Mass Effect 3.5B: Taste the Rainbow (Story and Ending Discussion; Spoilers!)

[Aotrs Commander]

The Collectors and their base of operations went from being the scariest aliens in the galaxy to bumbling henchmen in the span of one game. I can't blame Bioware for wanting the Reapers, the cosmic horror big bads of the whole trilogy, to be afforded a bit more gravity than that.

If that was their intention, then they utterly and completely failed in all aspects. Not only did I find the Reapers far less threatening this time around i general (the "threat" I found all came from game-mechanical threats and precious little else) - mostly because of the lack of communication (aside from the exhange with that one Reaper on Rannoch, the Reaper forces were all faceless aliens - where were the ringing threats from Harbinger? The Reapers themselves should have been shouting mockingly all through their attacks and they stomped through the cities, rather than just making a sound like soggy woodchipper¹) Heck, I found Cerberus more intimidating, as at least you felt they were, y'know, sentient.

But on top of that, the Reapers were in the end reduced to the hapless flunkies of some holographic nutcase who's motivation was inherently stupid. They weren't even afforded the dignity of being the architects of their own destiny. The Reapers just came across as monsters in ME 3, not villains this time, and that seriously hurt their threat and uniqueness.



¹The endless repetition of the Reaper noise, especially in the scanning minigame, removed any semblense of worry in that noise - which was a shame, since it was quite good the first dozen times... (I may be humorously exaggerating a bit, but the point stands.)

[LordShotGun]

The endless repetition of the Reaper noise, especially in the scanning minigame, removed any semblense of worry in that noise - which was a shame, since it was quite good the first dozen times...

Scared the crap outta me the first few times until I relised I could scan away blindly until I found everything, get caught, reload and now know where everything is.

Well, with the whole war assets business, which is pretty analogous to Loyalty in ME2, then an obvious possibility would be tiers of endings. At the bottom is the bad ending--you lose, the cycle continues. Next up, you fling a light into the future, and the next cycle is the one to defeat the Reapers. Do a bit better, and it's mutually assured destruction--Reapers die, so does everyone else, but the cycle is broken; good luck to our inheritors. Do good, and the Reaper's are down for the count thanks to Shepard's heroic sacrifice, but the galaxy has a lot of rebuilding to do, just how much being dependent on your choices and war assets--various allies and squad members could also live or die depending on your military readiness and specific choices in the final battle, here. And, of course, in the top tier, Shepard crawls out of certain death alive one more time, retiring to Rannoch with Tali/raising bouncing blue babies with Liara/running a bar with Garrus/etc.

This is EXACTLY what I wanted. Granted it would only work if decoupled from the STUPID multiplayer (which I still think should have been a separate game) and individual choices were given more impact as to what happens at the end.

Besides, wasn't ME2 tiered anyway? Depending on who you got loyal and what upgrades you bought and who you picked for your specialists, you could end up with hundreds of different endings.

I know my first play through I didn't have a guide for the optimal choices and lost Mordin in the steam tunnels and grunt at the distraction. These loses HURT because I knew that similar to a "Real" Shepard, I just didn't know that would happen.

[Marnath]

I know my first play through I didn't have a guide for the optimal choices and lost Mordin in the steam tunnels and grunt at the distraction. These loses HURT because I knew that similar to a "Real" Shepard, I just didn't know that would happen.

What possessed you to think Mordin was a good choice for the steam tunnel? O.o
Sure he's got some special forces training but he's mostly a scientist. He's also super old. 50 is like 180 in salarian years.

*edit: I sent Jack on the distraction team my first time. I was sure she'd be uniquely well suited to it. Apparently not.

[Luzahn]

What's the exact line about Salarians? Individuals above forty are a rarity?

[LordShotGun]

What possessed you to think Mordin was a good choice for the steam tunnel? O.o
Sure he's got some special forces training but he's mostly a scientist. He's also super old. 50 is like 180 in salarian years.

*edit: I sent Jack on the distraction team my first time. I was sure she'd be uniquely well suited to it. Apparently not.

