Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread

Michael Zenke wrote:

Do you know what happens at dev studios when crap like this gets posted on huge blogs? Devs go home wondering why the hell they bothered in the first place. Why they bothered wasting years of their lives, forgoing relationships, decent food, exercise, denying themselves the ability to have fun so they could make fun for other people.

I'm not sure what your point is, because surely you don't mean that bloggers shouldn't be allowed to be openly critical of a game. Is "terrible" too strong of a word?

With a 90+ metacritic score and something like 4m units sold I don't think the BioWare devs have much reason to feel bad about themselves.

Seriously, guys, whatever happened to 'the journey is its own reward'?

Right about the time Bioware promised that your decisions really matter, when in fact, your decisions are insignificant.

Malor wrote:

Yeah, that was foreshadowed repeatedly.

Spoiler:

Two instances I can think of offhand are the star going nova from dark energy, and Mordin's comments about how humans are so incredibly variable compared to all other sentient races.

That would have fit much, much better.

That's the ending I always thought they were leading up to.

Spoiler:

Even Shepard's conversation with Soveriegn in the first game hinted that the Reapers thought they were the good guys and the rest of the universe were too short-sighted to realize this.

That said, for the people talking about the Crucible project coming out of nowhere, that's not exactly true. A lot of the purpose for the expedition at the beginning of the first game - and going to the planet to recover the Prothean beacon - revolved around the fact that there were suggestions that the Protheans were planning on building a giant weapon for some unexplained purpose.

Zenke, I think you are painting in broad strokes against people in this thread and elsewhere who have legitimate concerns with the ending of Mass Effect 3. If a player thinks that a game failed to match expectations and writes about it, that is his right. Saying that articles like the one from Kotaku hurt developers is absurd. If we are to hold games to any reasonable standard, then stifling conversation, no matter how passionate, hurts the industry.

Just because you played for the journey, doesn't mean a lot of other people didn't have other expectations just as rational as your own. Both sides of this debate need to step back and cool off I think.

Grubber788 wrote:

Just because you played for the journey, doesn't mean a lot of other people didn't have other expectations just as rational as your own. Both sides of this debate need to step back and cool off I think.

Agreed. I think it's laudable to all folks concerned that we're passionate about our hobbies, but this stuff on blogs this morning made it too 'personal' for me. Going to step back from this thread, but I want to clarify: As you say, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Thanks for debating, all.

I think the level of vitriol and debate means that, no matter where you come down on the ending, that this series is a success.

Think about it. Even if you're upset, when was the last time I game made you feel this much? And sure, some of those feelings are negative. But they're only negative because you care. Bioware made you care.

Very soon I will be starting over at ME1 and going straight through (right now I'm trying to use LoL as a distraction but I don't know how long that will last). And frankly, I can't wait to hit the ME3 ending again. Not the last 5 minutes, but the last 2 hours. I want to see these characters that I love and say goodbye again.

And speaking as one of the people that thought the ending perhaps invalidated some of your choices, I sincerely hope that some of you can start to see passed that in time. Not because I need people to agree with me (I think we're neck-deep in YMMV territory here) but because if you're bitter towards ME, then you're unlikely to go back and enjoy the hell out of some of the best story telling in gaming.

Sure, that 5 minutes rubbed you the wrong way. But a freaking amazing %99.9 of 3 games is sitting there waiting for you.

/silver lining

jdzappa wrote:

I'm currently playing through ME 1 and trying to decide if it's worth playing the entire series over the next couple months only to get to a thoroughly unsatisfying ending. So, is the ending so bad you'd recommend someone new to ME not even bother? Or are there redeeming qualities?

At the very least, I think you can play through Mass Effect 1 and get an extremely satisfying experience out of it. I'm replaying it for like the sixth time or something now. By the time you finish it, there's a chance that some DLC will completely change the ME3 experience and you can re-evaluate in light of that.

I'm honestly kind of jealous because I wish I hadn't "Day One"'d ME1 and ME2; both got some DLC that met rave reviews. I haven't even touched most of it, which (besides prepping my "canon" ME3 runthrough) is why I'm replaying from the start now. It is also helping me to put off ME3 until they "finish" it.

