109 réponses à ce sujet

[God]

Again, no it didn't

 

"Sovereign is too strong! We have to pull back!"

"Negative.  This is our only chance!"

 

And the Reapers are only as "invincible" as the writers arbitrarilly decided them to be.  Sadly, they were made so invincible they had to be made totally incompetant at waging a war so the galaxy could have any kind of chance to build their deus ex machina

 

 

Meh, pretty much everything Shepard ever did in the trilogy was undercut.  What's one more thing at this point?

 

And when you import a Shepard who has saved everyone he possibly can, builds up a huge EMS score, Unifies the galaxy only to be trolled "Trolol.  Nope" by a ghostly Starbrat, that doesn't break the atmosphere?

 

It may not be the story you are telling.  And there's nothing wrong with that.  But it's the story I am telling.  One that had been in the works for five years.

 

Sure it doesn't have to be easy.  Heck, it this case it shouldn't be easy.  But it does need to be fun.  Otherwise there's no point in buying a game.  If I want tragedy, doom and gloom, I've got RL.

 

ME3: Dramatic and existential?       It was trite, heavy handed angst.  Heck DAI was a better examination on faith than ME3's "sacrifice" theme.  Mordin's was the only spot where it was done at all well.

 

DAO had a "not easy" answer.  ME3 was trolling, plain and simple.  Shepard was beaten to death with a plot hammer.  There was no :"integrity" and the only "rule" was DM Fiat.  You don't change the rules in the final minutes of the final entry of a trilogy.

 

And it really worries me that Bioware thinks this is okay.  Because they used to be the developers I would go to for game I enjoy.  Too many others wallow in angst and "dark and edgy" themes. 

 

Yeah, suddenly my understanding of you is far more massive.  But your arguments are no more effective.

 

 

News Flash:  Some people like playing paladins.  And the Mass Effect trilogy allowed it as a viable method, and even encouraged it.  Too bad they got screwed in the end by the Art.

 

I don't think you know what 'disengage' means. It's not withdrawal. It's not retreat. You're a civilian. You're forgiven for that. The fleets clearly withheld fire at a certain point. 

 

As well, the Reapers were always going to be very durable. You're upset because they were made to be too effective. And looking at what the Reapers are doing, it doesn't take a strategist to realize that the Reapers are more involved with pacifying and harvesting and policing their holdings, while slowly expanding. You're mistaking thorough efficiency for incompetence. 

 

I don't think anything Shepard did was undercut; the results don't need to be reflected from the endgame to matter, if that's what you want. Why should the destination of the journey undercut the short routs to get there?

 

I'd say the Catalyst was altering the atmosphere, not breaking it. It's where a closer philosophical dilemma comes into play and yes, invalidates your morality since it doesn't involve it. It can, if you bother with implementing it. In which case, it sounds like you are trying to, but can't reconcile it with your beliefs. In which case I'd say you'd have to suspend your beliefs to create a solution. The Reapers are beyond your EMS rating. And they're beyond your principles. You're playing their game. You can't play your own game and your own principles don't apply. The rules you thought existed never did. Simply put, the Reapers were always beyond you no matter what your paladin sensibilities were. That's because the games were making a trend for realism, and for introducing a moral concept that is completely alien and divorced from your own. And it works to the Reapers advantage against a paragon or a paladin, since it breaks them. Simply put, you guys are a lot easier to break.

 

I think it's good that BW implements this more into their stories. You're saying that other people play the game to me. I'm saying the same to you now. The game is implementing different metaphysical concepts that go against your own beliefs. As I've said, either adapt your own philosophy or play something else. 

 

As games take a turn for alternate interpretations of philosophy, and possibly even more, implement more real world facets of ambiguity and subjectivity, you're going to find that your more objective, black and white, paragon/paladin perspective becoming increasingly more marginalized since it's not applicable to the level you desire. Sorry man. As the games get more 'realistic' (not necessarily by implementing less fantastical or fictional settings but by implementing real world philosophy), the more fantastical elements of philosophy have less meaning.

[Iakus]

I don't think you know what 'disengage' means. It's not withdrawal. It's not retreat. You're a civilian. You're forgiven for that. The fleets clearly withheld fire at a certain point. 

 

As well, the Reapers were always going to be very durable. You're upset because they were made to be too effective. And looking at what the Reapers are doing, it doesn't take a strategist to realize that the Reapers are more involved with pacifying and harvesting and policing their holdings, while slowly expanding. You're mistaking thorough efficiency for incompetence. 