Well he certainly seemed to know his way around collector technology, what with the whole seeker swarm and myriad of upgrades (which he researches) that you earn from collector corpses. Thus, my reasoning that if anyone was gonna hack collector tech (which at the time I still thought was inferior to reaper tech) it would be the guy who had been working with it for months.

Same thing with distraction team. Need someone to make lots of noise and lots of dead collectors? Grunt came perfectly to mind, and at the time I thought every party member had a mission they could do and didn't know that he couldn't be used as any specialist (except escort but that barely counts).

[Derthric]

"The galaxy" is an amorphous blob that no player connects directly with. All those millions dead on Palaven and even Earth are meaningless statistics. That is no sacrifice.

As for your examples - Tuchanka would've been cheapened if you could save Mordin and Wrex though. All that meaningful sacrifice on Mordin's part would have been worthless because it would have been degraded from "someone else might have gotten it wrong" to "Shepard messed up somewhere." And getting off Rannoch with Legion stowed away in the AI core would have been just as cheap.

But those people are not statistics at all. They are represented by all the stories you hear through the citadel. Hearing the fear in the girl at the docks waiting for her parents on the Citadel knowing she was clinging to a false hope. The woman who sold her car to buy her friend better armor to protect him. The Quarian on Rannoch saying good bye to his son through us, who I think is the son of the captain of Alorei in ME2. The shock of knowing the PTSD Asari killed joker's sister is not a statistic. Thats emotional connection of loss and death built up starting from the first mission in ME1 with Cpl. Jenkins. All of that leads to the Catalyst.

He may not be able to enact them, but he still understands/is aware of them. You walked into the Citadel thinking Destroy was the only option. And if he hadn't popped up to warn you, you'd have gone through with it and wiped out the Geth without realizing what you've done. Why are you mad at him for warning you?

Because he is an author avatar. He is their mouthpiece. He is not warning us, that's Casey Hudson and Mac Walters saying Destroy is the "Bad choice". His character is worth squat. He didn't enact prior solutions because they never meant for you to question his thought process. I hate him as their DMPC that they let define the endings.

I am not arguing about his in story nature about his ability to execute synthesis 2 million years ago or not. But rather that his character is only there to give us choices that the writers dictate to us.

Catharsis is irrational and more to the point, shortsighted when dealing with a device whose power can potentially reshape the entire galaxy. I say again that you lose nothing by learning what your options are and what they do. (Though I would have welcomed more elaboration on that second point.)

Once again not one for Shepard, I the player need catharsis. I am not a passive observer on this narrative I am a participant. The key participant. Once more the very options are foolishly and poorly presented. They exist solely for them to say they gave us choice.

The crappiness of the choices is subjective. Properly explained, they could be anything but crappy.

But as they are, and as such as the crux of the story, they are so fundamentally poorly explained and presented that to properly do so and address all the problems that have since arrisen because of those flaws requires more than a cinematic epilogue it needs a fundamental presentational rewrite. And still does not address the flaws of PC/Player connection.

[quote]Unless you value Shepard's life above saving the galaxy, in which case we probably won't see eye to eye.[/quote[

I value my experience over all of that. But as I have said Shepard's death can work. As it is presently without a fundamental alteration, including gameplay changes, it will not work.

No they aren't, not in the slightest. Where is the option to appoint Hackett as the human councilor? Where is the option to give the Collector Base to the Alliance instead of TIM?

Where did that come from? We are given bounds and a question but within those bounds we arefree to use our (the players) judgement. Not having those options is not a determining factor on the "right or wrong" of it. We Are judging the choices not forming them from scratch.

The ending was rushed, I definitely agree. Which is why I hope the EC will alleviate that.

We are in agreement here, I think its a tougher fix than some others do.

You can't know that for sure. Halo 3 was supposed to be the "last game in the trilogy" too.

It was known from day 1 that ME3 was the last of Shepard's story. It would be the end of the Reaper arc and of Shepard's impact on the galaxy. The setting would be used again but this was it. It was to be a self contained story

I admit, I didn't expect it to get to 35 pages BEFORE the EC released.

Its also the 2nd thread for this. So really 85 pages.

[Trazoi]

You're going to let the fact that you were injured and therefore not fast enough to shoot the thing without listening to a whiny brat influence your choice to save the galaxy?

