The Ending Was Not ME3's Only Problem

[RJ 17]

Snip

First I'd like to say "NO. STOP. SHUT UP." on the fact that making any complaints about ME 3 at this point is sooooooo two months ago.

But we're here anyways, right? Might as well go down the list.

1: People had been requesting ME multiplayer since the first game, they were REALLY wanting a co-op campaign. Well Shepard works "alone" in the sense that no one's as badass as him/her. And as much as everyone would love to play 2nd player as Garrus, it just wouldn't be the same. As such, the multiplayer which effects the campaign is a decent middle-ground between having multiplayer that's utterly disconnect and a full-fledged co-op campaign.

2: I'll give you this one...ME 1's quest tracking was the best, each quest would update and specifically say "You've already been to this place in this system, now you have to go to this place in this system. All done? Well you're ready to go back to the Citadel and turn it in." Now we just get some BS list that just mentions "Some guy needs something. Go find it. NO! We're most certainly NOT going to tell you whether or not you found it in that last round of scanning!"

That and I don't like how the quest log ALWAYS jumps 2/3 of the way down into the "already completed" section, making you scroll back to the top to find what you still have to do...incidentally I also don't like how the weapon upgrade menu jumps back to the top after each upgrade you purchase...

3: Hasn't happened to me very often...every now and then, though an engineer my place a "cloaked" turret which can be rather annoying. But in many cases it seems like an animation glitch prevents someone from standing up or moving to where they're supposed to be so that when the camera cuts over to where they SHOULD be they're still where they were. Just saying technically, at least in my experience, people don't actually go invisible.

4: Another nit-pick if you ask me. It didn't take more than two or three tweaks to get my imported face from "wtf is this?" back to "That's how it's supposed to look." But then again I'm not OCD about having to mess with EVERY SINGLE CATEGORY in the face customization. I normally just mess with the eye color, maybe change the eyebrows, pick myself some hair and hair color, if I'm making a FemShep I'll give her some lipstick and eye shadow, then the character is good to go.

5: Ehhhh, yeah, I was kinda disappointed with the way the Rachni situation ended. Personally - even though I knew it was a pipe dream - I was hoping you'd get a rachni squadmate! Somethign like the dog character from Dragon Age: Origins. I do agree that it seemed like a pretty big cop-out to have them present even if you DID kill the queen in ME 1, but at the same time that'd remove a rather massive threat from the Reaper forces. Then there's the fact that Samara quite clearly states in ME 2: "There are three Ardat-Yacshis (or however it's spelled) in existence...and I have three daughters...it is as it seems." So where are all these damn banshees coming from? But I've let bigger transgressions slide by with the suspension of disbelief. Is it a cop-out in both cases? Yeah, but I'd hardly consider either an experience-ruining defect with the game.

6: Liara actually explains this: "Process of elimination combined with desperation. You've got a massive harddrive filled with tons of data in languages and formats that have been extinct for 50K years...I highly doubt finding the crucible plans would be as easy as saying "Computer, show me some massive weapon schematics." Take it as Serendipity revealing the plans when the galaxy needed them most.

7: Soooooo what, you were wanting the entire cast from ME 2 to be back on the Normandy?

Well aside from the fact that Shepard was relieved of duty and placed under house arrest for a few months being good reason for everyone to scatter from the Normandy, each has their own justifiable reason for not being able to come back.

<spoiler=ME 2 Characters and Why They Cannot Come With You>Jacob: No one misses him, be honest, not even you. So no one cares that he's now wanting to start a life for himself.

Samara: She says herself, in a time of war the Code demands that she goes to where the fighting is most dire, and that is not on the Normandy.

Miranda: She's obsessed with her father and sister, as she always is, and cannot abandon her search for her sister.

Jack: Having learned a thing or two about teamwork and responsibility by joining Shepard's suicide squad, Jack is now a teacher of biotic students. Given her own past, she has become extremely attached to the kids and will not abandon them.

Legion: He returned to the Geth consensus to ensure that they would be ready for the Reapers when they returned. The Geth were subsequently pinned into a war with the Quarians.

Kasumi: Really I never understood why she was in ME 2 to begin with...she's a thief, not a fighter. Which is exactly what she tells you when you start thinking about inviting her to join you in ME 3.

Thane: Too sick to help this time around.

Zaaed: No real reason that he couldn't have joined back up with the main force, I'll admit, other than maybe he's helping to coordinate the mercs that you pick up.

Morinth: She's a wanted murder in countless systems...wouldn't really be wise for Shepard cruising around with her.

