935 réponses à ce sujet

[Laughing_Man]

Someone who doesn't approve of the control ending or the synthesis one for being murky on ethical grounds

 

You can't judge the ethics and morality of something separate from its circumstances.

 

The point is that you have three (or four) choices, and you need to decide which is the least problematic according to you.

 

Every choice has a terrible cost, and you don't really have the privilage of not choosing, because that's a choice in itself and it carries perhaps the

most terrible price tag.

 

In general it was very well-received. Admittedly, it had some problems, but the most vocal people on this forum tend to be the haters.

 

Lovely yet meaningless hyperbole, just like "most people who liked the game tend to be blind Bioware fanboyz."

 

Both are true from a certain point of view, yet useless at the same time.

 

A more objective answer would be that the game had a somewhat mixed reception. The only thing EA agreed to say about it is that it had a very good launch. (and as usual for games like this, metacritic score is split between a user score of 5.8 to a metascore of 85)

 

If I had to rate the game personally I would give it a 6 for "average, with missed potential, mediocre gamepley, and excellent graphics" overall,

and 7 when specifically considering things like companions and story.

[gabdalla92]

But what do you guys wanted? Shepard to find a magic button that would destroy all reapers and bring peace to milky way? Reapers already destroyed the protheans, a far more developed civilization than humans, turians, asari etc. If you consider the power of reapers, of course the ending of the game would be of a difficult choice. Its like we cant defeat the gods but the effort of one of us (shep) was so great that he was offered to become a god. Also, very little time passed between the discovery of reapers by shep and their attacks and lets remember that the council couldnt care less about them.

 

Im not fluent in english and probably couldnt make myself totally understood. But yeah, i liked the ending and i think it suits well the story.

[gabdalla92]

It's like saying a good movie is bad because it has a sad ending

[Laughing_Man]

But what do you guys wanted?

 

It's like saying a good movie is bad because it has a sad ending

I'm not going to answer directly, this topic was discussed to death here, instead I'd recommend watching these two videos
if you want to understand some of the reasons for why people disliked the ending:
 

https://www.youtube....h?v=7MlatxLP-xs

https://www.youtube....h?v=jT_x64921ls

[DanielCofour]

You can't judge the ethics and morality of something separate from its circumstances.

 

The point is that you have three (or four) choices, and you need to decide which is the least problematic according to you.

 

Every choice has a terrible cost, and you don't really have the privilage of not choosing, because that's a choice in itself and it carries perhaps the

most terrible price tag.

 

Yet you can begrudge them and criticize them for presenting you with the choice in the first place in a series which was never about choosing between drowning a puppy or hanging a puppy. 

 

And yes, you can judge them, especially considering that this is a piece of art, and that ending was written there intentionally, it was badly implemented, horribly explained and all round stupid both in the message it tried to deliver and the circumstances and mechanics which made these choices possible. Alas, the ultimate reason why you can judge them, is because the epilogue presents all three choices as morally just, or even if not explicitly stating them, not one of them ponders the implications. Not only does it drastically go against the theme of the entire series at the eleventh hour, but doesn't even have the self-awareness of realizing what it just did. 

 

By contrast examine the choices of the Witcher 3, especially that of the Bloody Baron/Ladies of the Wood quest-lines. This quest-line requires you to make hard choices(letting loose a demonic spirit or sacrificing 5 orphans), ends badly no matter what you choose, yet it is one the most critically acclaimed stories in games to date(also my all time personal favorite). The fundamental differences are presentation and how insightful and intelligent that choice is, or rather series of seemingly unrelated choices are. It paces everything just right, it makes it clear that the player is not omnipotent right from the beginning, and everything is thematically consistent. None of which are true of Mass Effect 3. 

 

But I spent too many words on this tangent, so I'll stop.

Modifié par DanielCofour, 19 juillet 2016 - 12:23 .

[Laughing_Man]

Yet you can begrudge them and criticize them for presenting you with the choice in the first place in a series which was never about choosing between drowning a puppy or hanging a puppy.

