Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut [Spoilers]

[Stofsk]

Who cares what Mike Gamble may have said; it's not apparent from the refuse ending cutscene that the future civilisation did use the crucible to win. Frankly I don't care what bioware intended - something like the refuse ending should have always been on the table regardless, just like how in ME2 there was that ending where Shepard dies despite succeeding in stopping the Collectors.

[Zinegata]

Who cares what Mike Gamble may have said; it's not apparent from the refuse ending cutscene that the future civilisation did use the crucible to win. Frankly I don't care what bioware intended - something like the refuse ending should have always been on the table regardless, just like how in ME2 there was that ending where Shepard dies despite succeeding in stopping the Collectors.

Losonti is claiming there are no "Fuck you non-believers!" elements in the Refuse ending. This is false. I am showing why it is false.

Like I said, based on the ending itself there's no indication whether or not the Crucible was used by the next cycle.

However, quite a large number of players do in fact see the Refuse ending as a "Fuck you" to them, because that's not actually what they asked for (Refuse = Conventional Victory). I am explaining why this is the case, and have provided further examples showing how certain Bioware employees (i.e. Mike Gamble) are in fact overtly using Refuse as a "Fuck you" to their fans.

[DireApostasy]

See, what i don't get about people wanting the Refuse ending to allow conventional victory is that THE ENTIRE GAME revolves around "we cannot beat the Reapers conventionally. All we can do is buy time for the Crucible to be built, and hope it works".

[PeZook]

See, what i don't get about people wanting the Refuse ending to allow conventional victory is that THE ENTIRE GAME revolves around "we cannot beat the Reapers conventionally. All we can do is buy time for the Crucible to be built, and hope it works".

Probably because it would make the "warscore" thing actually useful and sensible?

[DireApostasy]

See, what i don't get about people wanting the Refuse ending to allow conventional victory is that THE ENTIRE GAME revolves around "we cannot beat the Reapers conventionally. All we can do is buy time for the Crucible to be built, and hope it works".

Probably because it would make the "warscore" thing actually useful and sensible?

It already is. You know, the part where the more warscore you have, the better built/protected the Crucible is, and therefore the more options you have at the ending. I seem to recall that if you just barely scraped the bare minimum warscore, you only got the destroy option. And possibly it killed everything ever.

[PeZook]

It already is. You know, the part where the more warscore you have, the better built/protected the Crucible is, and therefore the more options you have at the ending. I seem to recall that if you just barely scraped the bare minimum warscore, you only got the destroy option. And possibly it killed everything ever.

I know it does SOMETHING, it's just that this something is ridiculous and disconnected from all but the most contrived logic.

[DireApostasy]

I know it does SOMETHING, it's just that this something is ridiculous and disconnected from all but the most contrived logic.

True, the whole warscore thing could definitely have been better implemented. Or maybe just left out and pick a more logical metric for measuring how poorly/well you did on the whole "build a functional Crucible" thing.

But that doesn't detract from my main point, that people who are complaining that Refuse doesn't just end up with a conventional victory anyway, is outright stated to be impossible by any number of people who at least somewhat know what they're talking about in-universe.

[PeZook]

True, the whole warscore thing could definitely have been better implemented. Or maybe just left out and pick a more logical metric for measuring how poorly/well you did on the whole "build a functional Crucible" thing.

The problem is that was all in one basket: commandos, heavy cruisers, frigates, entire battle armadas, scientists and engineers, and this had no obvious connection with why it made the Crucible better. Well, I get wy getting more materials and engineers might, but dreadnaughts?

It would've been betterto have less pieces and just go for consequence-based outcomes.

But bah, not gonna happen

But that doesn't detract from my main point, that people who are complaining that Refuse doesn't just end up with a conventional victory anyway, is outright stated to be impossible by any number of people who at least somewhat know what they're talking about in-universe.

Well, characters despairing over having no chance for victory is a cliche in drama, and it usually ends with the hero rallying them, giving them hope and leading them to victory against overwhelming odds thanks to his heroic and inspiring personality.

Really, is it any wonder why everyone expected this sort of thing? It's basically THE inspiring story of valor told across generations, and it always looks similar

Plus of course it's what Shep does over and over again

[DireApostasy]

Well, characters despairing over having no chance for victory is a cliche in drama, and it usually ends with the hero rallying them, giving them hope and leading them to victory against overwhelming odds thanks to his heroic and inspiring personality.

