How do YOU think Mass Effect should have ended?

[tthor]

Even with the extended cut, many people aren't happy with ME3 ending. But what I gotta wonder is, what ending COULD they have had that would have satisfied their audience? Mass Effect built up an unstoppable god-like enemy, one that has destroyed entire civilizations for god knows how many times. How did you expect to defeat such a being? About the only way I see they could have defeated the reapers is with some phoned-in Deus Ex Machina, and the writers knew this. But rather than just give some giant gun that just conveniently killed the reapers and made everything hunky-dory, they tried to do something more creative (albeit failing in the end,)

Mass Effect suffered from the same problem Lost did, it built up an intriguing world that asked a lot of interesting questions, only to realize partway through that they had no idea where they were going with it, nor how to answer these questions.

So with the world built up in the first and second Mass Effect games, how do you think they should have ended the Third? Do you think there was even a way to end it fantastically, or did it kinda shoot itself in the foot from the start? How should it have ended?

 

[wintercoat]

That is my ending. It's what I was expecting based on the narrative's flow, it's what I was hoping for, it's what I wanted after seeing that godawful Conduit rear it's ugly head. I have said from the beginning that the ending would have been perfect if it played out just like this video does.

 

[Janus Vesta]

I wanted an all out battle. A way of sticking it to the Reapers and beating them on our own terms. All through ME3 Hackett kept saying how we couldn't defeat the Reapers conventionally. Why? We have their guns, we have armour and shields that can withstand massive energy like the Collector beams* AND we out number them like 1,000 to 1.

Sure there'd be massive losses, many planets would probably be irreversably scarred from the warfare Earth wouldbe fucked what with all those disabled ships and Reapers raining eezo filled debris down. I mean the entire reason the Protheans lost was because their government was shattered and they were disorganised, we aren't.

*I'm not saying Collector weapons are on the same scale as Reaper weapons, It's just that we have some of the best technolgoy the galaxy has ever seen.

 

[tthor]

That is my ending. It's what I was expecting based on the narrative's flow, it's what I was hoping for, it's what I wanted after seeing that godawful Conduit rear it's ugly head. I have said from the beginning that the ending would have been perfect if it played out just like this video does.

ok, you win, that was a pretty good ending.

 

[dreadedcandiru99]

But rather than just give some giant gun that just conveniently killed the reapers and made everything hunky-dory, they tried to do something more creative (albeit failing in the end,)

Exactly. I wasn't happy about the way-too-convenient superweapon out of nowhere, but I might have been able to deal with it--and then the Starchild showed up. MrBTongue [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MlatxLP-xs&feature=plcp] said it best: practically everything that's wrong with the ending is encapsulated in that one character. (The "explanation" of the Reapers' purpose especially galled me, by the way. They didn't need any further explanation. They're nightmarish, biomechanical Lovecraftian horrors from beyond the edge of known space, and they slaughter civilizations to make more of themselves, just because they can. That's good enough.)

So if the Extended Cut had been left up to me? I'd have taken the stupid Starchild out. Instead, "the Catalyst" would've referred to the Citadel's hidden mass relay--you know, the one Sovereign was trying to activate in ME1. Shepard's plan would be to get to the Citadel, find a way to activate the station's relay and channel the Crucible's power into it, link the superweapon to the galactic relay network, and wipe out the Reapers with it. In fact, I thought that's what they were going to do: as I recall, one of the Crucible parts you can find is a targeting system that can pinpoint objects (such as Reapers) from anywhere in the galaxy.

And perhaps Shepard's trying to dodge attacks from Harbinger while attempting this (and while hoping not to bleed out), while your war assets try to keep the Reapers at bay. If you don't have enough assets and you made the wrong decisions, the Reapers win. If you did things right, you win. If you did absolutely everything right throughout all three games, maybe Shepard even gets to live.

I think that would've been a little more satisfying than "glowy ghost kid allows you to magically turn everybody into robots somehow."

 

[Eddie the head]

snip

Yeah that one. I didn't have high standards, I just wanted it to make sense. Also this is like the 9 billionth time I have seen this topic.

 

[Erttheking]

I wanted an all out battle. A way of sticking it to the Reapers and beating them on our own terms. All through ME3 Hackett kept saying how we couldn't defeat the Reapers conventionally. Why? We have their guns, we have armour and shields that can withstand massive energy like the Collector beams* AND we out number them like 1,000 to 1.