Well actually, yes as it turned out. One of my prime reasons for choosing Synthesis was that limping around was a pain in the ass and the Synthesis path was the easiest to walk down.

BTW the decision to injure Shepard/the player with Harbinger's beam is one of my biggest gripes with the ending and the point where I knew what was going to come afterwards was going to be the part that everyone was saying sucked. However at the time I thought it was the final showdown with TIM. The Starkid threw me for such a loop I was laughing.

You're also all going to shoot me for this, but I don't think that a purely triumphant ending with Shephard alive and happy was the story the writers wanted to tell. If we want to crucify the writing staff for cheap, shoddy execution, go right ahead. But if you want to crucify them for not writing the victorious ending that you wanted, my response is too bad, go write a fanfiction or make your own game.

There's a few games I've played which have had very downbeat endings which simply felt right. And because of this, they're also some of the strongest, most moving endings I've seen in games.

My problem with it in ME3 is twofold:

• It's not the sort of ending that in my mind works for Mass Effect as a series.
• But more importantly, if you're aiming for this kind of ending you have to make it work. A game is a story told as a partnership between the writers and the player, and if the game doesn't put in the effort to sell a downer ending to the player it's going to feel like a betrayal rather than moving.

The ending of ME3 feels like it was supremely rushed due to internal pressures. And given that's the case, I think they should have gone with a traditional ending of Shepard lives, galaxy down but not out, because half-assing that will merely feel disappointing rather than a gut punch.

This is pure visceral emotion. You the player might feel better not having to listen to the rest of it, but what does Shepard gain by not hearing the thing out?

There's no functional difference between shooting the pipe before he tells you about Synthesis or after. You're still following his instructions. Which you have to do, because you have no idea how to activate the Crucible.

I could argue that saving valuable seconds means the survival of more of the fleet and a greater chance Shepard will complete the mission before the Crucible is destroyed, but you're right. There isn't a downside because that's part of the rules of the game. We all know that Bioware RPG games don't give proper freedom of choice - it's all an illusion where we're given set pieces where a binary or ternary choice is given and get to nudge the rest of the game down a different set of responses. Bioware was good at getting this illusion act done right, so the presentation of the choices was obvious enough so we knew where they were but integrated interestingly enough that we were have to suspend out disbelief and go along with the ride. But the Starkid is so utterly blatant and completely out of the blue that it breaks the spell. "Hey players it's time for your all-important ending choice with difficult consequences - let me list them for you." It's so incredibly weak it's a bad parody of Bioware games.

I'm keen to see if Bioware ever releases a post-mortem of their writing process. The ending has to have been rushed for some reason. But it still doesn't explain why they chose that ending instead of something else, like side with Anderson or TIM in the final showdown (which is still pretty stupid - who would go with TIM - but at least it fits a bit better).

[LordShotGun]

I'm keen to see if Bioware ever releases a post-mortem of their writing process. The ending has to have been rushed for some reason. But it still doesn't explain why they chose that ending instead of something else, like side with Anderson or TIM in the final showdown (which is still pretty stupid - who would go with TIM - but at least it fits a bit better).

As much as I would like to see them state where they think they went wrong, I severely doubt that will happen, if only because it would make the cooperate suits think that this would harm bioware's stocks.

[Trazoi]

As much as I would like to see them state where they think they went wrong, I severely doubt that will happen, if only because it would make the cooperate suits think that this would harm bioware's stocks.

Also because a large factor is almost assuredly the time pressures put on Bioware from EA. Much like Dragon Age 2, ME3 feels undercooked all throughout.

[thegurullamen]

Also because a large factor is almost assuredly the time pressures put on Bioware from EA. Much like Dragon Age 2, ME3 feels undercooked all throughout.

I don't think it feels undercooked throughout. There are some places where it could have been polished a little more, but with the exception of the ending, it was a damned fine and satisfying game.

[LordShotGun]

I don't think it feels undercooked throughout. There are some places where it could have been polished a little more, but with the exception of the ending, it was a damned fine and satisfying game.

Except for Kia Lang, the random artifact missions, the scary-the-first-time-but-then-annoying-reaper-scanning-mechanic and of course the lack of dialogue from Ashley or Kaiden...

