Mass Effect 3 fan files complaint over the game's ending

[Golgo]

If the smart money now is on the idea that 'I woke up and it was all a dream!', ... Well, I'm bagsying that on behalf of every school child in the history of the planet who's ever had to come up with a piece of creative writing. File next to essays on 'wot I did on my summer holidays'...

[MisterBubbles]

Ok maybe as Charlie percluded to and it was all a dream, maybe i just dreamt the whole Mass Effect game and it doesn't really exist.

[Guts]

Hasn't this already been answered a number of times in this thread? And the reason that so many people are upset with BioWare's product?

To reiterate - BioWare promised an ending that reflected the choices made in the journey from ME1 to ME3 - instead they produced a default ending that reflected none of this. This is why fans have an issue. It's not entitlement, it's not rocket science, it's simply disappointment.

It's rmoxon you're talking here to, might as well have fun pulling your own teeth out.

[rmoxon]

There he goes again.

Id like to point out that no one has yet explained what besides whos alive at the end of the game could actually have been effected at the climax by the choices you made throughout the trilogy.

If someone can make an intelligent argument then Id be interested to hear it, but so far all i have seen is people complaining that they wanted somthing that was virtually impossible for Bioware to make happen due to the very nature of every game in the series.

[Tobal]

I'll bite your trolling.

how about uniting a universe, bringing them to the fight as a paragon with high amount of "war assets" that could only be achieved by your ME1/2 saves, this should give you enough time in the battle to macgvyer a solution to the reapers, like program them to fly into the sun cos shepard takes **** from nobody and shouldn't at the last minute give up and doom 90% of the galaxy to save the future. This leaves the mass relays open, removes stupid plot holes like joker, your crew and an entire fleet of aliens on a burned earth, don't really care if shep dies or not but it should be there as an option for those that worked hard to max out the assets, we then get Garrus on a beach toasting a cocktail to "the shepard", credits role with movies in the background of your crew(who ever lived) getting on with there lives.

my dream!

[rmoxon]

I'll bite your trolling.

how about uniting a universe, bringing them to the fight as a paragon with high amount of "war assets" that could only be achieved by your ME1/2 saves, this should give you enough time in the battle to macgvyer a solution to the reapers, like program them to fly into the sun cos shepard takes **** from nobody and shouldn't at the last minute give up and doom 90% of the galaxy to save the future. This leaves the mass relays open, removes stupid plot holes like joker, your crew and an entire fleet of aliens on a burned earth, don't really care if shep dies or not but it should be there as an option for those that worked hard to max out the assets, we then get Garrus on a beach toasting a cocktail to "the shepard", credits role with movies in the background of your crew(who ever lived) getting on with there lives.

my dream!

That is a nice neat closure filled ending. But I thought we were talking about what you did during the three games and how it effected the ending?

According to the people on here, they are annoyed becuase Bioware promised an ending where what you did during the games would dramatically alter the ending. What Im basically asking is how can what you have done throughout the games dramatically alter the ending when not only do these games have an extreamly simple story but also every choice you made was only ever designed to decide who lived and who died by the end of the games.

People seem to have expected some genius stroke of storytelling where different players will get vastly different endings, but my question is how could that happen? at the end of the day Shepard was always either just going to kill the bad guys or not (as Highlighted in your very post). What else could have happened? there are no twists or anything like that in these games, the stories are not deep, its all just about Shepard running about and kicking ass.

[FelixofMars]

I have started playing ME3 now, saldy just like ME2 I couldn't be arsed to pay full price for it I just don't think it was that good in the first place so the ending will probably be wasted on me why the fans are so irate about it. But then maybe that sums it all up that actually it was never that good but people have taken three games to see that.

The thing is the mechanics seem solid enough, I just get bored of all the back tracking and to a degree having to sweep for all the little bits of data and talk through each and everyone's dialogue but I think if you cut that all out there is very little in the way of actual gameplay and this version highlights that the most of the three giving even more cut down areas where actual action happens.

In the first game you had a massive Citadel to explore, and all the side planets and other locations like space stations. In the second game they cut back the Citadel and planets but did have more specific locations of a size to visit. This one you will be lucky to have an area made of more than about 4 rooms for most locations.

I also think this has more obvious bugs, Z-fighting on the floor in the Hangar for example considering its a location you visit time and time again its sloppy at best.