 

Whoa there, I wasn't really defending the ending as a whole, I think that it is a half-baked idea that didn't really fit the theme of ME and was not polished or thought out nearly enough.

 

Just saying that when people talk about how "immoral" Synthesis / Control / Destroy is, they usually tend to ignore the circumstances of the choice.

 

Take Synthesis for example: Is it "okay" to change the entire galaxy at a cellular level without asking them? Probably not.

On the other hand, if you actually believe the catalyst, the change is purely a positive one, a straight up upgrade, and considering the price and possible dangers of the the other choices or not choosing, this could be considered the closest thing to the optimal choice.

 

Similar arguments could be made for the other choices.

[pdusen]

Lovely yet meaningless hyperbole, just like "most people who liked the game tend to be blind Bioware fanboyz."

 

Both are true from a certain point of view, yet useless at the same time.

 

Not in the slightest. I'll elaborate for your benefit: A tally of posts on this forum and whether they are expressing positive or negative attitudes toward DA:I would be dramatically skewed negative in comparison to a similar tally across a much larger and more varied sample of sources.

 

As for Metacritic, it's hard to take a user ratings site seriously when it can be so relentlessly review-bombed, either positively or negatively.

[Degs29]

It's like saying a good movie is bad because it has a sad ending

 

I wouldn't say that's an accurate metaphor.  Plenty of movies have good, sad endings.  But many movies also have crappy ending, both happy or sad.  ME3 falls into that camp.

[fdrty]

But what do you guys wanted? Shepard to find a magic button that would destroy all reapers and bring peace to milky way? Reapers already destroyed the protheans, a far more developed civilization than humans, turians, asari etc. If you consider the power of reapers, of course the ending of the game would be of a difficult choice. Its like we cant defeat the gods but the effort of one of us (shep) was so great that he was offered to become a god. Also, very little time passed between the discovery of reapers by shep and their attacks and lets remember that the council couldnt care less about them.

 

Im not fluent in english and probably couldnt make myself totally understood. But yeah, i liked the ending and i think it suits well the story.

 

I would have been fine with a 'press F to defeat reapers' ending. It's clear that they won't be defeated by conventional means. Most of the game is spent securing resources and troops to defend the Crucible. It may be a macguffin, but it's not a deus ex machina. Macguffins aren't always bad, especially when they fit the world thematically and require effort to make and deploy.

 

The peace comes to the milky way through a series of diplomatic concessions and difficult missions, not a magic button. Also, I fail to see how a magic button which destroys the reaper is somehow a bad thing, but a magic button which makes Shepard into a God is not, despite the possibility of Shepard becoming a god not being foreshadowed, not really making sense, not fitting thematically with the other choices in the game, and involving greater and more ridiculous degrees of space magic. I mean, the reapers can have space magic, but we built the crucible, how can it do what it does?

 

What bothers me is that, in a game about your squad of friends, you end the game not in combat, but alone, making a decision which nothing before matters. A decision in which there is really one true answer (destroy) and the rest have ill-defined consequences that we will never really see.

 

The ending was not the place for decisions. It was the place where the consequences of our past decisions should be evident, not irrelevant. What difference does aligning with the Geth, or curing the genophage, or anything, really, make to that climactic scene? Nothing.

 

Why wasn't there a boss? The other games ended in boss fights.

 

The shift in tone, themes and player action, combined with the bone--headed narrative resolution and dry exposition were what made the ending suck.

 

Not only does it drastically go against the theme of the entire series at the eleventh hour, but doesn't even have the self-awareness of realizing what it just did. 

 

When someone so fundamentally misunderstands their own work, I think it is reasonable to lose faith in them. If the whole of MEA is as bad as ME3's ending, then, yeah, it will be a terrible game.

 

Bioware games have been hurt, IMO, by chasing mainstream trends. I almost expect an AR app where you can walk around defeating darkspawn outside your local church. The problem is that the marketing department and execs who say 'make this more like mainstream games' don't understand game design, nor do they really understand what resonates with fans. the fan's don't even understand what resonates with them, either.