 

I don't think anything Shepard did was undercut; the results don't need to be reflected from the endgame to matter, if that's what you want. Why should the destination of the journey undercut the short routs to get there?

 

I'd say the Catalyst was altering the atmosphere, not breaking it. It's where a closer philosophical dilemma comes into play and yes, invalidates your morality since it doesn't involve it. It can, if you bother with implementing it. In which case, it sounds like you are trying to, but can't reconcile it with your beliefs. In which case I'd say you'd have to suspend your beliefs to create a solution. The Reapers are beyond your EMS rating. And they're beyond your principles. You're playing their game. You can't play your own game and your own principles don't apply. The rules you thought existed never did. Simply put, the Reapers were always beyond you no matter what your paladin sensibilities were. That's because the games were making a trend for realism, and for introducing a moral concept that is completely alien and divorced from your own. And it works to the Reapers advantage against a paragon or a paladin, since it breaks them. Simply put, you guys are a lot easier to break.

 

I think it's good that BW implements this more into their stories. You're saying that other people play the game to me. I'm saying the same to you now. The game is implementing different metaphysical concepts that go against your own beliefs. As I've said, either adapt your own philosophy or play something else.

As games take a turn for alternate interpretations of philosophy, and possibly even more, implement more real world facets of ambiguity and subjectivity, you're going to find that your more objective, black and white, paragon/paladin perspective becoming increasingly more marginalized since it's not applicable to the level you desire. Sorry man. As the games get more 'realistic' (not necessarily by implementing less fantastical or fictional settings but by implementing real world philosophy), the more fantastical elements of philosophy have less meaning.

 

 

Well if they withheld fire they disobeyed Hackett's express order to pour it on.

 

Sure the Reapers were going to be durable.  But in ME3 they became nigh-invulnerable.  To the point of no longer having weaknesses tehy started out with.  And yes, tehy were incompetant.  If they took the Citadel right away, the Crucible would never have been built.  The turians would never have been reinforced.  The asari would never have held out as long as they had, etc.

 

Hell, Shepard never would have made it out of the Sol system.  "Critical Mission Failure"

 

Because the means by which victory is achieved is as important as the victory itself.  If nothing Shepard did affects the outcome, then what did any of it matter?

 

And invalidating something the game clearly encouraged from the get-go is bad writing.  You may not care.  That's fine.  That wasn't the story you were making for your Shepard.  I get it.  but look at it this way:  What if the only way your Shepard can "win" is by doing something inexplicably "paladinish" and totally ooc for your Shepard?  Something that flies in the face of the  Byronic antihero you made?  I imagine you'd be pretty p*ssed about it.

 

This isn't about "alternative interpretations" This is outright telling players "you're doing it wrong" after five years of giving a thumbs-up.

[God]

Well if they withheld fire they disobeyed Hackett's express order to pour it on.

 

Sure the Reapers were going to be durable.  But in ME3 they became nigh-invulnerable.  To the point of no longer having weaknesses tehy started out with.  And yes, tehy were incompetant.  If they took the Citadel right away, the Crucible would never have been built.  The turians would never have been reinforced.  The asari would never have held out as long as they had, etc.

 

Hell, Shepard never would have made it out of the Sol system.  "Critical Mission Failure"

 

Because the means by which victory is achieved is as important as the victory itself.  If nothing Shepard did affects the outcome, then what did any of it matter?

 

And invalidating something the game clearly encouraged from the get-go is bad writing.  You may not care.  That's fine.  That wasn't the story you were making for your Shepard.  I get it.  but look at it this way:  What if the only way your Shepard can "win" is by doing something inexplicably "paladinish" and totally ooc for your Shepard?  Something that flies in the face of the  Byronic antihero you made?  I imagine you'd be pretty p*ssed about it.

 

This isn't about "alternative interpretations" This is outright telling players "you're doing it wrong" after five years of giving a thumbs-up.

 

Watch the final battle. Watch what the fleet isn't doing immediately after you kill Saren for the last time. They clearly disengaged their fire, resuming it right when they realize Sovereign has been functionally disabled. 

 

Well, it seems the Reapers were more keen to press their advantage with their holdings. They had no need to rush after all. You're throwing an awful lot of supposition at their movements and strategy. It's groundless.