Don't get me wrong, I still liked Mass Effect 3, and I'll play it again, but knowing what's coming will make me much more likely to bail on the game partway after I've seen how the stuff I'm interested in plays out differently instead of seeing it through to the end.

This is in stark contrast to Mass Effect 1's ending, which was fist-pumpingly awesome, and sent me straight back to start another game so I could go through it again. Mass Effect 2's ending, silly reaper baby design aside, was similarly great.

They really let the series down with what they came up with.

Xeknos wrote:
stevenmack wrote:
Alien Love Gardener wrote:
Pikey26 wrote:

oo many people shoot down synthesis as a 'space magic' when really, mass relays and magic ruins that teach you and show you things telepathically are no less nutty in concept.

Sure, but it's a difference between starting off a story with "It was a time umpty-throms and diddly-bongs (and here's how they work)" and going "and the the nurf appeared and proclaimed that verily, thou must choose between the humpty or the dumpty or the frumpty and then I will huudle-fuudle the varsuum" during the last five minutes of the story. Sure, they're equally silly, but the first is part of the buy-in for the story, and the latter is a cheap deus ex machina.

Someone listens to the Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo podcast

Take this with a pinch of salt, being mostly internet hearsay, but apparently the ORIGINAL motivation for the reapers / ending was changed dramatically once Drew was shifted over to work on SWTOR...

Spoiler:
"The Reapers' goal was to find a way to stop the spread of Dark Energy which would eventually consume everything. That's why there was so much foreshadowing about Dark Energy in ME2.

The Reapers as a whole were 'nations' of people who had fused together in the most horrific way possible to help find a way to stop the spread of the Dark Energy. The real reason for the Human Reaper was supposed to be the Reapers saving throw because they had run out of time. Humanity in Mass Effect is supposedly unique because of it's genetic diversity and represented the universe's best chance at stopping Dark Energy's spread.

The original final choice was going to be "Kill the Reapers and put your faith in the races of the galaxy in finding another way to stop the spread with what little time is left" or "Sacrifice humanity, allowing them to be horrifically processed in hopes that the end result will justify the means."

And that ending makes far more sense then what ended up happening.

Naw, a lot of desperate fans on Bioware's boards really dug into that theory. However it seems like the writers were contemplating switching the narrative to dark energy during ME2, but finally decided to go back to tech singularity, which was their original plans.

Maybe none of Mass Effect 3 happened and the twist will be revealed in Mass Effect 4.

Spoiler:

I think the hallucination theory is plausible just based on what's in the game, but it seems ridiculous that BioWare would create that whole scene and then the ending cutscenes only for it to not be real.

Just finished the game.

I'm a huge fan of the first two games, and the third didn't disappoint. I couldn't put it down; 40 hours of playtime crammed into just a couple days, and I loved every minute of it.

First, as it's the major point of discussion, the ending:

Spoiler:

I'm not really happy with it, for the same reasons as most here and elsewhere. With that said, I don't in any way feel it ruined the game. Mass Effect is a journey, not a destination! Still, I really, really hope they do *something* to clear up some of the more glaring issues or at least answer the more pressing questions.

With that said, I really dislike this "Choose The Ending" paradigm that games are adopting these days - see also Deus Ex, for example. I'd have been much happier with a single ending that has multiple approaches, a convergence if you will, or an ending based more on your actions throughout the game.

That said, I'm only unhappy about the ending because I came to really care about the people in the game. I'd have sacrificed the galaxy for a chance to settle down with Tali on Rannoch. This is the crowning acheivement of Mass Effect, in my opinion - I was much more emotionally involved in this series than I ever have been in a game before, and at a level rivalling the best books and movies I've watched. Sure, the writing isn't up to the standards of those, but the interactive nature of the game makes up for a lot.

As to the game itself... I'm enormously happy with how it played out. I loved how every little thing that happened involved what had gone before. Major things, such as:

Spoiler:

The Rachni Queen, once saved a second time, actively joining my efforts to save the galaxy as an ally

And the minor things too, such as

Spoiler:

Conrad, taking a bullet for me... or not, because Jenna had sabotaged the terrorists gun... and the two of them pairing up, afterwards was a laugh.