Really, is it any wonder why everyone expected this sort of thing? It's basically THE inspiring story of valor told across generations, and it always looks similar

Plus of course it's what Shep does over and over again

Ha, yeah, true enough. But generally those stories involve something slightly more beatable than stupid huge dreadnaughts that can take pretty much anything you can throw at them and come back for more. Shep is still only one person, and all the inspirational speeches in the world won't help when your foe outclasses you that severely.

[PeZook]

Pfft, they're only that tough because writers decided they were. The story would've worked if they were merely really really tough but beatable with enough grit and determination.

And you know, I always got the vibe that the writers themselves were kinda unsure if the Reapers were nigh-unbeatable or just really tough, because it varies. One Reaper is eaten by a big thresher maw, another requires orbital bombardment by an entire fleet of dreadnaughts. Sovereign dies to a human fleet (and Shep, yeah, because we totally needed shooting things in the face to allow victory). Other Reapers get brained by big, but otherwise pretty standard, mass effect cannons. The Codex mentions how Turians killfucked Reaper dreadnaughts with unorthodox tactics, and took down destroyers with grit and determination....

One gets blown apart in the opening volley at Earth.

Etc etc etc.

Oh, also

The trailers screamed TAKE EARTH BACK

[DireApostasy]

Pfft, they're only that tough because writers decided they were. The story would've worked if they were merely really really tough but beatable with enough grit and determination.

And you know, I always got the vibe that the writers themselves were kinda unsure if the Reapers were nigh-unbeatable or just really tough, because it varies. One Reaper is eaten by a big thresher maw, another requires orbital bombardment by an entire fleet of dreadnaughts. Sovereign dies to a human fleet (and Shep, yeah, because we totally needed shooting things in the face to allow victory). Other Reapers get brained by big, but otherwise pretty standard, mass effect cannons.

One gets blown apart in the opening volley at Earth.

Etc etc etc.

Oh, also

The trailers screamed TAKE EARTH BACK

Well, Earth did get taken back

On the Thresher Maw one, I believe that was a destroyer-class reaper, not a Sovereign-class Dreadnaught. Although the one on Rannoch also appeared to be a destroyer, so why that one took such an enormous amount of fire before going down is weird (It wasn't a fleet of dreadnaughts, though. The Quarian "dreadnaughts" were their liveships with bigass guns strapped on. Those are part of the civilian fleet, which wasn't actively engaged in the battle at that point. Heavy fleet and patrol fleet were, but those are primarily frigates and cruisers. I'm gonna attribute that one to drama.

Maybe you'll disagree with me, but the way I see it, Sovereign only went down the way it did, because it had invested way too much of itself possessing Saren to fuck Shep up. So when Sov-Saren got fucked up, there was a feedback that took down Sovereign's barriers. Leaving it open to get wiped by the fleet (which it had, up till then, been slaughtering at will).

At the opening volley at Earth... the most damage I can recall seeing to any given Reaper there, is the one we see getting two tentacles blown off before destroying the ship that did that. We see a lot of them getting hit by that volley, but none appear to actually go down.

[PeZook]

Well, Earth did get taken back

Well, forgive me if the trailers actually promised something...a tad bit more heroic

On the Thresher Maw one, I believe that was a destroyer-class reaper, not a Sovereign-class Dreadnaught. Although the one on Rannoch also appeared to be a destroyer, so why that one took such an enormous amount of fire before going down is weird (It wasn't a fleet of dreadnaughts, though. The Quarian "dreadnaughts" were their liveships with bigass guns strapped on. Those are part of the civilian fleet, which wasn't actively engaged in the battle at that point. Heavy fleet and patrol fleet were, but those are primarily frigates and cruisers. I'm gonna attribute that one to drama.

Yes, they were both destroyers, and my entire point was that the first one was kinda weakass while the other one took a massive pounding. The Quarian ships were described as glass cannons - IE, dreadnaught level firepower on a civilian hull that can't stand up to punishment.

Maybe you'll disagree with me, but the way I see it, Sovereign only went down the way it did, because it had invested way too much of itself possessing Saren to fuck Shep up. So when Sov-Saren got fucked up, there was a feedback that took down Sovereign's barriers. Leaving it open to get wiped by the fleet (which it had, up till then, been slaughtering at will).