Kai Lang? Fixed with a few more sightings and/or flashbacks to where he actually comes from.

Random Artifact Missions? Fixed with ACTUAL missions.

Reaper Scanning thingy? Ok, I don't know how to fix this one but I'm sure someone could have made it actually important instead of being just a chore.

All these needed time and money. Granted, EA may have been running short on patience but all bioware needed to do was hold up DA2 and say "SEE! SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU RUSH THINGS?!?"

Not to start a thread split...

Spoiler

Show

Granted some people enjoyed DA2, myself included but the lack of polish seriously shows with the level and enemy design as well as the ending.

[BRC]

Except for Kia Lang, the random artifact missions, the scary-the-first-time-but-then-annoying-reaper-scanning-mechanic and of course the lack of dialogue from Ashley or Kaiden...

Kai Lang? Fixed with a few more sightings and/or flashbacks to where he actually comes from.

Random Artifact Missions? Fixed with ACTUAL missions.

Reaper Scanning thingy? Ok, I don't know how to fix this one but I'm sure someone could have made it actually important instead of being just a chore.

All these needed time and money. Granted, EA may have been running short on patience but all bioware needed to do was hold up DA2 and say "SEE! SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU RUSH THINGS?!?"

Not to start a thread split...

Spoiler

Show

Granted some people enjoyed DA2, myself included but the lack of polish seriously shows with the level and enemy design as well as the ending.

Kai Leng was annoying,but more flashbacks won't fix it.

Reaper Scanning/The Artifact Missions are part of the same problem. Random Planet Exploration has been the albatross hanging around Mass Effect's neck since the first game. Being able to interact with every planet makes the universe feel big, but it's simply not practical to make something worth interacting with on every planet.

ME1 had you running around in the Mako for hours, which sucked.

ME2 had Planet-Scanning, which was marginally better because it didn't take so much time, and you knew immediately if there was anything unique on the planet.

ME3 scaled down Planet-Scanning even more, now you didn't even need to reach the Planet before you knew if it was worth going to.

[Luzahn]

Does anybody know what happens if the Kasumi mission in me3 is not done before the cerberus citadel attack?

[Fawkes]

Does anybody know what happens if the Kasumi mission in me3 is not done before the cerberus citadel attack?

It disappears. I managed to miss that entire mission. As a result, I never met Jondom Bau or saw Kasumi.

[Luzahn]

Ugh, that was a terrible design on Bioware's part, having the citadel invasion wipe out quests. Dragon Age 2 had the same problem, though at least they gave you a less ambiguous warning about it.

My friend doesn't get to see Kasumi now; he has no saves from before that mission.

[Trazoi]

I don't think it feels undercooked throughout. There are some places where it could have been polished a little more, but with the exception of the ending, it was a damned fine and satisfying game.

There was clearly an early design decision to make the Citadel the only non-combat RPG hub. The Normandy War Room had to fill in for everywhere else.

The only conflicts are with Reaper ground forces, Cerberus or Geth - another early design choice too I expect, to deal with development time issues.

And the big issue, which I've harped on about too much already, is that the main plot itself is half-baked and broken in places all the way through. The highlights of the game are the detachable Bioware milestone missions of Tuchanka and Rannoch, and some of the character cameo stand-alone missions are nice, but the main meat of the plot forming the framework that puts them together is nonsense. The intro on Earth, Mars, the Crucible, Cerberus attacking the Citadel, everything involving Kai Leng - heck everything involving Cerberus period. I suspect due to scheduling issues Bioware had to scramble to throw together a quick framework so they could farm out the missions to the writing team and hoped they could piece together some justifications to tie it together later.

[Landis963]

Ugh, that was a terrible design on Bioware's part, having the citadel invasion wipe out quests. Dragon Age 2 had the same problem, though at least they gave you a less ambiguous warning about it.

My friend doesn't get to see Kasumi now; he has no saves from before that mission.

Until he does a new game +, I've heard that all your ME1 and ME2 decisions carry over if you do that. I ran into the same problem and that's actually what I'm going to do this summer, hopefully landing on Earth about the time the Extended Cut is released, so that I'm sure I have it once I get to the Starbrat.