Mordin: Felt guilty about his work with the genophage so he wanted to make things right. As such he joined up with the facility working on the Krogan females. You then either shoot him in the back, he makes the noble sacrifice, or you both agree the cure is bad if Reeve is in charge and as such he goes into hiding to avoid retribution.

8: Simple, really, it's the same reason there's no Collectors in ME 3: the Seeker Swarms were all wiped out with the destruction/irradiation of the Collector Base.

As for why conquering Earth took so long? Well as far as I can tell, ME 3 takes place over the course of two or three months. And while it's easy to take out the major cities, hunting through the less populated areas of the planet would take much longer to do a clean-sweep since, as I mentioned, the Collectors and all their tech was wiped out with the Collector Base.

Snap

With regards to the Council in ME 2: Yeah, I gotta say I thought it was bullshit how they all went back to denying the existence of the Reapers despite everything that happened in ME 1, so I can't really argue that.

ME 3: Shepard wasn't specifically grounded for the Alpha Relay incident. In fact, if you didn't play that DLC, Shepard wasn't even involved in that incident, it was just a generic Alliance marine team. Shepard was in custody for going completely rogue and AWOL by joining up with Cerberus - a known terrorist group and enemy to all Citadel species - to stop the Collectors. Yes, Shepard was doing it for the right reasons, but that doesn't change the fact that he joined up with Cerberus...which rebuilt him after his death...I think the Alliance's skepticism and mistrust of Shepard upon his/her return is justifiable.

As for the Multiplayer and Squadmates...the squadmates I've already addressed in the above section, the multiplayer unlocking system....ehhh, yeah, the randomness of the unlocking can be a bit frustrating, but I'd hardly call it a major fault. It's clearly a tactic to keep people playing the multiplayer, but at the same time, it does prevent everyone from using the same 3 badass guns and classes right from the get-go. Am I annoyed that I STILL haven't gotten a Geth Infiltrator? Yeah...but there's plenty of other fun classes out there in the mean time.

 

[DigitalAtlas]

I was going to read your entire opening post.... but then I saw the mind numbing and pointless hate for multi-player.....

Soooooo what? You didn't want to immortalize a fantastic franchise and give you ans your friends the chance to revisit it together and have a lot of fun doing it? Btw, it is fun and requires a lot of teamwork.

 

[wintercoat]

while this is mostly true,

Spoiler

if you want the couple second end shot of shepherd taking in a breath

after choosing red, green or blue, you need an EMS > 5000 (4000?). either way that number cannot be reached without participating in the MP game.

fuck that bullshit. MP participation should never impact the SP campaign in any way. period.

Like I said, I had 6500 war assets and finished the game before I ever touched the multiplayer, so I know for a fact it's 100% possible to beat the game with the required amount of EMS without playing the multiplayer once.

yes it is possible to get the "special" GREEN ending. you cannot get the other part i mentioned without participating in the MP game. and that is bullshit. esp if it impacts future DLCs in some fashion ... which remains to be seen.

And the person you responded to said they got 6500 without touching the multiplayer. Which means it is very possible.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Let's end this once and for all.

You have War Assets and EMS.
On the end of my run(And I did pretty much everything), I had 7500+- WAR ASSETS.
However if you don't play Multiplayer your EMS setting is 50%, which means only HALF of your War Assets count. To get the "perfect" ending you need around 5000 EMS.

Thus is is NOT possible to get the "best" ending WITHOUT Multiplayer.
Yes, I'm done now.

It is. The total is 10000 EMS spread by the 3 games. To get the "cliffhanger still a Piece of shit" ending without touching the MP, you need to do every quest, do every decision to benefit the Final battle, and not play on the PS3, because then Kirrahe, Ranna Greenface, Conrad Venrer and other side quest characters are gone, because ME2 doesn't recognize them as existant, and they give GRP. It's impossibly hard, but it is somewhat possible, even if completely unfunny and rage-worty.

I have no idea where you are pulling those numbers from.
I was wrong about the 5000, you actually need around 4000 but it is still impossible.

Participation in Galaxy at War is encouraged to achieve the maximize the Military Strength given by each War Asset. Players who solely focus on the Singleplayer aspect of the game (meaning Galactic Readiness always be at 50%), will be unable to unlock all the possible endings, as a player will need at least 4000 Estimated Military Strength for all endings to become available. According to data found within the game, the total War Assets score is 8370. However, this number unattainable in game as obtaining the War Assets needed will require impossible feats such as both Kaiden and Ashley surviving, or both saving and sacrificing the Council. Currently the highest obtainable War Assets is around numbered around 7700, half of which is clearly far from the needed 4000 ESM to unlock all possible endings (if a player ops not to play multiplayer)

Wait, WHAT? The last time I checked the wiki (ok it was 2 months ago), they said it was 5000 EMS. Weird. Maybe they were guidding themselves by what Bioware said. I remember them doing an interview and declaring these numbers. You just suprised me.