Sure there'd be massive losses, many planets would probably be irreversably scarred from the warfare Earth wouldbe fucked what with all those disabled ships and Reapers raining eezo filled debris down. I mean the entire reason the Protheans lost was because their government was shattered and they were disorganised, we aren't.

*I'm not saying Collector weapons are on the same scale as Reaper weapons, It's just that we have some of the best technolgoy the galaxy has ever seen.

Pretty much this in a nutshell, though I would have accepted losing and getting wiped out if my war assets were too low. I really like this ending because it gives the whole point of ME3 (gathering war assets) a FREAKING POINT!

 

[Fr]anc[is]

I would have had the final battle be severe enough to force the Reapers to retreat with significant losses on both sides. The Reapers beat the Protheans by cutting off communications and picking off systems one by one. With everyone prepared and united, it would be much more effective. Sovereign was destroyed by regular weapons, the derelict reaper was hurt by something, and I think there are a few more Reaper wrecks, so they aren't invincible.

 

[PonceyMcTosserFaic]

I wanted an all out battle. A way of sticking it to the Reapers and beating them on our own terms. All through ME3 Hackett kept saying how we couldn't defeat the Reapers conventionally. Why? We have their guns, we have armour and shields that can withstand massive energy like the Collector beams* AND we out number them like 1,000 to 1.

Sure there'd be massive losses, many planets would probably be irreversably scarred from the warfare Earth wouldbe fucked what with all those disabled ships and Reapers raining eezo filled debris down. I mean the entire reason the Protheans lost was because their government was shattered and they were disorganised, we aren't.

*I'm not saying Collector weapons are on the same scale as Reaper weapons, It's just that we have some of the best technolgoy the galaxy has ever seen.

that's kinda what i hoping for. I wanted to go beat some reaper ass and smack harbinger right in it's metallic prick face.

 

[Mr. GameBrain]

RAINBOWS AND UNICRONS!!!

Seriously though. I just wanted an all out battle, where you could lose if you hadn't prepared well enough. Simple as that.

A fully indoctrinated Illusive man was actually planned to be the final boss at some point. I really wished they kept that.

Also no Starchild in the game ever.

 

[Terminate421]

Suicide mission style, as you run through london, you see all your forces being deployed at certain points:

Example: A large amount of banshees flanks you, then a cutscene shows Geth Primes being deployed to take them down in some badass way (Some shooting, some using melee)

Then when you fire the catalyst, you hop onto the normandy and when it fires, it disables the reapers. The fleets destroy the reapers and harbinger attempts to kill you before being blown up himself. All while playing "suicide mission" from Mass Effect 2. Then some scenes are shown based on your choices.

This ending is only achievable with Galactic resources at 4500+

 

[Esotera]

I wanted the Reaper cycle to continue, but as Shepard dies he realises that the ships gather up a race and produce a collective mind based in a ship, and thus frees up the universe for new intelligent life. There'd be a few other minimally different choices but that's the only ending that would really make sense for the series, winning against the Reapers is just ridiculous, and Shepard surviving even more so. I don't mind Shepard dying as long as it was well executed.

Or alternatively, they should have a really hard wave attack thing where every Reaper comes to kill Shepard, and if he drives off all thousand, he gets to go home.

 

[Ix Rebound]

So if the Extended Cut had been left up to me? I'd have taken the stupid Starchild out. Instead, "the Catalyst" would've referred to the Citadel's hidden mass relay--you know, the one Sovereign was trying to activate in ME1. Shepard's plan would be to get to the Citadel, find a way to activate the station's relay and channel the Crucible's power into it, link the superweapon to the galactic relay network, and wipe out the Reapers with it.

That's probably the best alternate ending the game I have read so far.
It would have been a good way to link the the first and the last games together.

 

[Agayek]

So with the world built up in the first and second Mass Effect games, how do you think they should have ended the Third? Do you think there was even a way to end it fantastically, or did it kinda shoot itself in the foot from the start? How should it have ended?

They could have easily fixed the ME3 ending. How, do you ask? The first 9 minutes of that video wintercourt posted. All they had to do was remove the Catalyst and its exposition, and it would have been a good ending. It would wrap up most every hanging story thread, resolve the major conflict, and actually bring a conclusion to the series.

Instead, they left it in anyway and expanded on the shit that honestly didn't need a whole lot of changing.

