Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread so we can talk about [REDACTED]

[divedivedive]

It isn’t true, strategy, that’s the point. The reapers believe it to be true, it’s what drives their entire existence.

[strategy]

It isn’t true, strategy, that’s the point. The reapers believe it to be true, it’s what drives their entire existence.

I know. The problem is that this makes it pretty hard to buy the claim (made multiple times throughout the game) that they actually possess any intelligence.

[divedivedive]

They’re constructs. Not only that, they’re a part of the system that they’re judging, being synthetic intelligences themselves. And I never personally ever thought of the reapers as having godlike intelligence. Godlike power, sure. But they have limits, and one hell of a blind spot.

[strategy]

And I never personally ever thought of the reapers as having godlike intelligence.

That is not surprising (at least not by the end of the game).

But it is what the game tries very hard to tell us , such as when Legion comments on interfacing with the Reapers: “Even then we could not fully comprehend them. They are magnitudes above us. A single thought was immense, overwhelming… unknowable.” The Reapers are clearly intended as a Lovecraftian horror (there are multiple homages to Ctulhu), the pinnacle of evolution (Legion also has a long talk about that in ME2 - the Geth are essentially trying to evolve into a Reaper-like being), and throughout both the first and second game (and a long way into the third), they are portrayed as god-like and incomprehensible with reasoning and long-term goals that are made out to be impossible for organics to ever understand.

And then they explain it all anyway.

[divedivedive]

Yeah, if they had been presented as more fully incomprehensible that probably would have been cool. Artificial Elder Gods could have been pretty awesome.

[ShivaX]

That is not surprising (at least not by the end of the game).

But it is what the game tries very hard to tell us , such as when Legion comments on interfacing with the Reapers: “Even then we could not fully comprehend them. They are magnitudes above us. A single thought was immense, overwhelming… unknowable.” The Reapers are clearly intended as a Lovecraftian horror (there are multiple homages to Ctulhu), the pinnacle of evolution (Legion also has a long talk about that in ME2 - the Geth are essentially trying to evolve into a Reaper-like being), and throughout both the first and second game (and a long way into the third), they are portrayed as god-like and incomprehensible with reasoning and long-term goals that are made out to be impossible for organics to ever understand.

And then they explain it all anyway.

Exactly. I loved that they were alien machines that we couldn’t understand. Then the writers were like… lets explain it all and make them look stupid!

Gah. Stick with what you wrote with Sovereign. He was creepy as hell because we couldn’t understand his motivation, we just knew he wanted to kill us all and that was enough.

[ralfy]

You mean the last mission? Because you play that part to get to the choices.

I mean the choices themselves, which is the ending of the game.

[ralfy]

Yeah, I can see how actually using the strategic assets would have been nice. I didn’t feel like they actually did much; once I got past that “minimum” line on the war assets, I pretty much just ignored them. Sure, I saw a big space battle cut scene, but how would that be any different with or without any one individual race? On the other hand, by the end of the game I was ready for it to be over, so another battle wouldn’t really have been particularly welcome at that stage.

I usually consider what takes place in other games, where you acquire better armor, weapons, skills, and in this case, war assets as well, leading to a main battle that should be more difficult than any other played throughout the game and that leads to the ending of the game. Any cut scenes or text boxes shown after the main battle are dependent on how you did in it, or in some cases, you simply lose and have to reload.

[RickH]

Yeah, I can see how actually using the strategic assets would have been nice. I didn’t feel like they actually did much; once I got past that “minimum” line on the war assets, I pretty much just ignored them.

You were right to do so. I felt like a chump for scouring all of those solar systems for “assets” not realizing that all I was doing was creating invisible spreadheet entries with no connection to the outcome of the game. I blame EA’s eagerness to push multiplayer (and its accompanying micropayments).

[red_guy]

You were right to do so. I felt like a chump for scouring all of those solar systems for “assets” not realizing that all I was doing was creating invisible spreadheet entries with no connection to the outcome of the game. I blame EA’s eagerness to push multiplayer (and its accompanying micropayments).

Well, there was that thing when, if you really just cleared the minimum, you didn’t get any choice, you just got to blow up the conduits, you’d see the destruction by fire of Earth, and everybody on the Normandy would die. Except for your London team mates, who would already be dead. While a true happy ending isn’t available in the game, it is possible to do much better than that by increasing the number on the spreadsheet.

But the war score was a bad mechanism, because it doesn’t feel rewarding by itself, and because you aren’t made aware of its consequences (the fleet battle is the same, and what’s the difference between “the conduit barely works” and “the conduit is finished”?) until you do a second playthrough with the explicit aim of getting your score in another range. Or until you use a social mechanic, like reading the outcome of others’ playthroughs.

There is a reward while increasing your score: it’s getting to do the side / optional missions that go with it, and fleshing out the story. Or discovering that the multiplayer is excellent.

And it was a good change when the “all options unlocked plus one option includes Shepard’s survival” score was lowered from “must do multiplayer” to “clear every mission you can get your hands on”. I played it late enough to benefit from that change, but I can imagine that initially it would frustrate people who didn’t want to do multiplayer and just couldn’t reach high enough. What’s the big deal with 5 or 50 more points if there’s not enough content to reach 5000?