It's 4000EMS with the final Paragon/Renegade options chosen during the little spat with TIM at the end, 5000 if you don't/can't choose the final Para/Rene option.

Effective Military Strength is your Total Military Strength modified by your Readiness Rating. Without playing multiplayer, your readiness is at 50%, so you would need a TMS of 8000/10000 in order to get the gasp clip.

 

[RJ 17]

It's 4000EMS with the final Paragon/Renegade options chosen during the little spat with TIM at the end, 5000 if you don't/can't choose the final Para/Rene option.

Effective Military Strength is your Total Military Strength modified by your Readiness Rating. Without playing multiplayer, your readiness is at 50%, so you would need a TMS of 8000/10000 in order to get the gasp clip.

I'm actually pretty certain that you need at least 5000 EMS in order to be able to do the final paragon/renegade choice with TIM. My first playthrough I had max personality but only 4500 EMS and I couldn't do the last para/rene conversation option. I got all 3 ending choices possible (and tried them all out, reloading my last save before the ending so I could see them all) but never got the gasp when I tried the Destroy ending. So I'm pretty sure you need at least 5K to make TIM shoot himself, get all 3 possible endings, and get the final gasp.

 

[Scow2]

I was going to read your entire opening post.... but then I saw the mind numbing and pointless hate for multi-player.....

Soooooo what? You didn't want to immortalize a fantastic franchise and give you ans your friends the chance to revisit it together and have a lot of fun doing it? Btw, it is fun and requires a lot of teamwork.

But is unavailable to a large number of players as well, for assorted reasons.

 

[DigitalAtlas]

I was going to read your entire opening post.... but then I saw the mind numbing and pointless hate for multi-player.....

Soooooo what? You didn't want to immortalize a fantastic franchise and give you ans your friends the chance to revisit it together and have a lot of fun doing it? Btw, it is fun and requires a lot of teamwork.

But is unavailable to a large number of players as well, for assorted reasons.

While I have no intention to debate with you, please explain to me the scenario with multiplayer being unavailable as I'm unaware of any issues outside of the PS3.

 

[Scow2]

I was going to read your entire opening post.... but then I saw the mind numbing and pointless hate for multi-player.....

Soooooo what? You didn't want to immortalize a fantastic franchise and give you ans your friends the chance to revisit it together and have a lot of fun doing it? Btw, it is fun and requires a lot of teamwork.

But is unavailable to a large number of players as well, for assorted reasons.

While I have no intention to debate with you, please explain to me the scenario with multiplayer being unavailable as I'm unaware of any issues outside of the PS3.

On Xbox360: The account you play the game on needs to be Xbox LIVE-enabled. I share an Xbox LIVE account with my family for multiplayer games, but prefer using my own, non-LIVE account for single-player games. I'm damn sure I'm not the only one in this situation.

 

[jhoroz]

I agree on a lot of these points, although the multiplayer thing had less to with EA and more to do with the fact that Bioware wanted to do multiplayer for mass effect ever since they released the first game, so blame that on them, not EA.

 

[Goofguy]

Lots of valid points here.

I have no problem with the multiplayer on its own, I think it's pretty fun. However, forcing players to play it in order to achieve the 'best possible ending' is BS. Did anyone here manage to get 4000+ EMS with a default Galactic Readiness of 50%? Because that would blow my mind.

I managed 3400 with 54% GR,and I had a lot of quests left. It would probably take a while, and you'd need both the Geth and Quarians on your side, but \i think you could do it.

I beg to differ. My first playthrough of ME3 was without multiplayer support (my 360 was not connected online). I used a savegame from ME1 and ME2. I completed all side missions in ME3 and played Paragon so I was making friends where it counted. I managed a TMS of about 6800 which meant an EMS of 3400 due to my GR of 50%. I was pretty damn thorough and I was nowhere near the requisite 4000 let alone 5000.

 

[DigitalAtlas]

I was going to read your entire opening post.... but then I saw the mind numbing and pointless hate for multi-player.....

Soooooo what? You didn't want to immortalize a fantastic franchise and give you ans your friends the chance to revisit it together and have a lot of fun doing it? Btw, it is fun and requires a lot of teamwork.

But is unavailable to a large number of players as well, for assorted reasons.

While I have no intention to debate with you, please explain to me the scenario with multiplayer being unavailable as I'm unaware of any issues outside of the PS3.