 

What did it matter? Besides stopping the Reapers, protecting galactic civilization, getting it to survive and live and thrive in the future, and buying yourself the luxury to angst over the means which you had no control over, then I suppose it doesn't 'matter'. But did you really think some decision to save some innocent people would translate to a hero bar which would somehow warp space and time to give you an 'I win' gun? You had methods to win the war. On another level, why do you feel that way? It's not prudent nor practical nor efficient. Is it some type of religious dogma on your part? If so, I'll actually be amenable to dropping the argument. If not, you might have to explain how your logic and reasoning and philosophy is beneficial to other people in this circumstance in the ending. You may be a nice guy, but that doesn't help them when they're being harvested or killed.

 

Nope. I'm practical. I do what it takes to win. If that's what I need to do, that's what I'd do, no problem. Conversely, you wouldn't do that for the inverse. It's why my Shepard is superior to your Shepard. Unlike you, I'm not concerned about some abstract higher ideal. I'm fine with concrete solutions that provide worthwhile results, be damned of their origin or constitution. If it works, it flies. If it fits, it ships.

 

Basically speaking, yeah, you did do it wrong. Your higher ideal failed in the face of the Reapers onslaught. My cold pragmatism won civilization its survival and future. Maybe being a Paladin helped you save a few civilian hostages or save a child while letting a bad guy get away to be caught another day. But against the Reapers? You finally get your showdown, and your philosophy no longer applies when you see the dilemma presented to you. Mine still applies. Not only that, it thrives. My philosophy is applicable to any situation. Yours isn't. That's why I view it as flawed.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

flaming and thread derailment

 

Which, again, you only detest and cry "bloody murder!" over when they are targeting you and your views....

... not when you derail threads to whine (mainly about the ending in threads that are not about them), or ****** to people flaming things that you don't like.
 

Everything you've complained about here, villains, extreme stances, etc, exists in ME3.  Heck the entire ME series.  I'd go so far as to say ME3 has more of this stuff than DAI has:  assclown villains (Udina, Kai Leng) extreme stances (pretty much every Renegade interrupt ever) complaints about not being able to be more extreme towards NPCs (the Council, Ash/Kaidan standoff, Han'Gerrel, EDI )
 
And amusingly, none of that is stuff people are complaining about for either game.  Not too loudly, anyway.  What people do complain about, and have been doing so for quite some time, is ME3's ending.  Which is, of course, what this thread was about.  
 
So when you complain about Bioware catering to immature gamers, power fantasies, and cheap thrills in an ending thread when you're complaining about stuff that actually exists in greater quantity in ME3 than in DAI anyway, what is one supposed to think?
 
And to drag the topic back on course:  I repeat what I said much earlier:  ME3's ending is a joke, not a satire.

 
Actually, this is not an ending thread, just a very general BW/ME3 one, though I suppose every thread in this forum is an ending thread to you. However, that is your problem, and your fault when you jump on posts like mine for things I am not talking about.

 

You are putting words in my mouth. You attacked me for something I did not say, now you are trying to save face by arguing that I am talking about something other than what I clearly referred to (Inquisition, which I prefaced my post with), as if to know what I am thinking better than I do myself. You are a bloody piece of work.

 

Oh, but the things I've talked about also just happen to apply to ME3. Clearly that must mean I am talking about it. Never mind I said at the very beginning of the post I made what, exactly, I am referring to. Nope, because if you want to understand what someone is talking about, you go ask somebody other than the person who said it. By your logic, I am -- unbeknownst to myself -- talking about every game with similar material ... even ones I have never played!! Of course, if/when we examine your logic, we see that it is terrible and should never be used by any fair and reasonable person. It is not even logic. It is the blind and unadulterated emotional pique of a raving fanboy.

 

What is one supposed to think? One is supposed to understand what, exactly, another is talking about before addressing it rather than making assumptions, attacking, and then claiming to understand that person's thoughts better than the person himself in a desperate (and pathetic) attempt to save face. You have never bothered to do that before, though, so why start now? I am sure you are filled with plenty of other incorrect assumptions about my views that you would be shocked to learn you are wrong about.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

What I said was in-bounds and is an opinion I am allowed to have. Were you truly some fair and tolerant individual you pretend to be, that would not bother you, but you are not one, so it did. And for all your bluster, you happen to love posts that attack things that you don't like that are equally scathing -- or more! That proof of your hypocrisy and dishonesty exist ITT is merely incidental. I've seen plenty of instances that show you for what you are, and suspect that others have seen here or earlier the dissonance between your antics and this holyman act of yours. And so I say, pay attention to yourself. Other people are not your business. Only you are your business, and you are no class act.