The moments with Garrus throughout the game are incredible as well, particularly your last Paragon talk with him. I always liked Garrus, though I never used him my pure-soldier Shepard always did better with Tali and Liara/Grunt, and I felt the "best friend" vibe worked very well.

I just can't get over how involved I was - am - with the game. There are a lot of flaws with the implementation - the combat, for example, is ok but repetitious. I'd have preferred to have some instances where pressing forward, being bold is rewarded instead of always pushing the whole Cover-Shooter angle. Crouch behind something, shields up, pop out and kill a few baddies, crouch again and have a sammich, etc. I disliked how virtually every encounter is clearly telegraphed by the environment as a result. Lots of staggered obstacles? Fight coming. Worse, if you advanced too quickly into these areas, the enemies would spawn immediately behind you as well as in front of you, leading to a quick death. That, too, reinforced the whole Caution, Always thing. Planet scanning wasn't at all interactive, and as the game autosaved when you entered a system you can simply fly around and discover everything, die, then grab your loot in safety the second time around. Further, what you did find was never really shown in any more detail than a text blurb. I'd have loved at least an image for each War Asset, for example - pictures of the ships, etc.

But none of that mattered. The combat was fun enough that the action sequences helped keep you excited, the exploration gave you an opportunity to go and find interesting things (if only really in the text blurbs)... They were good enough to keep you playing while the story sucked you in and ate your soul.

I wanted to save the galaxy because I loved the galaxy, warts and all, not because I wanted to beat the game. By the end, it wasn't about the game at all.

I can only hope and pray that some ambitious developer follows in these footsteps, and builds on this framework. The game needs to be fun, of course, but don't obsess about Gamer Stuff. This goes to show that the Video Game as Art thing is entirely possible and awesome.

I'm mad I never saw Conrad in my game.

Apparently at the Refugee Camp on the Citadel? But I must not have visited at the right time. Probably the same time I missed all those fetch quests.

Wintersdark:

There are a lot of flaws with the implementation - the combat, for example, is ok but repetitious. I'd have preferred to have some instances where pressing forward, being bold is rewarded instead of always pushing the whole Cover-Shooter angle. Crouch behind something, shields up, pop out and kill a few baddies, crouch again and have a sammich, etc. I disliked how virtually every encounter is clearly telegraphed by the environment as a result. Lots of staggered obstacles? Fight coming. Worse, if you advanced too quickly into these areas, the enemies would spawn immediately behind you as well as in front of you, leading to a quick death.

That really depends on class choice, squad loadout and power selection as well as enemy situation, type, and so on. I almost always found it advisable to press forward as a Soldier, since I was insanely tough even on Hardcore and my Inciendary Ammo power further cut down on incoming fire. Getting the flank on the enemy usually ensured a quick end to an encounter.

As an Infiltrator, I find it more advisable to hang back and snipe, though there are Infiltrators who ditch the sniper rifle for an up-close shotgunny approach to conflict resolution. I confess that freezing an enemy followed by a shattering Heavy Melee attack is very satisfying.

ME2 isn't as much of a cover shooter as, say, Gears of War. In fact, you could play ME2 as an Assault Sentinel and hardly ever use cover at all! ME3 pushes that further by giving you enemies that have preferential angles of attack, aggressive enemies, flank positions and tactical details.

Stele:

No, it's after the Cerberus Attack.

As Adept on my first full playthrough (and likely my last), I played Hardcore. And I often ran around just Singularity/Warp locking everything but the beefy mobs. While it's 'harder' in ME3, they also didn't do the whole 'armor/shield on EVERY THING because it's on harder difficulty) this time around. Esp with Liara in my party supplying an additional source of Singularity, I hardly died, and had a blast.

Even on that particular later level with like 5 banshees on the field, I was more or less able to constantly keep moving and dodging while just plowing the lesser units in front of me.

LarryC wrote:

That really depends on class choice, squad loadout and power selection as well as enemy situation, type, and so on. I almost always found it advisable to press forward as a Soldier, since I was insanely tough even on Hardcore and my Inciendary Ammo power further cut down on incoming fire. Getting the flank on the enemy usually ensured a quick end to an encounter.