On Xbox360: The account you play the game on needs to be Xbox LIVE-enabled. I share an Xbox LIVE account with my family for multiplayer games, but prefer using my own, non-LIVE account for single-player games. I'm damn sure I'm not the only one in this situation.

Are you referring to single-player as being unplayable if you lack Xbox Live? If so, silver memberships are enough to play the game. As far as multiplayer, that's Xbox's fault as every game on the system requires multiplayer. This isn't anything new.

Besides, Mass Effect was ORIGINALLY supposed to be an MMO. So adding multiplayer actually brings the series full-circle.

 

[Panorama]

There is no game that has ever, been made that only had one problem. Every game has something no matter how small is an annoyance or something that doesn't work.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I wondered aloud, several times, while I was playing ME3 "Hey, guys? What if the crucible doesn't work?"

As I was playing the game, I was actually kinda assuming that it wouldn't do anything.

As I was playing, I was operating under the assumption that the Crucible was a MacGuffin designed by a race in one of the previous cycles specifically to be a huge undertaking requiring massive amounts of resources in order to force future races to band together and take on the Reapers as an organized team-effort.

When Shepard and Anderson were sitting shoulder to shoulder, watching the battle rage on outside the Citadel/Crucible... then Hackett radios you to tell you that it isn't doing anything... I thought for sure that Shepard would at that moment come to the realization that the Crucible wasn't a weapon, it was just meant to help bring everyone together.....

...

Then the light elevator happened...

...

Then things get kinda hazy...

 

[Da Orky Man]

Lots of valid points here.

I have no problem with the multiplayer on its own, I think it's pretty fun. However, forcing players to play it in order to achieve the 'best possible ending' is BS. Did anyone here manage to get 4000+ EMS with a default Galactic Readiness of 50%? Because that would blow my mind.

I managed 3400 with 54% GR,and I had a lot of quests left. It would probably take a while, and you'd need both the Geth and Quarians on your side, but \i think you could do it.

I beg to differ. My first playthrough of ME3 was without multiplayer support (my 360 was not connected online). I used a savegame from ME1 and ME2. I completed all side missions in ME3 and played Paragon so I was making friends where it counted. I managed a TMS of about 6800 which meant an EMS of 3400 due to my GR of 50%. I was pretty damn thorough and I was nowhere near the requisite 4000 let alone 5000.

Did you scan enough planets to get the discovery bonuses? I kept finding caches of weapons to defend the Crucible that rose my EMS. And did you get both the quarians and geth. they give you a massive bonus. Did the Council die?

 

[Mikeyfell]

1. "Galactic Readiness"

The worst part about this is that in 10 years, when I want to go back and play the trilogy again (Assuming that the extended cut DLC makes the trilogy worth playing through again) I won't be able to because the multyplayer servers will be dead. So I won't be able to max out my EMS

And this is only part of the bigger underlining problem in ME 3. The game has been reduced from an emotional journey to mathematical one. Taking my hard decisions, applying numbers to them and factoring them in to the "How-well-did-I-do-a-tron" diminishes what Mass Effect was about. Or at least I thought it did, but since they apply numbers to all the decisions that carry over from the previous games that's what Mass Effect's been about filling up a bar with numbers the whole time. This is what they're talking about when they say that ME 3 ruined the first two games to.

2. The Quest Tracking

Yeah, I rarely ever open my journal anyway but with the abundance of clutter and fetch quests I found my self hoping to track some of them in ME 3 and I'm met with this?
I made a habit of doing a round of the Citadel after every single mission just to see what I could turn it.

But the plethora of Fetch Quests is very closely tied in to what I feel is the biggest problem in ME 3 and that is the mute Shepard. Mass Effect 3 isn't about talking to people any more, it's about eavesdropping. Do you remember the Krogan who wanted the Presidium fish? Of course you do. It's because you spoke to him. Do you remember the bar manager at Purgatory who wanted power grid schematics? Probably not, what about the Volus who wanted the Book of Plenix? Maybe. The point is that you didn't talk to these people and by the end of it all you're probably sick of hearing Shepard say "I over heard you talking and thought this would help." And it's not just about the lack of talking to the fetch quest people on the Citadel. Compared to Mass Effect 2 there's a completely negligible amount of dialog convo's in ME 3. Think about any mission in ME 2 (Except for the one where you break Jack out of prison.) and compare the amount of time you spend talking to the time you spend shooting. It's about even, and evenly distributed. (Think about Thane's recruitment mission, you can't go 10 minutes without running into some Salarian workers to talk to.) Think of any mission in ME 3. There's talking at the beginning, then an entire mission's worth of shooting bad guys, then there's talking at the end. And every single mission is structured that way except the one with the female Krogan.

