
She ended the conflict between the Quarians and Geth peacefully and believed that organics and synthetics had their own places, and that through their differences should be able to learn from each other and make each other stronger. The violence was more or less over, and while it wasn't perfect, it was real and it was a choice that they had made.
When it came time to decide she knew that destroying the reapers and letting things go naturally was what was right for the Galaxy. Unfortunately the game forced her to pick synthesis even though she didn't believe in it. It was either that or go COMPLETELY against what she stood for.
After all, there is natural conflict between organics without sythentics involved, so why is this any different to the Catalyst?
Sorry if this was badly written, I'm half asleep at the moment.
What do you think?

Personally, it never made sense to me how the Destroy option could affect all technology. Like I've said before, the "price tag" was introduced to create gravitas. It would have made more sense if choosing Destroy caused some kind of energy build-up that resulted in the Crucible exploding and potentially damaging the Earth's atmosphere. If that had been the choice, if you had been made aware of the possible consequences of Destroy, then I think it would've worked better. Instead of destroying the Reapers at the expense of "all things technology" you'd be asked to destroy them at the cost of Earth.

[Sir DeLoria]

iakus wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

This isn't any different from what we already have in Destroy, is it?

Kinda.  Except it isn't shown to be any kind of impediment or sacrifice.  Instead we get Shepard for Ed to slaughter allies .

How eagerly would people be to pick destroy if the geth and EDI survived but the years decades perhaps centuries of extremely curtailed interstellar travel was focused on?  Would such an arbitrary second sacrifice be seen as needed?

I'd rather have the Geth and other synthetics annihilated than the relays destroyed. High EMS Destroy is fine.

[Chashan]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

It doesn't bother me to the extent of some people, but even I agree that the 'AI-killing wave' seemed a bit tacked on and, well, tacky. Given that it was never a convincing 'theme' to me in the first place, I'd propose the alternative-


Destroy doesn't destroy synthetics and machines. Destroy destroys element zero.

Say it's made to really kill the Reapers, but it does so by targeting element zero. At low-EMS, the Destroy Wave basically turns e-zero into bombs and detonates it- guns, ships, Reapers, etc. The e-zero basically explodes, and therefore is hugely destructive.

In the high-EMS version, the better focusing turns the cores into inert lumps, but leaves the machinery intact. New e-zero can be made, or possibly old e-zero restored, but the Reapers are dead by this point so who cares? AI's survive as a whole (their body may not move if dependent on e-zero), and the software and such still survives.

It doesn't change all the fridge horror of turning off all the airplanes in midair and basically marooning almost all the ships in the galaxy- but that, and the implicit civilization hard restart, are The Cost. Civilization is divided, forced to rebuild itself from the pre-space age, but the species are alive.

Definite thumbs-up, Dean.

Not only is what is powering the franchise's name-sake picked up, but reasonable variance given from 'cleansing flood' to 'new era' following a technological set-back.

In that sense, far more fitting than picking up a plot-thread about which one could already be the judge on Rannoch.

AlanC9 wrote...

This isn't any different from what we already have in Destroy, is it?

Difference being a dead-on focus on the consequence of that, in addition to what's being reaped by the war itself. The years following the 'Liberation of Europe' also saw poverty and even starvation for a good many people. 'Liberated' Germany had to struggle with that in particular in the first couple post-war years.

Now, magnify that for the Reaper-invasion and aftermath, and the picture is grim alright.

You could of course claim that Hackett's monologue very loosely picks up on that. Being specific and up-front about this kind of global consequence would be the general idea, however.

[Dextro Milk]

Destroy is fine.

Kills both of my least favorite things in Mass Effect - EDI and the Geth.

Modifié par Dextro Milk, 27 septembre 2013 - 03:21 .