Every major problem with the original and extended cut endings can be traced directly to the Catalyst. Its presence is bad storytelling, full stop. Remove that and the endings become actually fairly decent, with the Extended Cut scenes/epilogue anyway. Without the EC, removing the Catalyst would make it "meh"; not offensively bad as it was/is, but also not very good. Seeing the video earlier in the thread, that's really my favorite ending now, and whenever I get to that point in replays of the game, I'm just gonna watch that instead.

 

[NortherWolf]

An epic space battle, and at the end of the day Garrush and Shepard sitting on a beach, sipping drinks while there's a burning Reaper husk in the water.(I can't for the life of me find the picture that showed me that ending)

In short, epic battle that they had alluded to in two games, then a nice ending. Not all team members needed to have lived, I'm fine with that...But I didn't want the shit endings we got either.

Semi-OT, I wonder how they'll manage part four.

 

[dreadedcandiru99]

So if the Extended Cut had been left up to me? I'd have taken the stupid Starchild out. Instead, "the Catalyst" would've referred to the Citadel's hidden mass relay--you know, the one Sovereign was trying to activate in ME1. Shepard's plan would be to get to the Citadel, find a way to activate the station's relay and channel the Crucible's power into it, link the superweapon to the galactic relay network, and wipe out the Reapers with it.

That's probably the best alternate ending the game I have read so far.
It would have been a good way to link the the first and the last games together.

That's kind of what I was thinking, actually...oh, wait. On second thought, I'd just remove all references to "the Catalyst" entirely. Why not just have Shepard come up with the whole plan? Like, there could be a scene where Shepard, Hackett and Anderson are trying to figure out how to attack every Reaper in the galaxy at once, and Shepard goes, "Hey, isn't there a relay built into the Citadel? And isn't the Citadel the heart of the whole relay network? Hang on, let me see if I've still got Vigil's control file lying around here..."

Also, now that I think of it, the Extended Cut should've explained why the Reapers didn't shut down the relay network the instant they took the Citadel back. Because that was their original plan, right?

 

[lowkey_jotunn]

*Minor spoilers, duh*

Remember how in #2, certain teammates could die if you weren't prepared enough? ME3 needed a pinch of that. Your galactic preparedness-o-meter should have determined who lived and who died, up to and including complete and abject failure if you were not well prepared enough. And ditch the multiplayer tie in ... I don't care if you want to include a death-math, CTF, or whatever miltiplayer, that's fine ... just don't have the single player game dependent on fragging newbs. I have TF2 for that.

Secondly, each of your allies needed a moment of glory. The students you rescued with Jack, the Rachni, Geth, Quarians, Krogan, etc. (if you completed their respective mission appropriately) should have shown up during the siege of London. It should even affect the difficulty of the last mission. If you've got tons of allies, the last mission is a breeze... if you burned all those bridges along the way, you're going to have a bad time.

Third, Joker and company needed to not run away. Let them stay and fight, let them die if necessary... but having them run off seems (a) extremely out of character and (b) pretty much fatal for about half the crew ... depending on the amino acids present in the food on the planet.


Finally, ditch the starchild. That was probably the biggest cop-out of the whole thing. If you must wrap it all up in an easy-to-understand package, toss in a Prothean VI explaining the crucible and how it works. I'd even be some-what OK if they kept the same 3 options, but play it off like the Protheans designed it to be multifunction. Or to take it a bit better, base the choices on your conversation with TIM downstairs. Put specific triggers in the dialog.

TIM says : We can control them
Shep says : F that, kill them all --> Destroy option
or
Shep says : Maybe your right ---> Control option

 

[Gnmish]

TBH it wasn't the particular ending that disappointed me, it was a wasted opportunity to do something fantastic with the game as a whole. The writers should have spent some time playing Fallout : New Vegas.

I would have loved the opportunity to choose a faction and alter the actual story missions, so early on you could choose to fight specifically for the humans (alliance), all life (citadel) or even team up with Cerberus for a control ending, with possibly 2 or 3 more story mission changing choices (paragon/renegade) along the way to give it a more personal feel.

A good example are the Haven missions, as Sheppard you may very well want to save the facility and help Cerberus in their research to control the Reapers, at which point you could do the same mission from the other side, fighting off Alliance meddlers!

That way the the ending would really feel like your own (still Blue, Red, Green but you made a conscious decision to get there).