3. Invisible Characters

How about characters never making eye contact in cutscenes?
How about Specialist Traynor's head turning all the way around like Linda Blair in the Exorcist?

4. Fuglyface Imports

If you've spent some time on the BSN, you can probably name about 12 different threads in which 1000s of people with custom Shepard faces complain that upon import into ME3 their character appears to have suffered botched plastic surgery. And if the screenshots are any indication, the problem is far from solved.

Or that it was over a month until you even had the option to import the face of your custom Shepard. I don't understand how a game ships with a bug that breaks the game before you even start playing. Bioware's QA department should be lined up against a wall and shot.

5. The Rachni

Again, putting aside the ending, the consequences of choosing to save/kill the Queen in ME1 where nowhere near as profound as advertised. Basically the choice amounts to 1 model being reskinned, and a different modulator being used to voice it.

I was looking forward to seeing what Grunt's mission was like if you killed the Rachnai in ME 1, but it was exactly the same (Save 1 dialog option and the amount of numbers being applied to the "How-well-did-I-do-a-tron").
It's just part of a disturbing trend of player choice not mattering for shit.
Whether or not you saved the Council hardly mattered
Which human got the council seat did not matter at all, even though over half the story was based on the human councilor betraying the Citadel. (I would love to see what that mission was like if Anderson was a Councilor)
What you did with the Collector base didn't matter because Cerberus is the main bad guy no matter what.
Whether or not you were against the Quarians attacking the Geth didn't matter. (Here's a little math Admiral Garal and Xen are pro war. Tali and Koris are against it. That means Raan supports the war? That means Raan voted against Tali? That doesn't make sense.)
Turning down Spectre status in ME 2 didn't matter
Picking Morinth over Samara was pointless.
Cheating on your love interest doesn't matter.
About the only thing that has a tangible effect on ME 3 is whether you saved Melon's data or not.

6. "The Crucible"

I still have trouble believing the Crucible even existed in the first place.
Why didn't Vigil say anything in Mass Effect 1?
The thing Vigil does tell you is that the Protheans broke the Reaper's hold on the Keepers.
But Victory tells you that it was a cycle before the Protheans that incorporated the Citadel into the Crucible plans. So the Reapers should know about it.

If this cycle can build the Crucible in a month or two (Or how ever long Mass Effect 3 took)
why couldn't any previous cycle ever finish construction? especially the Protheans who fought the Reapers for centuries? I know the Reapers took the Citadel early on but Victory said they never even finished construction of the Crucible. It's a tangled bloated mess of plot holes that only serves to pave the way for the ending.

7. Writers Playing Favorites With Squadmates

Mass Effect 1 had a relatively small party that wanted for diversity. Mass Effect 2 had a huge cast of wildly different squadmates. What's more, you had the option of gaining their loyalty by spending time with/on them- or just ignoring them completely! It seemed like we were gonna have even more control over our squad's composition in the final installment... and then it came out. Here's the rundown: Garrus & Liara are your best friends and confidants, the Virmire survivor is back, Tali shows up eventually, EDI is your tech expert... and some white guy who got run over by a tequila bootlegger is your muscle. Everyone else is sidelined, regardless of prior choice. Including your potential love interests.

Oh, and I can still call bullshit on Javik/day 1 DLC because it's got fuck all to do with the games conclusion. Javik is the ONLY interesting new addition to the crew, and he costs 10 bucks.

Lots of characters got shafted as far as dialog goes,
ME 1 had a few missions and a lot of dialog
ME 2 had a lot of missions and a lot of dialog, (It got to the point where the dialog seemed to few and far between)
ME 3 had a lot of missions and hardly any dialog. That IS a step backwards! Bioware took the most important part of their game and just did away with it. Liara doesn't have anything to say to you. Kaiden/Ashley and Tali are only there for half a game. Nobody knows James. and they made EDI uninteresting. Garrus is the only one who has anything to say after every mission. (Which I guess is repentance for him having the least to say in ME 2)

Not to mention a bunch of characters that didn't get any face time. Kal'Regar, Emily Wong, Gianna Parasini, Morinth, The Krogan who wanted the fish, anyone from Ferros. and many more.
It makes me wonder what anyone at Bioware was thinking. "Nobody who played the first two games liked talking to people. Why don't we take that boring crap out of our game all together!"

8. So... if The Collectors had technology that could instantly seek out an immobilize entire populations...

I... Didn't even realize that until you pointed it out. it makes me want to face palm even harder.


I also notice you didn't mention the God Awful controls
Seriously, 5 commands on one button?
5 opposing commands on one button.
I didn't even know that you could get 5 things to be polar opposites.
Run, take cover, vault, roll, use.
It's like they thought giving every enemy a cheep ass attack didn't make the game frustrating enough, they had to make the game mentally exhausting to play by leaving all the important maneuvers completely up to chance.