As an Infiltrator, I find it more advisable to hang back and snipe, though there are Infiltrators who ditch the sniper rifle for an up-close shotgunny approach to conflict resolution. I confess that freezing an enemy followed by a shattering Heavy Melee attack is very satisfying.

ME2 isn't as much of a cover shooter as, say, Gears of War. In fact, you could play ME2 as an Assault Sentinel and hardly ever use cover at all! ME3 pushes that further by giving you enemies that have preferential angles of attack, aggressive enemies, flank positions and tactical details.

ME3's combat is substantially better than it's predecessors, no doubt. But I meant more overall rather than combat tactics: You're always better off staying in cover most of the time. You don't NEED to - you certainly can play a melee Shep - but you can basically slowly work your way forward through every single encounter, one cover-obstacle at a time. With very few exceptions, you can take all the time in the world for each encounter, so there's no real pressure. That said, the game does do an exceptionally good job of making you want to/feel like you should hurry.

I like that melee is actually a very valid option - Brutes don't have an instant-kill attack, despite what people think. You just need more health/shields, and to dodge their charge/hit them when they are recovering then roll away. But, what I'm saying is the most effective method to fight is always to slowly work forward through cover, irregardless of what weapon you're using or what powers you have. The weapon/power choice merely determines how far you want to be from your enemy.

That depends on your class. I played a Vanguard and was almost never in cover. The solution to being almost about to die with a Vanguard is to Biotic Charge into the thick of it, recharge you shields and shotgun/melee the sh*t out of everything. It's a very different play experience from ME2 or 1, and greatly improved IMO.

BNice wrote:

The thing about the ending is everyone's reaction will be a reaction. Reactions are emotional and not rational and so I don't want to convince anyone who liked the ending to dislike it. I do however want to point out that these quotes (and how the entire series has played) do set you up for certain expectations and those expectations were not met.

I think that is the crux of my problem. While I agree that the "reveal" of the concluding storyline could have been handled much better, I actually don't have a problem with it. I certainly also don't agree that gamers "deserved" the ability to have an ending where everything works out just fine for everyone, which I think was the main failing of the conclusion of ME2.

But they would not shut up about how your choices matter in this series, only to make one choice you make in the last 5 minutes of the game have far more relevance to the conclusion than the hundreds of choices you made previously.

Taking down a brute with melee on the lowest difficulty is comical, in fact, the whole thing is comical how easy they make it. I think you could hug a brute and your squad could take it down of their own volition before you die, after they clear up everything else. The power difference between you and enemies on lowest is vast.

In other not-the-ending news, one thing I thought they could have capitalised on a bit that they didn't was the Cerberus human supremacist angle. In ME1 you're shown they're a extremist terrorist group doing various distasteful things, ME2 puts you in a temporary marriage of convenience against the collectors harvesting of human colonies, but I can't remember an example of them working against other races. It was a very 'told but not shown' way of doing it. Udina's involvement in the coup was pretty good too, as he definitely has that side to him that sympathises with their goals, although it would have been better if that was drawn out a bit more.

I remember one thing I took from lightly skimming the ME3 leak (presumably either I interpreted it wrong or it was changed) was that with the discovery of the human reaper in ME2, Cerberus aimed to have humanity ascend to being reapers (or gain something from the reapers) to dominate over other races, that would mean he would be working with the reapers in one sense, or on a parallel course to their goals. That would be a bit different to learning to control them, and presumably have them as your pet or to use the indoctrination to install Illusive Man as the galaxy's evil overlord.

I thought that approach had a bit more of an interesting angle to it. You wouldn't just be gathering an alliance to kill the reapers and liberate Earth, but there's the potential to stab everyone in the back making a deal with the devil.

Spoiler:

Most of the articles defending the ending that I've read seem to think that people are hung up on the fact that Shepard died (which she didn't heh). I would've been perfectly fine with Shepard dying, as long as it had been handled well. The Anderson moment was pretty good, but:
1) it was too short
2) it should've been someone I cared more about, like Garrus
3) it wasn't the end!!