 

You were right about one thing, though: that I should ignore-list you. I am sick of your crap, masquerading about like some ultimate-authority on moral righteousness but never once examining the will behind your own thoughts and words. Why I don't do this kind of thing often is because I actually value opinions I may not like or agree with (I know, **** me, right?). However, it is evident to me now that I am better off not considering another word you have to say since there is no value in it. After all, it was you who recommended that I do.

[God]

Did I miss something?

[Jorji Costava]

Basically speaking, yeah, you did do it wrong. Your higher ideal failed in the face of the Reapers onslaught. My cold pragmatism won civilization its survival and future. Maybe being a Paladin helped you save a few civilian hostages or save a child while letting a bad guy get away to be caught another day. But against the Reapers? You finally get your showdown, and your philosophy no longer applies when you see the dilemma presented to you. Mine still applies. Not only that, it thrives. My philosophy is applicable to any situation. Yours isn't. That's why I view it as flawed.

 
Looks like you guys are completely talking past each other. You can argue which moral philosophy is best in real life terms, but I think Iakus is discussing more of a design issue: Should the game be in the business of explicitly telling 2/3 of its players that they "did it wrong," particularly in light of the fact that it hasn't done so for the previous 99% of its running time. Should the game be in the business of validating your personal moral philosophy, and does it make sense for it decide to do so only at the very end? Of course, I don't even think that the ending was an attempt to provide any sort of harsh lesson in pragmatism, making this whole discussion moot, but that is the sticking point between you two as I see it.
 
Returning to the topic of the OP, no, I don't think that ME3 is ultimately a satire on player choice, even though it is an interesting thought. The only game in the series that had any real self-awareness about the tropes it was using was ME1: Essentially, it's doing for space opera what Miller's Crossing was doing for the gangster films of the 30s and 40s. Examining the series as a whole, I'd argue that it's constantly attempting to validate Shepard's status as supreme decision-maker of the universe, particularly with its insistence that all politicians and diplomats are evil and/or stupid. Shepard makes all the decisions because the people who are supposed to be making those decisions are too stupid or selfish to do so. That doesn't seem like how you construct a satire of player agency.

[God]

Well to be fair, the game clearly states the Reapers are millions of years advanced than organics are. I don't know how many millions, but at least 37 million according to ME2. The first game rubs it in how superior the Reapers are (Sovereign) and you are essentially just bacteria (Harbinger, ME2). At the end of the third game, the Reapers aren't even using their full power to defeat you. Organics are like ants being crushed by the big boot of the Reapers.

 

That's the kind of enemy you've always been dealing with.

 

Going by the Leviathan of Dis, the Reapers are at least one billion years old. 

 

I don't know how far advanced the Reapers technically are. They're older, but they've also kept things stagnant for so long. They haven't really the boundary or made their own advances yet.

[ImaginaryMatter]

Well to be fair, the game clearly states the Reapers are millions of years advanced than organics are. I don't know how many millions, but at least 37 million according to ME2. The first game rubs it in how superior the Reapers are (Sovereign) and you are essentially just bacteria (Harbinger, ME2). At the end of the third game, the Reapers aren't even using their full power to defeat you. Organics are like ants being crushed by the big boot of the Reapers.

 

That's the kind of enemy you've always been dealing with.

 

The Reapers in the third game don't appear to be any where near as strong as Sovereign though. They get tied up by things like guerrilla tactics and 15 minute plans, mostly because Reapers seem bound to the same technological curve as organic ships (I would expect eon old beings to have figured a counter to what has to be the most obvious tactic to fight big ships). I think most people expected that a fleet of Sovereigns to ohko the galaxy. Instead the galaxy chooses to stand and fight which apparently works so well, you could very easily get a message when loading up the game that tells you the Reapers are being pushed back in areas and held off in others... which is accomplished with ground troops.

 

Not saying the Reapers turning out to be kinda sorta the eldritch space gods they were promised to be back in ME1 is invalid, but the EMS system really undermines that idea. Also, I wouldn't take anything Harbinger says seriously. TIM's silly plan back in ME2 only worked because Harbinger turned out to be the clown his excessive combat taunts suggested he was. The Reapers don't have a head for strategy and seem too reliant on their tentacle guns.