 

[RJ 17]

I wondered aloud, several times, while I was playing ME3 "Hey, guys? What if the crucible doesn't work?"

As I was playing the game, I was actually kinda assuming that it wouldn't do anything.

As I was playing, I was operating under the assumption that the Crucible was a MacGuffin designed by a race in one of the previous cycles specifically to be a huge undertaking requiring massive amounts of resources in order to force future races to band together and take on the Reapers as an organized team-effort.

When Shepard and Anderson were sitting shoulder to shoulder, watching the battle rage on outside the Citadel/Crucible... then Hackett radios you to tell you that it isn't doing anything... I thought for sure that Shepard would at that moment come to the realization that the Crucible wasn't a weapon, it was just meant to help bring everyone together.....

...

Then the light elevator happened...

...

Then things get kinda hazy...

That's certainly an interesting way to look at things...the Crucible as being a way to bring the galaxy together. Buuuuuut I have to disagree as I think there's evidence throughout the game that shows that the Crucible is supposed to work. People keep mentioning that it is something capable of producing enormous amounts of energy they just need a way to focus the energy...that is, the Catalyst.

The truth of the matter is that no one - not even the Protheans - had any idea what the Crucible was supposed to do, only that the cycle before them seemed convinced that it could end the war.

If it were just a giant device to get the galaxy united and working together, it'd actually be a MASSIVE waste of time and resources. By all accounts there is no way to defeat the Reapers conventionally, a doomsday device is the only ope the galaxy has. An all out war against the Reapers with every fleet might lead to a very bloody battle with heavy losses on both sides, but the Reapers would come out on top.

Now, had the galaxy listened to Shepard from the very beginning and thus had one gigantic, massive fleet ready and waiting for the Reapers, it might have been different. But as-is the fleet - while the largest in galactic history - is still made up of the remnants of fleets that have already had their effective strength depleted in battles against the Reapers.

 

[Goofguy]

Lots of valid points here.

I have no problem with the multiplayer on its own, I think it's pretty fun. However, forcing players to play it in order to achieve the 'best possible ending' is BS. Did anyone here manage to get 4000+ EMS with a default Galactic Readiness of 50%? Because that would blow my mind.

I managed 3400 with 54% GR,and I had a lot of quests left. It would probably take a while, and you'd need both the Geth and Quarians on your side, but \i think you could do it.

I beg to differ. My first playthrough of ME3 was without multiplayer support (my 360 was not connected online). I used a savegame from ME1 and ME2. I completed all side missions in ME3 and played Paragon so I was making friends where it counted. I managed a TMS of about 6800 which meant an EMS of 3400 due to my GR of 50%. I was pretty damn thorough and I was nowhere near the requisite 4000 let alone 5000.

Did you scan enough planets to get the discovery bonuses? I kept finding caches of weapons to defend the Crucible that rose my EMS. And did you get both the quarians and geth. they give you a massive bonus. Did the Council die?

I was pretty damn thorough with the scanning, probably spent a third of my game time doing it. Looking back on it, maybe I missed out on one or two scanned assets. Yup, I got both the Quarians and the Geth. And I saved the council.

In retrospect, the biggest hits to my military strength were the Alliance's losses when they saved the Council and the odds and ends I missed out on like Conrad Verner and Kelly Chambers' ex-Cerberus friends. In terms of the Krogan Genophage resolution, I think the best outcome (numerically, that is) is curing it, with Wrex in charge, Eve surviving (due to Maelon's data) and the bomb de-activated. Unless sabotaging the cure with Wreav in charge, Eve dead, Mordin surviving, bomb de-activated which adds Salarian support is better.

All in all, I am confident that I got at least 90% of the assets unless there is a massive glaring asset I missed.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

That's certainly an interesting way to look at things...the Crucible as being a way to bring the galaxy together. Buuuuuut I have to disagree as I think there's evidence throughout the game that shows that the Crucible is supposed to work. People keep mentioning that it is something capable of producing enormous amounts of energy they just need a way to focus the energy...that is, the Catalyst.

There may have been evidence that it would do something, but there was no real reason to believe that it would be a weapon. For all Hackett knew, the thing might have turned out to be a giant flashlight, or a massive high-tech version of one of those little pop guns that shoots out a "Bang!" flag (although hopefully with a sweet lazer light show!).

The truth of the matter is that no one - not even the Protheans - had any idea what the Crucible was supposed to do, only that the cycle before them seemed convinced that it could end the war.

