Can you get a high enough EMS with a non-import game of ME3 to get the breath scene (exc. MP)? Would you have to do a lot of save scumming to ensure you got it?
Maybe if you have all the DLC. Both Omega and Leviathan provide a hefty amount. Together I think they add up to about 1000 EMS (with only 50% galactic readiness) which is almost a third of what you need to unlock all the endings with the EC. You can't however get both the Quarians and the Geth which might hurt the effort quite a bit.
Maybe if you have all the DLC. Both Omega and Leviathan provide a hefty amount. Together I think they add up to about 1000 EMS (with only 50% galactic readiness) which is almost a third of what you need to unlock all the endings with the EC. You can't however get both the Quarians and the Geth which might hurt the effort quite a bit.
You can't get the quarians and the geth, but I'm pretty sure you can get both the krogan and salarians, since Wrex is dead.
If some people feel the need to save scum for the optimal ending, why should everyone else suffer for it? Why should tragedy be forced on all because some can't see their own choices through and need to metagame?
The metagame argument is a bunch of crap, for one. Any argument to be made, either for or against Shepard's survival, relies on a metagame argument. The whole point about "herp derp, Shepard dies" is that the player finds the experience lacking, not the character. If all we were concerned about was metagaming, there wouldn't be any discussion to be had about anything Mass Effect related because our characters aren't aware of our metagame concerns.
That metagaming is frowned upon doesn't negate the fact that the player is also seeking enjoyment. And it also doesn't help that pretty much every instance of correct and incorrect outcomes in Mass Effect has consisted of plainly obvious outcomes requiring Shepard to be depicted as an outright moron to justify certain character deaths (see the Suicide Mission).
This is why games like Heavy Rain and Dark Souls handle the approach much better. The player is actively denied the ability to save/reload, forcing them to deal with events, be they good or bad. There, I'd say victory is more clearly earned, since the player is also dealing with tension (as the character experiences it), preventing the carefree attitude of "I can reload to perfect outcomes".
In practice these two things end up contradicting each other, though, because the player can simply reload. The situations in which the player feels responsible for a loss but chooses it anyway are situations where an alternate, better option was unavailable (or were players simply refuse to reload). Players are still ultimately seeking the optimal end-state at any cost, even if it requires meta-gaming a playthrough to get it. They aren't actually interested in the emotional resonance of feeling responsible for loss. Video game stories have a long way to go, but so do players' attitudes towards videogames.
I include myself in that category since I reload when something goes wrong. I would actually love to play a game where you simply were not allowed to reload. The best alternative is a game like Dragon Age 2 that buries certain decisions in the length of the game (such as Isabela only returning based on her strength of opinion).
There's also a difference between personalized playthroughs and playthroughs where you control what happens. And I also reject the notion that if a game doesn't have varied endings then it isn't fulfilling it's potential as a game.
I reload when I want to hear dialogue options, because I like dialogue and want to hear it all. If someone really wants to play a game in a specific way, not being able to reload won't stop them, you just google or look at the walk through, I know this from experience. 
Yes, the first time I played ME1 it took me a good 5 minuets to decide who to leave behind and now it just takes a minuet or so, but I still regret and morn whoever gets left and in ME2 the first time through I forgot where I put Legion and lost part of the crew but after the first time you play - anything you do is going to be a choice based on what your brain knows about the game and how you want your character to act. (Thought I did love ME2 because I had so many options.)
I play a lot, (My husband says I need intervention) New characters who have new personalities, new names, new looks and different plans for how to do the job, so I have plenty of time to pick different options and see where they lead or decide things like my current Shepards (with the MEHEM mod): Abby Shepard loved Kaiden but left him behind on Virmire because to her, it was necessary. Karria however, saved him because, bottom line, she loved him and he was the higher rank. In ME2 Abby may side with Miranda because she's not sure how stable Jack is where Karria was able to get everyone to focus on the job because she is rather charismatic.