[Laughing_Man]

As for Metacritic, it's hard to take a user ratings site seriously when it can be so relentlessly review-bombed, either positively or negatively.

 

Things generally tend to balance themselves out, and when a game gets review-bombed I usually know about it.

And one way or the other, I want to know *why* a game was review bombed, because you can rarely trust traditional review sites to cover all aspects.

 

The very obvious difference between how official reviewers rate a game and how the average metacritic user tends to review a game is a good reason in itself to take into account both sides, If only because they represent different perspectives.

[Iakus]

It's like saying a good movie is bad because it has a sad ending

 *chug*

[David Selig]

But what do you guys wanted? Shepard to find a magic button that would destroy all reapers and bring peace to milky way?

That would have been better than finding a magic device which allows to decide the fate of the whole Universe for idiotic reasons and enables you to fundamentally change all sapient beings with a green magic wave.

[gabdalla92]

The way i see it, the game made clear that stopping the reapers was something like us humans trying to deny the fact the we all are going to die someday. The journey of the series was great, and so was to reunite almost all milky way species and see they fight together for the first time. But yeah, in the end, we are all going to die, but the things we accomplish when in life are what truly matters. 

Honestly, i do think that the ending could be a little better explained and shown during gameplay but how the hell you guys think we could defeat the reapers? That crucible thing, it was clear that it wouldn't work and milky way species had very little time to prepare any defenses or think about a way to defeat them (in fact, it was decided that a "noe's ark" (a.k.a. tempest) would try to fled to Andromeda).

Yeah i think that sheppard being offered to "become" a reaper was kinda weird but the big picture of the end game was that no one can escape reapers (death). I still think people hate on this ending beucase its sad and all the efforts put in the 3 games couldn't accomplish us to survive in milky way,

 

But anyway, thats just my opinion. I think we escaped the thread point haha

Andromeda will be great! Ill pre order it as soon as available on origin

[Laughing_Man]

The way i see it, the game made clear that stopping the reapers was something like us humans trying to deny the fact the we all are going to die someday. The journey of the series was great, and so was to reunite almost all milky way species and see they fight together for the first time. But yeah, in the end, we are all going to die, but the things we accomplish when in life are what truly matters. 

Honestly, i do think that the ending could be a little better explained and shown during gameplay but how the hell you guys think we could defeat the reapers? That crucible thing, it was clear that it wouldn't work and milky way species had very little time to prepare any defenses or think about a way to defeat them (in fact, it was decided that a "noe's ark" (a.k.a. tempest) would try to fled to Andromeda).

Yeah i think that sheppard being offered to "become" a reaper was kinda weird but the big picture of the end game was that no one can escape reapers (death). I still think people hate on this ending beucase its sad and all the efforts put in the 3 games couldn't accomplish us to survive in milky way,

 

But anyway, thats just my opinion. I think we escaped the thread point haha

Andromeda will be great! Ill pre order it as soon as available on origin

 

 

I'm not going to answer directly, this topic was discussed to death here, instead I'd recommend watching these two videos
if you want to understand some of the reasons for why people disliked the ending:
 

https://www.youtube....h?v=7MlatxLP-xs

https://www.youtube....h?v=jT_x64921ls

 

[DanielCofour]

Take Synthesis for example: Is it "okay" to change the entire galaxy at a cellular level without asking them? Probably not.

On the other hand, if you actually believe the catalyst, the change is purely a positive one, a straight up upgrade, and considering the price and possible dangers of the the other choices or not choosing, this could be considered the closest thing to the optimal choice.

 

Similar arguments could be made for the other choices.

 

Okay, that is a defendable position, but I'm of the opinion that morals that last only up until you're in trouble(even if that trouble is galactic annihilation) are no morals at all. 