But... if my (obviously canonically wrong) theory was accurate, wouldn't it still have ended the war (assuming war resources were adequate)?

If it were just a giant device to get the galaxy united and working together, it'd actually be a MASSIVE waste of time and resources. By all accounts there is no way to defeat the Reapers conventionally, a doomsday device is the only ope the galaxy has. An all out war against the Reapers with every fleet might lead to a very bloody battle with heavy losses on both sides, but the Reapers would come out on top.

No argument about it being a waste of resources. But if a bit of wastefulness is what it takes to make everyone set aside their differences and work toward a common goal... isn't it worth it in the end?

I would actually argue that it is possible to defeat them conventionally, though. They're tough, and there are a lot of them - no doubt about that. But we've seen them destroyed. Shepard has personally seen a few of them taken out without the Crucible, and they're definitely seen taking significant damage from the Victory Fleet's guns.

Javik admits that the reason why his cycle failed to defeat the Reapers conventionally was because the organics of his cycle were far too homogenized. Though he didn't seem particularly confident in the Victory Fleet's chances, he did seem to imply that he felt they stood a much better chance at defeating the Reapers conventionally than his own people. I suppose you could argue that he was making that claim with the assumption that the Victory Fleet was being backed by the Crucible, but he also admits that he's a soldier - not a scientist - and wasn't qualified to make any assumptions at all about the Crucible or what it does.

Now, had the galaxy listened to Shepard from the very beginning and thus had one gigantic, massive fleet ready and waiting for the Reapers, it might have been different. But as-is the fleet - while the largest in galactic history - is still made up of the remnants of fleets that have already had their effective strength depleted in battles against the Reapers.

100% totally agreed about the galaxy listening to Shepard (damn you, Turian councilor!)... but it didn't. Clearly, something needed to bring everyone together. The Crucible, with a little bit of help from Shepard, proceeded to do that against odds that had previously been believed to be insurmountable.

Again, I know the theory I was going by while I was playing ended up being wrong. But I do still think it could have been quite sound.

Frankly, I think we could have ended the war with a lot less bloodshed if only we'd just introduced the Reapers to humanity's finest achievement - pancakes. If only they'd known the pure concentrated awesome of pancakes, maybe they would have spared us.

I could really go for some pancakes now. Damnit.

 

[RJ 17]

That's certainly an interesting way to look at things...the Crucible as being a way to bring the galaxy together. Buuuuuut I have to disagree as I think there's evidence throughout the game that shows that the Crucible is supposed to work. People keep mentioning that it is something capable of producing enormous amounts of energy they just need a way to focus the energy...that is, the Catalyst.

There may have been evidence that it would do something, but there was no real reason to believe that it would be a weapon. For all Hackett knew, the thing might have turned out to be a giant flashlight, or a massive high-tech version of one of those little pop guns that shoots out a "Bang!" flag (although hopefully with a sweet lazer light show!).

It's only described as a "weapon" by military people, but that's only because Liara keeps saying "it's a device that the Protheans believed could wipe out the Reapers." They don't know what it's supposed to do, but they do know that it's supposed to destroy Reapers, so they call it a "weapon" since it'll be used to defeat the reapers.

The truth of the matter is that no one - not even the Protheans - had any idea what the Crucible was supposed to do, only that the cycle before them seemed convinced that it could end the war.

But... if my (obviously canonically wrong) theory was accurate, wouldn't it still have ended the war (assuming war resources were adequate)?

I'd say no, seeing as how the entire game every military leader keeps saying "There's no way we can win conventionally." If it was as simple as gathering up a massive fleet and throwing it at the Reapers, I'd imagine the galaxy would have been fine to begin with considering Shepard's actions, but I'll get to that further on down.

If it were just a giant device to get the galaxy united and working together, it'd actually be a MASSIVE waste of time and resources. By all accounts there is no way to defeat the Reapers conventionally, a doomsday device is the only ope the galaxy has. An all out war against the Reapers with every fleet might lead to a very bloody battle with heavy losses on both sides, but the Reapers would come out on top.

No argument about it being a waste of resources. But if a bit of wastefulness is what it takes to make everyone set aside their differences and work toward a common goal... isn't it worth it in the end?

I would actually argue that it is possible to defeat them conventionally, though. They're tough, and there are a lot of them - no doubt about that. But we've seen them destroyed. Shepard has personally seen a few of them taken out without the Crucible, and they're definitely seen taking significant damage from the Victory Fleet's guns.