I am coming down hard on it because I want to make the point I just feel this is being blown out of proportion in terms of they clearly have done their best with the engine they have and the team/resources they have but while I wanted to see what happened with the various main characters I wasn't particularly bothered on the game overall when people have gone mad saying its the best game in the world evar and I am stupid not to be amazed by it.

It's a competent game, but its always had these issues with the gameplay and even the story, this is not new and saying people are unhappy now is ridiculous. I get that the ending is almost a Dues Ex style A,B,C decision with no real wrap up but TBH what did you expect given the rest of the series? I think they played their biggest hand at the end of ME2 really with the suicide mission and really couldn't 'top' that.

[noobish hat]

That is a nice neat closure filled ending. But I thought we were talking about what you did during the three games and how it effected the ending?

According to the people on here, they are annoyed becuase Bioware promised an ending where what you did during the games would dramatically alter the ending. What Im basically asking is how can what you have done throughout the games dramatically alter the ending when not only do these games have an extreamly simple story but also every choice you made was only ever designed to decide who lived and who died by the end of the games.

People seem to have expected some genius stroke of storytelling where different players will get vastly different endings, but my question is how could that happen? at the end of the day Shepard was always either just going to kill the bad guys or not (as Highlighted in your very post). What else could have happened? there are no twists or anything like that in these games, the stories are not deep, its all just about Shepard running about and kicking ass.

I think I put forward a good explanation of how this could have been done.

[rmoxon]

I think I put forward a good explanation of how this could have been done.

No, you stated what was actually already done in the game.

You haven't played it though, so I will let you off.

[FelixofMars]

From what I understood from most people though, a quick 'fix' would have been to add some scenes that wrapped up what happened to the main characters which to be fair would have been interesting. I guess a little how Fallout NV had a main ending then a wrap for some of the people you meet along the way and your companions.

I totally appreciate though as easy as this sounds, they where probably pushed, or anyone that was suggesting to do this was overrulled for whatever reason.

[Sketcz]

Id like to point out that no one has yet explained...

I too shall bite the troll!

How about this:
There is NO multiple choice question at the end of the game. Once you complete the corridor or whatever it is, the final end sequence is decided automatically based on your decisions over previous games.

I dunno, here's a made up example: letting the Rachni queen live in ME1 gives you an ally with special mental abilities (they're a hive mind with powers to control), which allows you to resist, say, the Elusive Man and some kind of mental control he attempts to exert. Or something. Which blocks out the ending he wants you to get. There's no way to alter this - let the queen live and she protects you, kill her and you succumb. So if you want a different ending, playing from ME1 again, or download a save.

OK, so that's one thing I'd like - the endings to have been directly locked to your actions. As it stands, they're based on a final multi-choice question. is this restrictive? Yes. Will it piss people off? Yes, more so than the current fiasco I'd wager. But you must admit, it would be pretty cool of past actions suddenly locked you into a specific kind of surprise ending.

SECOND THING:
More diversity between the endings, not just changing the colour scheme. What does these options actually mean, in the long run?

I'd have liked a character-by-character rundown of what they did afterwards, like the Suikoden games did, and then I'd like a lengthy cut-scene, say 5-10 minutes, showing me how my trilogy campaign affected the universe for the next millennia. Not a singly rendered cut-scene, but rather a series of vignettes. Wipe out the Geth break away group in ME2, get one vignette, save them get another.

How many major decisions did we do throughout the series? I'd like a vignette showing me what each of these decisions caused. I'd say I made a least 12 such major decisions between ME1 and ME2, probably more, meaning with two choices for each there should be a pool of at least 24 short cut-scenes to be spliced together at the end, alongside a general ending.

TL;DR
Irrevocable choice and more diversity.

[noobish hat]

Maybe they could have done a Super Mario World style ending, with every character and enemy from the game marching along the top of the screen, over the credits. Maybe QualityChimp can mock one up for us.

[chopemon]

I finished it yesterday and didn't have any complaints.

My view is that the entire game was the ending to the trilogy and not the last five minutes. My actions through the previous games lead me to my success at the end of three and I think it is a bit of a stretch to have everything covered in a five minute cutscene. I was blown away by how much stuff from the last two games they pulled into 3 over the course of the game and I was satisfied by the end.