[gabdalla92]

 

I'm not going to answer directly, this topic was discussed to death here, instead I'd recommend watching these two videos
if you want to understand some of the reasons for why people disliked the ending:
 

https://www.youtube....h?v=7MlatxLP-xs

https://www.youtube....h?v=jT_x64921ls

 

i opened the first video but the narrator has a lisp and thats very irritating

[Laughing_Man]

Okay, that is a defendable position, but I'm of the opinion that morals that last only up until you're in trouble(even if that trouble is galactic annihilation) are no morals at all. 

 

And a morality system that ignores reality is simply a disconnected set of rules with irrelevant reasoning.

 

I suppose it also depends on the purpose of your morality system. Are you hoping for spiritual enlightenment? Harmony between humans? etc.

 

You can't just ignore things like perspective and situation just to feel good about yourself, because this attitude would (in most cases) collapse very quickly

when you yourself (or those you care about) are in real trouble.

[Laughing_Man]

i opened the first video but the narrator has a lisp and thats very irritating

 

I don't think it's that bad, and he actually does a good job of presenting many inconsistencies and irritations in a concise manner. But it's your choice.

[straykat]

How are the geth different from Turians? Or, frankly, from other humans given problems of e.g. other minds? Or to put it another way: by what standard can you disqualify geth as "people" apart from "not being made out of meat"? 

 

It's exactly because of "meat". And all the cellular processes that entails. It's my only experience of life. I don't live in Magical Fairy Bioware Wonderland, where the definition is different.

 

Go ahead and blame me and call me genocidal for it though. Carry on with the delusion that people who played Mass Effect differently are just as bad as Stalin and Pol Pot. I have better things to do than dignifying it. At least dignifying it for too long.

[ld1449]

But what do you guys wanted? Shepard to find a magic button that would destroy all reapers and bring peace to milky way? Reapers already destroyed the protheans, a far more developed civilization than humans, turians, asari etc. If you consider the power of reapers, of course the ending of the game would be of a difficult choice. Its like we cant defeat the gods but the effort of one of us (shep) was so great that he was offered to become a god. Also, very little time passed between the discovery of reapers by shep and their attacks and lets remember that the council couldnt care less about them.

 

Im not fluent in english and probably couldnt make myself totally understood. But yeah, i liked the ending and i think it suits well the story.

 

The reason they needed a "magic button" is on Bioware/Mac Walters entirely.

 

In ME1, when... you know... a relatively *competent* head writer was in charge, it was specifically stated that the Reapers used the Citadel relay to shut down mass relay travel, cut off the entire galactic comunity from one another, download all the information they had on all their bases and military assets, so they could go sector by sector and planet by planet and that in this process, it took centuries to complete a full eradication. It was thus, heavilly implied in ME1 that the necessity of the Citadel relay was not only for maximum damage, but that the Reapers were primarilly ambush predators. They hit hard, fast, crippled their prey and then slowly devoured the remains that were left, utilizing sabotage, indoctrinated traitors and every possible means of subterfuge to undermine a competent defense.

 

Furthermore, the reapers, because of the events of ME1 and ME2 could have been further weakened by stating that they used up MASSIVE amounts of their energy reserves to fly the entire distance from Darkspace onto the Galaxy itself. Which would weaken their shields and weapons enough to make a fight 'possible' not a guaranteed victory, but not an outright defeat either. This would make them even more impressive because even at say 20% maximum power they would still have a chance to wipe out the whole galactic comunity "well ****, imagine them at 100%"

 

Along with the fact that it would validate the effects of ME1 and the significance/importance that it was to stop Sovereign.

 

Mac walters with the rule of cool writing he does, apparently didn't take any of this into account and just made the reaper forces this unstoppable juggernaut that neither needed the Citadel Relay, its control over other relays, information, indoctrination and sabotage to win effectively. They could just steamroll everything and had the numbers to take on the entire galaxy and still trump them numbers wise.

 

So yes. IF the writing had been handled relatively creatively, rather than *instantly* resorting to a Mcguffin bullshit, the game could have made a hell of alot more sense rather than having the literal "I win button" sitting in the humans ******* basement* for the last 20 years without anyone noticing.