On the 360, I had over 20 Shepards and that did not include the ones I lost when my 1st 360 crashed. I had a Shepard all set to die in ME3 because she was so focused on the job she didn't get anyone to co-operate and lost a part of the crew and as one ending I could have played and enjoyed it. But I need balance in my life and in my games. For the Shepard who dies or who takes control or who hates that Edi and the geth died and is emotionally drained so she picked synthesis - I need one Shepard who survives, really survives not lies waiting for someone to find her/him. And because BW gave me this in the past and because the walk through book uses the word survives I expected something more than the body and mona lisa smile which was actually added later. (even KOTOR with two endings had a celebration and depressing endings).
I have played a few games where there is just one ending. I play them and sell them and get something new. I don't do that with BioWare games. I still play Jade Empire, KOTOR, DA:O and DA:2, and the others I've still got. I've loved all of their games and expected so much more from them.
I loved Mass Effect, i was invested in the characters, the story and the universe. They did a great job of building this world. And that is my reason for being so disappointed in what they gave me as the survival ending of Shepards story. I really don't get why some people don't understand this. I can understand why they don't care, but so many of them don't understand why some of us do care. That is frustrating.
The whole reload, savescum thing is a poor argument for failing to give the player meangingful choices that could or could not go wrong. If you accept that you should design the game around it then you'll end up with pretty much one path - at that point you may as well go off and make a film instead of a game, the only difference is playing around to hear different bits of dialogue. In any case it can be designed around to a certain extent by making the impact of choice not too immediate. There's less incentive to reload if it means replying a few hours of game. The only line to be drawn there is that you shouldn't let the player make a choice that'll result in game over several hours later. Stick in some mechanisms that make savescumming difficult if you must, i.e. can't reload past saves, although that means you've got to be really careful you don't end up with a gamebreaking bug you can't reload around. Sure, it's possible to work around that but then most people will feel like a cheat, and the ones who won't won't care anyway.
People get annoyed when things go wrong in a game when it's forced on them. When that happens they're annoyed with the writers. If things go wrong because they screwed up then they're annoyed with themselves, and that's good.
The whole reload, savescum thing is a poor argument for failing to give the player meangingful choices that could or could not go wrong. If you accept that you should design the game around it then you'll end up with pretty much one path - at that point you may as well go off and make a film instead of a game, the only difference is playing around to hear different bits of dialogue. In any case it can be designed around to a certain extent by making the impact of choice not too immediate. There's less incentive to reload if it means replying a few hours of game. The only line to be drawn there is that you shouldn't let the player make a choice that'll result in game over several hours later. Stick in some mechanisms that make savescumming difficult if you must, i.e. can't reload past saves, although that means you've got to be really careful you don't end up with a gamebreaking bug you can't reload around. Sure, it's possible to work around that but then most people will feel like a cheat, and the ones who won't won't care anyway.
People get annoyed when things go wrong in a game when it's forced on them. When that happens they're annoyed with the writers. If things go wrong because they screwed up then they're annoyed with themselves, and that's good.
This is a problematic argument. For a basic example to understand why, we need look no further than ME2's suicide mission. For all the talk of "you may as well make a movie", ME3 did virtually nothing to take into account any of its predecessors positive or negative outcomes. The Rachni decision is especially as you describe, providing nothing more than "different bits of dialogue". So I'm not sure how this is tied to video games as a medium, in comparison to film.
Meaningful choices isn't the result of happy vs. sad outcomes. It's the result of the writer realistically having the ability to write a divergent narrative. The Witcher 2 has two entire branching paths, neither of which are right or wrong, and does a far better job of demonstrating divergent content than any of Bioware's good vs. bad outcomes.
The Witcher 2 has two entire branching paths, neither of which are right or wrong, and does a far better job of demonstrating divergent content than any of Bioware's good vs. bad outcomes.
I actually don't agree with that, since I found the third Act largely the same (perhaps that was changed in the Enhanced Edition) and because the Witcher utterly disregards all your choices between games.
The whole reload, savescum thing is a poor argument for failing to give the player meangingful choices that could or could not go wrong.
A choice isn't meaningful if it "going wrong" can be easily avoided. The player is "annoyed with himself" for a few minutes until after the reload when he gets it right.
The two ways around this are making choices where one outcome isn't objectively better than another, and burying factors until going back to reload becomes too bothersome.
If some people feel the need to save scum for the optimal ending, why should everyone else suffer for it? Why should tragedy be forced on all because some can't see their own choices through and need to metagame?