Javik admits that the reason why his cycle failed to defeat the Reapers conventionally was because the organics of his cycle were far too homogenized. Though he didn't seem particularly confident in the Victory Fleet's chances, he did seem to imply that he felt they stood a much better chance at defeating the Reapers conventionally than his own people. I suppose you could argue that he was making that claim with the assumption that the Victory Fleet was being backed by the Crucible, but he also admits that he's a soldier - not a scientist - and wasn't qualified to make any assumptions at all about the Crucible or what it does.

Ahhhh but it's not The Crucible that brings the galaxy together...it's Shepard and his massive testicles that do so. Did the Crucible cure the genophage? Nope. Did the Crucible end the war between the Geth and Quarians? Nope. Sure, once the various groups signed on they committed resources to helping with the Crucible, but Shepard wasn't able to just show up and be like "SOMEONE SET US UP THE BOMB! ALL REAPER BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!!" and have everyone go "Holy shit, you're right! We all need to build this thing! Screw settling our own differences, lets help with this!"

Javik says they have a better chance for success because "There was no final great battle for (his) cycle." So many things were different about the current cycle. Galactic governments weren't immediately smashed by the Citadel Ambush as the Reapers use as their Plan A. The Relays were still accessible because of this. Things were not as grim (yet) as they were in the Prothean cycle...there were true reasons for hope, namely the Crucible was completed and ready for deployment (and all the amazing things that Shepard does in ME 3).

As for taking out the Reapers, the only Reapers Shepard takes out are Destroyers which are most effective as ground forces...there's still the vast hordes of "Sovereign-Class" Reapers that make up the bulk of the Reaper fleet. You remember Sovereign, right? The single ship that took 3 fleets to destroy? And even then they only succeeded because Sovereign made the mistake of linking it's mind to Saren's body thus utterly stunning the great machine once Shepard destroyed Saren? Yeah, they've got a fleet of those bastards.

Now, had the galaxy listened to Shepard from the very beginning and thus had one gigantic, massive fleet ready and waiting for the Reapers, it might have been different. But as-is the fleet - while the largest in galactic history - is still made up of the remnants of fleets that have already had their effective strength depleted in battles against the Reapers.

100% totally agreed about the galaxy listening to Shepard (damn you, Turian councilor!)... but it didn't. Clearly, something needed to bring everyone together. The Crucible, with a little bit of help from Shepard, proceeded to do that against odds that had previously been believed to be insurmountable.

Again, I know the theory I was going by while I was playing ended up being wrong. But I do still think it could have been quite sound.

Frankly, I think we could have ended the war with a lot less bloodshed if only we'd just introduced the Reapers to humanity's finest achievement - pancakes. If only they'd known the pure concentrated awesome of pancakes, maybe they would have spared us.

I could really go for some pancakes now. Damnit.

Again, the Crucible had absolutely nothing to do with uniting the galaxy. It gave them all something to work on, but it was Shepard and his pure, Master-Chief-*****-Slapping Machismo that united the galaxy.

And it would be Chipotle burritos, if any food product, that could get the Reapers to cease their rampage.

 

[Simonoly]

For me, the most pathetic thing about ME3 was the galaxy map exploration.

The Mako sections in Mass Effect 1 and the planet scanning in ME2 were far from perfect, but at least you had to actually do something and carrying them out required at least some intelligent input from the player (e.g. ME2 probes cost credits and credits are in a finite supply so you have to be thoughtful about which minerals you extract from a planet in order to construct the upgrades you need). But with ME3 it's completely brainless. You enter a system, fly around scanning to find one maybe two planets with a war asset. Then you scan that planet to find the single war asset there with infinite probes to obtain it. When the percentage of war assets reaches 100 you're done and that's it! There's ZERO variability in what you can do! You can't fail anything. Even if the Reapers detect you they're so easy to avoid and you can just doge in and out of the system to get everything available.

The've relegated the galaxy map exploration to a pointless collection of hoops to jump through in order to increase a bar that has very little effect on the story.

I think the best thing about ME3 is the multiplayer. Oh dear...

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

And it would be Chipotle burritos, if any food product, that could get the Reapers to cease their rampage.

Burritos? I suppose forcing them all to need a restroom break would be one way to cease their rampage...

We're probably going to have to agree to disagree on the other stuff, though (well, and probably that one too!). While I don't deny that Shepard was super-important to getting everyone together, I also doubt everyone would have given up forces that could have been used to defend their own homes if they didn't think Shepard (and the Alliance/Council by extension)believed, deep down, that the Crucible could destroy (or maybe disable?) the Reapers, regardless of what it actually was going to do (if anything at all).

Granted, this is all assuming there's any credibility at all to a theory that the game's ending proved inaccurate... along with many other theories that were unfortunately better than what we got.

Not even the power of pancakes and chipotle burritos could save us from the disappointment we got from the hands of the rEApers.