[Cyonan]

The reason they needed a "magic button" is on Bioware/Mac Walters entirely.

 

In ME1, when... you know... a relatively *competent* head writer was in charge, it was specifically stated that the Reapers used the Citadel relay to shut down mass relay travel, cut off the entire galactic comunity from one another, download all the information they had on all their bases and military assets, so they could go sector by sector and planet by planet and that in this process, it took centuries to complete a full eradication. It was thus, heavilly implied in ME1 that the necessity of the Citadel relay was not only for maximum damage, but that the Reapers were primarilly ambush predators. They hit hard, fast, crippled their prey and then slowly devoured the remains that were left, utilizing sabotage, indoctrinated traitors and every possible means of subterfuge to undermine a competent defense.

 

Furthermore, the reapers, because of the events of ME1 and ME2 could have been further weakened by stating that they used up MASSIVE amounts of their energy reserves to fly the entire distance from Darkspace onto the Galaxy itself. Which would weaken their shields and weapons enough to make a fight 'possible' not a guaranteed victory, but not an outright defeat either. This would make them even more impressive because even at say 20% maximum power they would still have a chance to wipe out the whole galactic comunity "well ****, imagine them at 100%"

 

Along with the fact that it would validate the effects of ME1 and the significance/importance that it was to stop Sovereign.

 

Mac walters with the rule of cool writing he does, apparently didn't take any of this into account and just made the reaper forces this unstoppable juggernaut that neither needed the Citadel Relay, its control over other relays, information, indoctrination and sabotage to win effectively. They could just steamroll everything and had the numbers to take on the entire galaxy and still trump them numbers wise.

 

So yes. IF the writing had been handled relatively creatively, rather than *instantly* resorting to a Mcguffin bullshit, the game could have made a hell of alot more sense rather than having the literal "I win button" sitting in the humans ******* basement* for the last 20 years without anyone noticing.

 

and all of those implications were rendered irrelevant the moment Sovereign showed up and brute forced his way through the Citadel fleet and make it look like it was made out of wet paper. Even with the Geth fleet there, Sovereign was the spearhead of that attack and took an insane amount of punishment before going down. His shields were virtually unbreakable until Shep killing Saren took them down completely, because reasons.

 

Sure we could claim weakened shields but the writing in ME1 is inconsistent on that. We see a clear "rule of cool" moment in the cutscene against Sovereign after the shields go down where the entire Alliance fleet is shooting at it, and yet it's the Normandy that basically 1 shots him.  The Normandy is a ship outfitted for stealth and recon missions, and it's noted the Alliance has ships with far better firepower and yet they couldn't immediately annihilate the Reaper.

 

So which is it, can Reapers take sustained fire from an entire fleet even after their shields drop or can a single shot take them out?

 

I know the thing to do around here is love on Drew, but as much as I do like the lore of Mass Effect I can still point out a number of problems with the original game. Like how the conduit is a completely useless plot device that doesn't make any sense, and only makes Sovereign look like a complete idiot rather than an arrogant powerhouse that has taken down countless civilizations.

 

At the very least one can say the series is consistent about being a game with a story that doesn't hold up very well to the player stopping to think about it =P

[Seival]

But what do you guys wanted? Shepard to find a magic button that would destroy all reapers and bring peace to milky way? Reapers already destroyed the protheans, a far more developed civilization than humans, turians, asari etc. If you consider the power of reapers, of course the ending of the game would be of a difficult choice. Its like we cant defeat the gods but the effort of one of us (shep) was so great that he was offered to become a god. Also, very little time passed between the discovery of reapers by shep and their attacks and lets remember that the council couldnt care less about them.

 

Im not fluent in english and probably couldnt make myself totally understood. But yeah, i liked the ending and i think it suits well the story.

Completely agree.

 

I also believe that if the ending really had something excess, then it was destroy variant. But considering the episodes like derelict Reaper from ME2, destroy ending variant doesn't look like any kind of victory anyway, and can be easily tolerated.