The end of the game comes down to a three way multiple choice and when I made my choice I based it on every decision I had made and every emotional connection I had made through the previous games. I was satisfied because I was asked to make a choice and I chose the option that my Shepard would have done. It is an impossible choice and when a galaxy goes to war, there probably isn't going to be a good ending where everyone is happy. Not to get too deep, no one wins in war and I felt the ending worked. I keep thinking that the fans behind this ridiculous petition want this kind of image at the end:



I like stories where not everything is given closure. There is some mystery, some intrigue. I'm an intelligent grown up, I can process and be happy with endings that don't tell me everything. I loved what my choice has the potential to do to the galaxy and not having all the questions answered has reignited my interest in the series.

The worst thing for me was the advert for DLC that appears at the end. And also the bit where

->Open Spoiler<-

Shepard lives. I wanted this to be the end of Shepard and for her to die, starting a new trilogy.

I also found it funny that during some of the close ups on Shepard at the end her eye ball was clipping through her eye lid. Kind of spoiled it.

I went into this game hating it and hating all the crap surrounding it so I was set up to hate the end but I came away intrigued and happy.

[rmoxon]

I too shall bite the troll!

How about this:
There is NO multiple choice question at the end of the game. Once you complete the corridor or whatever it is, the final end sequence is decided automatically based on your decisions over previous games.

I dunno, here's a made up example: letting the Rachni queen live in ME1 gives you an ally with special mental abilities (they're a hive mind with powers to control), which allows you to resist, say, the Elusive Man and some kind of mental control he attempts to exert. Or something. Which blocks out the ending he wants you to get. There's no way to alter this - let the queen live and she protects you, kill her and you succumb. So if you want a different ending, playing from ME1 again, or download a save.

OK, so that's one thing I'd like - the endings to have been directly locked to your actions. As it stands, they're based on a final multi-choice question. is this restrictive? Yes. Will it piss people off? Yes, more so than the current fiasco I'd wager. But you must admit, it would be pretty cool of past actions suddenly locked you into a specific kind of surprise ending.

SECOND THING:
More diversity between the endings, not just changing the colour scheme. What does these options actually mean, in the long run?

I'd have liked a character-by-character rundown of what they did afterwards, like the Suikoden games did, and then I'd like a lengthy cut-scene, say 5-10 minutes, showing me how my trilogy campaign affected the universe for the next millennia. Not a singly rendered cut-scene, but rather a series of vignettes. Wipe out the Geth break away group in ME2, get one vignette, save them get another.

How many major decisions did we do throughout the series? I'd like a vignette showing me what each of these decisions caused. I'd say I made a least 12 such major decisions between ME1 and ME2, probably more, meaning with two choices for each there should be a pool of at least 24 short cut-scenes to be spliced together at the end, alongside a general ending.

TL;DR
Irrevocable choice and more diversity.

So your idea to improve the ending is basically to have a montage of all the choices you made throughout the series?

Well, ummm, that's original I guess, not sure if it would please people any more though, though people are weird, who knows.

You still do realise that throughout the entire series all your choices have done is effected who lives and who died from the main cast though?, you never actually changed anything else in the grand scheme of things. I can't really see how this extended cutscenes would work.

I understand what your saying in your first point, about how your choices could have effected the ending, but that was my point, you never made any decisions in these games that Could have effected the ending, so it wouldn't work.

What you're asking for would require the entire game to be remade.

[Sketcz]

So your idea to improve the ending is basically to have a montage of all the choices you made throughout the series?

The result of them, yes, that would placate one of the problems I have with the ending. I've watched a video which had all three running side-by-side, and it's a bit vague. I don't expect a happy ending, but I would like an info dump.

The Suikoden I and II games are the best example I can compare to. In SII you build an army from several kingdoms to put an end to a war (collecting the 108 stars) and slay an evil general, and afterwards (although there are only 3 endings), you get a little rundown of everyone. It's a big info dump and leaves little to the imagination.

But that's just one complaint. My dislike of ME3's ending is multi-faceted. It's the vagueries, the lack of your actions having an impact (which I've explained how it could affect the ending), and several other things.

Also, in ME1 and ME2 there were several decisions which I assumed would have MAJOR irrevocable consequences. Such as the Rachni queen decision. I was expecting much bigger things from that (I've read what does actually happen as a result, and it's not as big as I expected).

Chopemon's comment that the game was the ending is interesting. I can sort of get that. But then I might as well watch a playthrough on Youtube. I realise it's supposed to be then journey not the destination, but still...