Because most people *do* save scum. This is why Leandra's quest in DA2 only has one final outcome; there were originally multiple possible endings to that quest, but all the test groups just kept reloading to get the one because they felt they "failed" the quest.
Virmire is a meaningful choice precisely because there isn't an option to save both.
The Witcher 2 has two entire branching paths, neither of which are right or wrong, and does a far better job of demonstrating divergent content than any of Bioware's good vs. bad outcomes.
Which opens up entire different discussion should it be always like that, every choice not-wrong, or maybe some choices (BOTH good and bad) could have clear disadvantage? And yes, for all the things TW series does well and better than ME, it also fails when it comes to C&C across the multiple games, not just self-contained singular installements. And honestly I don't care for "well most classic cRPGs didn't bother with that" argument. Classic cRPGs weren't 100.00% perfect and disregarding C&C across sequels and rolling with 1 canon was one of the very few but significant flaws to me.
Because most people *do* save scum. This is why Leandra's quest in DA2 only has one final outcome; there were originally multiple possible endings to that quest, but all the test groups just kept reloading to get the one because they felt they "failed" the quest.
Virmire is a meaningful choice precisely because there isn't an option to save both.
If "everybody" did that for All That Remains, then i think that speaks more to the quality of the quest. And forcing everybody to "fail" it because of that is just one more example of declining quality.
And I say if players can't handle the consequences of their own actions, let them save scum. If that's what makes games fun for them. It's how they roll.
But don't spoil my story and my character because of what other people do.
If "everybody" did that for All That Remains, then i think that speaks more to the quality of the quest. And forcing everybody to "fail" it because of that is just one more example of declining quality.
And I say if players can't handle the consequences of their own actions, let them save scum. If that's what makes games fun for them. It's how they roll.
But don't spoil my story and my character because of what other people do.
You are exactly the sort of person who would save scum, which is probably why these design decisions upset you in the first place.
And the quest as-is is fantastic.
BioWare's real mistake was the way they dealt with ME1, and ME2's ending, given that they now seem to want their "hard choices" marketing promise to stick. It doesn't make sense to make something like the Suicide Mission, then come back and do Priority Earth the next game.
This is part of the reason why the ME series makes sense evaluating each game as a project with different design and narrative goals. Too much divergence to identify one overall design strategy.
The problem isn't whether or not you actually do reload, right? Even having the option without using it changes your relationship to the outcomes.
If I'm understanding you correctly, yes, and knowing that a game is going to construct itself in ways that make it difficult to reload will similarly change your relationship to decisions. I know that I've never felt so uncomfortable (in a good way) making decisions as in DA2, because I knew they could go really bad, and in ways I could not have easily prevented.
I'm not sure if you are trying to insult me or not. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt.
All That Remains was probably the single most complained about mission in all of DA2. It's held up as a prime example of everything wrong with the game: railroaded story, lack of reactivity, forced tragedy
Any of this sound familiar? Hopefully the Dragon Age team paid more attention to the complaints about ME3 than the Mass Effect team paid to the DA2 complaints
And I hardly see how Mass Effects problems were how ME1 and ME2 handled their ending when they were resou ding successes and ME 3 is the one with unprecedented backlash. If anything it suggests the probl is the exact opposite what you described
I include myself in that category since I reload when something goes wrong. I would actually love to play a game where you simply were not allowed to reload. The best alternative is a game like Dragon Age 2 that buries certain decisions in the length of the game (such as Isabela only returning based on her strength of opinion).
I'm not insulting you any more than I'm insulting myself.
Yeah people bitched they couldn't save their Mom. I understand their concerns but I don't agree with them. It's actually done rather well: you have MANY chances to stop what is coming there (Hawke does, not the player) but Hawke's always just a bit more concerned with something else. Through his own mistakes Hawke ends up losing either most or all of his family. This is the emotional thrust of DA2: how does Hawke deal with his family being ripped apart? Can his companions become his new family...or will they too be ripped apart by the clouds settling over Kirkwall?
I explained in my post how ME1 and ME2 were the problem, given the direction they decided to go in ME3. If ME3's endings were the type of choice they wanted to end the trilogy with, then Paragon/Renegade was a mistake to begin with, as were a flawless Suicide Mission run and the copouts galore in ME1.