If you could've had a conversation with Garrus as Shepard was dying, with the Crucible working, that would still have been a tragic ending. It would probably have left you feeling down about Shepard's death, but it would've been counter balanced by having accomplished what you set out to do.

I think the biggest problem with the ending is it's just too short. You'd expect the end of this massive, 3-game spanning RPG would be a bit more, well, conclusive. Those whole ending feels rushed, not in a "they had to get the game shipped" kind of rushed but in a "we needed 10-15 minutes more exposition" kind of way.

I've waited a few days since finishing the game to post here, because I wanted to give some distance. What a fantastic first 30 hours. Alas, the final 30 minutes. It's as if the person who wrote the ending wasn't talking to the people making the rest of the game. Up until the entrance of glowy, space god-child, the game was shaping up to be a hall-of-famer. Here is my video metaphor for the ending:

Spoiler:

Shepard cures the genophage, ends the Geth-Quarian war, unites the galaxy -- for what? I want my Shepard to be the hero, save the day, and pull through by the skin of his teeth...you know, like I have over the previous 100 hours of Mass Effect. I want to see an epilogue with my companions and where they are in a post-Reaper galaxy. Maybe Shepard is retired to some quiet idyllic corner of the galaxy to finally live in peace. For me, the characters in Shepard's team are the most compelling part of the Mass Effect story. I genuinely care about what happens to them. The section of goodbyes leading up to the ending was poignant and well done (Garrus, *sniff*), but why can't I have door number 4, an ending where we all get to live to live 'happily ever after?' Maybe that ending would be trite, but (for me) that is the ending the series was heading towards, not an unsatisfying, chose the door to your color of space magic. It felt like a bait-and-switch.

MojoBox wrote:

I think the biggest problem with the ending is it's just too short. You'd expect the end of this massive, 3-game spanning RPG would be a bit more, well, conclusive. Those whole ending feels rushed, not in a "they had to get the game shipped" kind of rushed but in a "we needed 10-15 minutes more exposition" kind of way.

Hey, they had to make the MP. EA's resources aren't infinite.

DSGamer wrote:
MojoBox wrote:

I think the biggest problem with the ending is it's just too short. You'd expect the end of this massive, 3-game spanning RPG would be a bit more, well, conclusive. Those whole ending feels rushed, not in a "they had to get the game shipped" kind of rushed but in a "we needed 10-15 minutes more exposition" kind of way.

Hey, they had to make the MP. EA's resources aren't infinite.

But, but, they said multiplayer wasn't at the expense of singleplayer.

I guess ME2 was good because EA didn't have enough time, post-purchase, to really screw it up.

Malor wrote:

I guess ME2 was good because EA didn't have enough time, post-purchase, to really screw it up.

That's been my argument when discussing how bad DA2 sucked. Everyone said "but ME2 was great" and it was like, they just bought them, EA didn't have time to screw it up.

Ah EA how I despise thee

Malor wrote:

I guess ME2 was good because EA didn't have enough time, post-purchase, to really screw it up.

I remember thinking that at the time, actually. The weird Day 1 DLC and the Dragon Blood armor had the stink of an idea EA would come up with. Otherwise it felt like it was Bioware's baby.

Hyetal wrote:

http://arkis.deviantart.com/art/Mass...

This is my ending.

Damnit.

IMAGE(http://theinsanityreport.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/sisko-facepalm.jpg)

To clarify, this is me admitting I had not fully thought through some of the elements we were discussing here. While I still think the ending I played has resonance, I will also state that the link there is incredibly compelling stuff.

DSGamer wrote:
Malor wrote:

I guess ME2 was good because EA didn't have enough time, post-purchase, to really screw it up.

I remember thinking that at the time, actually. The weird Day 1 DLC and the Dragon Blood armor had the stink of an idea EA would come up with. Otherwise it felt like it was Bioware's baby.

That kind of links up with my thinking of how Valve operate. Valve always seem to leave something on the table, that they hope for someone else to pick up and grow from that, and that hopefully benefits Valve in return. EA on the other hand seems (understandably) to try never to leave anything on the table, to take everything that's even possibly going to be available, and I think that in the long run they end up poorer from it and their games end up poorer for it.