[ld1449]

and all of those implications were rendered irrelevant the moment Sovereign showed up and brute forced his way through the Citadel fleet and make it look like it was made out of wet paper. Even with the Geth fleet there, Sovereign was the spearhead of that attack and took an insane amount of punishment before going down. His shields were virtually unbreakable until Shep killing Saren took them down completely, because reasons.

 

Sure we could claim weakened shields but the writing in ME1 is inconsistent on that. We see a clear "rule of cool" moment in the cutscene against Sovereign after the shields go down where the entire Alliance fleet is shooting at it, and yet it's the Normandy that basically 1 shots him.  The Normandy is a ship outfitted for stealth and recon missions, and it's noted the Alliance has ships with far better firepower and yet they couldn't immediately annihilate the Reaper.

 

So which is it, can Reapers take sustained fire from an entire fleet even after their shields drop or can a single shot take them out?

 

I know the thing to do around here is love on Drew, but as much as I do like the lore of Mass Effect I can still point out a number of problems with the original game. Like how the conduit is a completely useless plot device that doesn't make any sense, and only makes Sovereign look like a complete idiot rather than an arrogant powerhouse that has taken down countless civilizations.

 

At the very least one can say the series is consistent about being a game with a story that doesn't hold up very well to the player stopping to think about it =P

 

Note that my description of him was "relatively competent" I recognize Drew has his own issues in his writing, his book with Revan is riddled with issues and stupid moments. I could however, forgive Sovereign's whole 'Taking on a fleet solo' because of dramatic liscence. It was the final boss of the game basically. It had to feel and look climactic and it succeeded in that regard. Its like that moment where you know Luke Skywalker shouldn't be holding a candle to Vader in lightsaber combat in ESB but is somehow holding his own. "Meh whatever, movie would be boring if the fight lasted 10 seconds like it should"

 

But whereas the dumbing down effect in ME1 was done in order to make the final battle more dramatic, the Dumbing down of ME3 was to bring in a Mcguffn/Deus ex Machina with a giant 'Victory' sign attached to it. Bringing the crucible to the citadel felt like "Meh" not "Holy **** I did it!" And the Catalyst doesn't even fall into the same zip code in terms of writing quality

 

So while Drew has his issues sometimes going full retard,  Mac's writing is the equivalent of a mental abortion with a lobotomy that even going full retard for dramatic license can't account for.

[straykat]

Completely agree.

 

I also believe that if the ending really had something excess, then it was destroy variant. But considering the episodes like derelict Reaper from ME2, destroy ending variant doesn't look like any kind of victory anyway, and can be easily tolerated.

 

I don't see the relation. The derelict reaper was taken out by something more conventional. The Destroy beam is as new to the story as the Synthesis one. They're both from the Crucible.

[Cyonan]

Note that my description of him was "relatively competent" I recognize Drew has his own issues in his writing, his book with Revan is riddled with issues and stupid moments. I could however, forgive Sovereign's whole 'Taking on a fleet solo' because of dramatic liscence. It was the final boss of the game basically. It had to feel and look climactic and it succeeded in that regard. Its like that moment where you know Luke Skywalker shouldn't be holding a candle to Vader in lightsaber combat in ESB but is somehow holding his own. "Meh whatever, movie would be boring if the fight lasted 10 seconds like it should"

 

The way I see it is that Mass Effect was creating problems with the story pretty much from the word go in Mass Effect 1 but often took an attitude of "we'll deal with that sometime later" until Mass Effect 3 came around and we ran out of later games to keep pushing things off to.

 

While Mac certainly could have handled ME3 a lot better, I don't think we should place the blame entirely on him. Drew created a lot of problems and then left them for Mac to deal with.

 

As far as Sovereign goes they could have made it cinematic without making the Reaper be the one to basically solo the fleet, since he did have his own Geth fleet with him that kind of barely did anything.

 

but Mass Effect 1 wanted to build up the trilogy's main villains as being this massive unstoppable force that you'd believe took down countless civilizations before you. It just seems like they just never really thought during ME1 about how they were going to handle that when it came time to actually beat them.