I hate most of the game. But any rage I ever felt in the past two years has dissipated into apathy. ME3 is what it is.
I actually don't agree with that, since I found the third Act largely the same (perhaps that was changed in the Enhanced Edition) and because the Witcher utterly disregards all your choices between games.
Between games? Sure. But as an overall demonstration as to the possibility of divergent content? Witcher 2, between acts 2 and 3, blows everything away that Bioware has ever done, providing two completely different narratives and outcomes.
Which opens up entire different discussion should it be always like that, every choice not-wrong, or maybe some choices (BOTH good and bad) could have clear disadvantage? And yes, for all the things TW series does well and better than ME, it also fails when it comes to C&C across the multiple games, not just self-contained singular installements. And honestly I don't care for "well most classic cRPGs didn't bother with that" argument. Classic cRPGs weren't 100.00% perfect and disregarding C&C across sequels and rolling with 1 canon was one of the very few but significant flaws to me.
To be clear, I don't believe that every choice needs to be some deep, morally grey scenario. But I also don't think that we need to always toss in a way out, simply because some players suddenly feel sad.
To put it another way, I think the key issue is "Should have Mass Effect 3 have been allowed force tragedy?", not "Should all video games ever be allowed force tragedy?". Games, even Bioware games, attempt to force a variety of emotions on the player all the time. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I love the game, I love the whole series but, yeah... I still hate the ending. Even after all this time.
ME3 as well, right? VS during the coup, genophage outcome and Rannoch peace are all based on events from the previous games. Though obviously not applicable to DA since we're not playing the same character from one installment to the next.
The problem isn't whether or not you actually do reload, right? Even having the option without using it changes your relationship to the outcomes.
Agreed with Crono on that front. The problem with the happy ending crowd in this regard is that they think "it's optional" accurately sums up every player's perspective on events at hand. But that's flawed due to the player being unable to prevent the metagame from impacting their enjoyment of the experience. It creates a disconnect when I, as the player, am an observer seeking to obtain the best outcome, while purposely screwing my avatar.
That's why I place more emphasis on games which do not allow a reload function (Dark Souls again), since the player isn't allowed an opportunity for a retry on certain situations. It adds an extra layer of tension which games like Mass Effect are devoid of.
If "everybody" did that for All That Remains, then i think that speaks more to the quality of the quest. And forcing everybody to "fail" it because of that is just one more example of declining quality.
And I say if players can't handle the consequences of their own actions, let them save scum. If that's what makes games fun for them. It's how they roll.
But don't spoil my story and my character because of what other people do.
How can someone "hate" a video game????
Get a life.
Mass Effect 3 is a GREAT game, albeit very flawed and not even close to the level of quality of ME2, but still great.
The ending is full on scurb... At face value that is, hehehehehe.
But it is a very, very good game.
Hate.....
If you're looking for a game to hate.....
Try Resident Evil 6, or Aliens Colononal Marines or Terminator Salvation.
Those games are "hate" worthy.
Also- Solder of Fortune: Payback. Killed the SOF franchise for good. Hate that game with the intensity of 1000 suns.
How can someone "hate" a video game????
Get a life.
If you're looking for a game to hate.....
Those games are "hate" worthy.
Makes sense
You are exactly the sort of person who would save scum, which is probably why these design decisions upset you in the first place.
And the quest as-is is fantastic.
BioWare's real mistake was the way they dealt with ME1, and ME2's ending, given that they now seem to want their "hard choices" marketing promise to stick. It doesn't make sense to make something like the Suicide Mission, then come back and do Priority Earth the next game.
This is part of the reason why the ME series makes sense evaluating each game as a project with different design and narrative goals. Too much divergence to identify one overall design strategy.
If I'm understanding you correctly, yes, and knowing that a game is going to construct itself in ways that make it difficult to reload will similarly change your relationship to decisions. I know that I've never felt so uncomfortable (in a good way) making decisions as in DA2, because I knew they could go really bad, and in ways I could not have easily prevented.
You are exactly the sort of person who would save scum, which is probably why these design decisions upset you in the first place.
And the quest as-is is fantastic.