No, I get it - I just think it's stupid. Possessed Saren wasn't even all that tough.

Think about that design flaw for a minute: "Damn my remote controlled guy got shot full of holes...hey, what's happening with my primary defence system?"

It's like...like if shooting down a Predator drone shut down NORAD

At the opening volley at Earth... the most damage I can recall seeing to any given Reaper there, is the one we see getting two tentacles blown off before destroying the ship that did that. We see a lot of them getting hit by that volley, but none appear to actually go down.

Well, if it did get tentacles blown off, it means the barriers are down, and we've all seen what happens to shieldless Reapers

[DireApostasy]

Well, forgive me if the trailers actually promised something...a tad bit more heroic

Tut tut. You should no better than to trust a trailer

Yes, they were both destroyers, and my entire point was that the first one was kinda weakass while the other one took a massive pounding. The Quarian ships were described as glass cannons - IE, dreadnaught level firepower on a civilian hull that can't stand up to punishment.

That was specifically the liveships with guns strapped on. The Heavy/Patrol fleets were actual combat ships, of frigate to cruiser-level firepower/defense, on average.

No, I get it - I just think it's stupid. Possessed Saren wasn't even all that tough.

Think about that design flaw for a minute: "Damn my remote controlled guy got shot full of holes...hey, what's happening with my primary defence system?"

It's like...like if shooting down a Predator drone shut down NORAD

Yeah, it's stupid as fuck, but... them's the breaks. You could try to justify it with something like Sovereign being way, way to focused on killing Shep, and therefore investing far more of itself/its runtime/whatever into running Sarendrone, so when that connection suddenly got cut, shit went screwy, if only for a short while.

Well, if it did get tentacles blown off, it means the barriers are down, and we've all seen what happens to shieldless Reapers

Yeah, presumably it got taken out at some point. And presumably at least a few other destroyers and Sovereign-class ships went down too. But the price of doing that is really, really high.

[Losonti Tokash]

The Refuse ending is clearly an olive branch even more than the extended original three, since it is almost line for line one of the things suggested and asked for by fans before the EC was released. No, they bdidnt completely reverse the endings that already existed, but they said they weren't going to.

Anyway, THE CODEX (lol) says that killing Saren (again) is what fucked Sovereign up and killed his shields. After being equipped with Thanix weapons, a sovereign-class can be killed by concentrated fire from three dreadnoughts, though you need at least four to avoid losing a ship. Destroyers can be taken down by massed cruisers. This is all well and good but there are more Reapers than dreadnoughts to throw at them and the "unconventional tactics" (suicide bombings, hit and run raids) are worthless for actually keeping the Reapers away from a planet you're trying to defend.

[Broken]

I personally prefer the Refusal ending to the others (all of the RGB endings are monstrous in their own way) and even have no problem with the current cycle being unable to win conventionally. Given the fact that the galaxy only had what, 3 years to prepare from ME1 to ME3 and the various governments all basically did jack-shit with that time; sure beating the reapers in open warfare may have been impossible. That just sets the stage for a bittersweet ending with the next cycle ending the Reapers forever; but the Gamble tweets were clearly meant as a "fuck you" to the fans that hated the original ME3 endings and were in open revolt about them. Refusal also has less cutscenes, time, and effort put into it then the RGB endings and as one poster on the official Bioware forums pointed out, you don't get the game completed achievement if you chose it; it is really a very long "you lose" scene in that light.

[Losonti Tokash]

That's partly explainable by the download size limits put in place by either MS or Sony. The dlc runs right up to the 2 gig limit and they apparently had trouble compressing it that much. Then you think about showing the next cyclek illing the reapers and wonder exactly how much art budget you're willing to invest into this free dlc or if you'd rather just leave it implied (this is certainly why we never see female turians and it took forever to see female krogan and salarians). The achievement is probably an oversight.

[Vendetta]

Anyway, THE CODEX (lol) says that killing Saren (again) is what fucked Sovereign up and killed his shields. After being equipped with Thanix weapons, a sovereign-class can be killed by concentrated fire from three dreadnoughts, though you need at least four to avoid losing a ship. Destroyers can be taken down by massed cruisers. This is all well and good but there are more Reapers than dreadnoughts to throw at them and the "unconventional tactics" (suicide bombings, hit and run raids) are worthless for actually keeping the Reapers away from a planet you're trying to defend.