[Psyren]

Synthesis: more likely than you think.

I'll just leave this here.



EDIT: Holy cut Earth dialogue, batman!

[Landis963]

EDIT: Holy cut Earth dialogue, batman!

Holy wasted potential, Batman! I mean really, that Jack dialogue is easily as good as anything else in the game. That Jacob dialogue, though... *snicker**cough*

[Derthric]

EDIT: Holy cut Earth dialogue, batman!

There is an image I have in my head of of Eric Cartman being told something and he sort of snaps eyes go wide and he mutters some noise that sounds like "Begerk". That's I all I can think of as I listen to all this cut stuff.

Though Jacob's voice sounds out of place.

Edit:
Cut Geth too.

[LordShotGun]

So all that cut dialogue pretty much confirms without a shadow of a doubt, that the ending was massively rushed. The geth cut content (combat lines in particular) SHOWS that you were supposed to have other NPCs fighting with you instead of just your squad.

[Trazoi]

So all that cut dialogue pretty much confirms without a shadow of a doubt, that the ending was massively rushed. The geth cut content (combat lines in particular) SHOWS that you were supposed to have other NPCs fighting with you instead of just your squad.

To play devil's advocate, it shows that Priority:Earth was pruned, which isn't necessarily the same thing. Bioware might have realised they only had X weeks in the schedule for their planned Priority:Earth that would take many times X weeks to properly implement and test with all the many, many combinations of variables for the ending. Although in effect the only difference between a calculated pruning and rushing is how close to the deadline it occurs and how panicked the dev team was when making the decision.

I guess it also shows in the end stuff like the Kinect controls and Jessica Chobot were ultimately higher priority than the final mission and ending.

(BTW, what was the deal with Chobot/Allers instead of Emily Wong as the reporter? Why was that decided to be a good idea? I'm genuinely curious.)

[Fawkes]

(BTW, what was the deal with Chobot/Allers instead of Emily Wong as the reporter? Why was that decided to be a good idea? I'm genuinely curious.)

I have a theory.

[Marnath]

I guess it also shows in the end stuff like the Kinect controls and Jessica Chobot were ultimately higher priority than the final mission and ending.

That right there is why I won't be buying any more Bioware games until they've received good reviews. Any developer that could have their priorities that messed up doesn't deserve day 1 purchasing.

[Derthric]

I have a theory.

What.....I don't......Seriously what is that?

[Trazoi]

I have a theory.

I should have known.

They should have put Khalisah al-Jilani on the ship as the romancable reporter instead.

[Grif]

I guess it also shows in the end stuff like the Kinect controls and Jessica Chobot were ultimately higher priority than the final mission and ending.

(BTW, what was the deal with Chobot/Allers instead of Emily Wong as the reporter? Why was that decided to be a good idea? I'm genuinely curious.)

How does putting in Chobot even have a place in the list of "things-to-do" to begin with?

Kinect control isn't even available for PC, so what the hell, Bioware? Seriously?

[Trazoi]

How does putting in Chobot even have a place in the list of "things-to-do" to begin with?

Clearly it's due to their "artistic integrity".

What baffles me is that it's clear that a lot of the details about final mission and ending wasn't finalised until very late in the development process. I'd assumed Bioware had a core team plan all of ME3 out way in advance while the rest of the team were making ME2 DLC packs. Then the final mission and ending would be implemented and begin QA way before shipping date, with a debugging widget to set all the internal variables to check everything works.

Leaving the final mission and endings until last and having to strip it bare due to time constraints isn't uncommon, but it strikes me as uncharacteristically amateur for someone as established as Bioware.

[Joran]

Kinect control isn't even available for PC, so what the hell, Bioware? Seriously?

In their defense, I think Kinect control was a minor part that shouldn't have impacted the resources for the ending. I have no defense for Jessica Chobot.

I wonder if the pruning of the ending was a time limit or space limit issue (thanks consoles =P). Either way, I'm disappointed, but at least the developers had the same ideas we had about allocatable resources.

[VanBuren]

I have a theory.

Also, Emily Wong is kinda... dead.