BioWare's real mistake was the way they dealt with ME1, and ME2's ending, given that they now seem to want their "hard choices" marketing promise to stick. It doesn't make sense to make something like the Suicide Mission, then come back and do Priority Earth the next game.
This is part of the reason why the ME series makes sense evaluating each game as a project with different design and narrative goals. Too much divergence to identify one overall design strategy.
If I'm understanding you correctly, yes, and knowing that a game is going to construct itself in ways that make it difficult to reload will similarly change your relationship to decisions. I know that I've never felt so uncomfortable (in a good way) making decisions as in DA2, because I knew they could go really bad, and in ways I could not have easily prevented.
What does this even mean? Saving scum? Do I need to ask Lukas this one?
Neither Kaidan or Ash was scum. They were both a valued part of my team though I know there are people out there who always leave the same person which is another thing in the life of games I don't get. 
The quest is ok. It would have been better if I had 3 different options including whoever goes to the tower is picked up with the Salarians who went there. By letting them survive and not Ash or Kaidan it just reduces the tower death to something you are forced to ignore. And with 3 choices, that's another option for those of us who actually like to do all of the options, not just the ones we like. If they really wanted to force a death, they should have made the mandatory death with the bomb. If you stay with that the Salarians are still picked up, but if you go to the tower you see the bomb go off and whoever stayed with it is gone.
People who want to kill or save the same character each time will still do it and while I don't understand it, I have no problem with people playing the game the way they want.
For me, ME series, especially 3, would have been much better if each game had a different main character. It was a wonderful idea but In each successive game my Shepard changed in ways I had no control over. Some minor (the cat in heat voice talking to Jacob the first time) others a little more aggravating. Even the ending of 3 wouldn't have been quite as terrible, for me, if it had involved a character I hadn't been playing for 5 years.
I LOVE the ending of ME 1. You had one goal. Stop Saren and you had three different ways to go about it. The middle sort of do what feels right each time you make a decision paragon or renegade; The Paragon, think about what your doing and is it good for everyone or the Renegade get the job done no matter what and there was no right or wrong way to do it. Neither were "evil" which I think disappointed some, but I liked the idea that there is more than one way to get results.
ME2 seemed to me to go off the rail as for as what Shepard was supposed to be doing with the reapers, but I had a lot of fun playing it and I enjoyed the different ways I could end it. I never sent an inappropriate team member to do a suicide job because Shepard is not stupid, but I loved the way I could send someone and still have unexpected deaths. (OK that sounds worse than I thought, but I'll stick with it) I LOVED the idea that Jack would protect Miranda even though they hated each other and I cried when Jack died protecting her. The only thing that would have made the ending better would have been seeing Shepard staring out the window and seeing images of those who died.
Enjoyed DA:O and DA2, I really can't think of any decisions that I had to really think about before making them in DA2. The hardest decision was deciding which class to play because I liked both Bethany and Carver.
How can someone "hate" a video game????
Get a life.
Mass Effect 3 is a GREAT game, albeit very flawed and not even close to the level of quality of ME2, but still great.
The ending is full on scurb... At face value that is, hehehehehe.
But it is a very, very good game.
Hate.....
If you're looking for a game to hate.....
Try Resident Evil 6, or Aliens Colononal Marines or Terminator Salvation.
Those games are "hate" worthy.
Also- Solder of Fortune: Payback. Killed the SOF franchise for good. Hate that game with the intensity of 1000 suns.
So you have no passion about books, tv shows, movies? That's rather sad.
The games you mentioned have no appeal to me at all. I did try one of the RE games, but the beginning cut scene was so long I didn't bother going farther and sold it.
I hate the ending in ME3 because I Loved the series. Well, now I enjoy the series because someone other than BioWare made the MEHEM for the pc, which reduced my options, but did give me the ending closer to what I had expected from the previous games.
So you have no passion about books, tv shows, movies? That's rather sad.
The games you mentioned have no appeal to me at all. I did try one of the RE games, but the beginning cut scene was so long I didn't bother going farther and sold it.
I hate the ending in ME3 because I Loved the series. Well, now I enjoy the series because someone other than BioWare made the MEHEM for the pc, which reduced my options, but did give me the ending closer to what I had expected from the previous games.
Nicely said.
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