The trouble is that this doesn't jive with what we're shown in the game. Reaper destroyers turn out not to be all that difficult to destroy. The one on Rannoch is killed by what look like point defence weapons (they're clearly not of high yield because Shepard is standing mere metres from their impact at the end), and the one just before the ersatz conduit is destroyed by a single surface launched artillery barrage.

The Reaper dreadnought that had it's fingers shot off at the start of the battle lost it in the first volley or so. Focus fire from the fleet could have inflicted intense casualties on the Reapers.

[DireApostasy]

The trouble is that this doesn't jive with what we're shown in the game. Reaper destroyers turn out not to be all that difficult to destroy. The one on Rannoch is killed by what look like point defence weapons (they're clearly not of high yield because Shepard is standing mere metres from their impact at the end), and the one just before the ersatz conduit is destroyed by a single surface launched artillery barrage.

The Reaper dreadnought that had it's fingers shot off at the start of the battle lost it in the first volley or so. Focus fire from the fleet could have inflicted intense casualties on the Reapers.

On the other hand, it's a long-running problem that the in-game sequences for ship-to-ship stuff doesn't match with what the codex says. Didn't Bioware come out and say that, when there's a conflict of that nature, Codex is highest tier of canon?

[Vendetta]

I'm not sure you can work like that. In order to allow the codex to trump visuals in these cases you would have to assume that some of the most critical events of Mass Effect 3 never actually happened.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Yeah, I think this case trumps some of the other codex-to-video fails. A slower firing Thanix cannon is quite a bit different from Reapers being taken out easily, instead of being nigh-indestructable.

[Agent Sorchus]

Cannon doesn't matter when the total composition is judged not on going back and reading an encyclopedia about the game you just played. You judge it on the actual presentation during your play.

[DireApostasy]

I more mean shit like the dumbass point defence cannon things. Codex lays out pretty plainly that point defences in ME universe are lasers, and work close-in. Ranged combat is with the larger, usually spinal mounted, main guns. Not some weirdass little turreted things.

[Ted C]

The trouble is that this doesn't jive with what we're shown in the game. Reaper destroyers turn out not to be all that difficult to destroy. The one on Rannoch is killed by what look like point defence weapons (they're clearly not of high yield because Shepard is standing mere metres from their impact at the end), and the one just before the ersatz conduit is destroyed by a single surface launched artillery barrage.

The Reaper dreadnought that had it's fingers shot off at the start of the battle lost it in the first volley or so. Focus fire from the fleet could have inflicted intense casualties on the Reapers.

The Codex makes it pretty clear that, while powerful, the Reapers are not invulnerable. It says that it takes sustained fire from four turian dreadnoughts to break through the shields of a Reaper dreadnought and start inflicting damage. Apparently several Reapers were killed when they started invading the turian home system, as the turian fleet had time to set up a kill zone at the mass relay.

The problem is that there are hundreds or thousands of Reapers, even the turian fleet only has a few dozen dreadnoughts. The Alliance would need a four to one numerical advantage to beat them conventionally, and they just don't have it.

[Vendetta]

The Codex makes it pretty clear that, while powerful, the Reapers are not invulnerable. It says that it takes sustained fire from four turian dreadnoughts to break through the shields of a Reaper dreadnought and start inflicting damage. Apparently several Reapers were killed when they started invading the turian home system, as the turian fleet had time to set up a kill zone at the mass relay.

The problem is that there are hundreds or thousands of Reapers, even the turian fleet only has a few dozen dreadnoughts. The Alliance would need a four to one numerical advantage to beat them conventionally, and they just don't have it.

Except we see a Reaper Dreadnought start taking damage almost immediately, and only a small fraction of the allied fleet is shooting at it.

I more mean shit like the dumbass point defence cannon things. Codex lays out pretty plainly that point defences in ME universe are lasers, and work close-in. Ranged combat is with the larger, usually spinal mounted, main guns. Not some weirdass little turreted things.

Evidently not on Quarian ships, they have side mounted turret weapons which are sufficient to destroy Reaper Destroyers despite their energy on target being sufficient that a human in infantry armour no more than a hundred metres away is completely fine. That happened, you can't un-happen it by saying "but the codex".

[Havok]

So why is the control ending still not the best option, as it was before the dlc? And how is it "monstrous"?