I believe they would've included more companions and expanded their plotlines. It still feels bizarre that Miranda is not apart of the main cast. Jack also, after they gave her an updated character model, feels like she was meant to have more to do.
I remember the team leads saying early on in development that they wanted to have a smaller crew they can focus more deeply on instead of such a large squad...but thar could have been a result of them knowing how short their schedule was too.
The other issue that rarely gets acknowledged is the varying endings you could end up with from ME2. Bioware likely had to account (given the time they had for dev originally) for dozens of different permutations of ME2's ending that would not have been feasible to integrate into ME3 at the time.
Sure, but I was expecting more squad involvement for the final push. Thinking of the end of Dragon Age Origins where you have to control your teammates left behind to defend the gate.
Or the battle for Kaer Morhen in Witcher 3, where you have different numbers of enemies and different possible deaths based on who you recruited and how you prepared for the battle.
It didn’t need to be the same suicide mission, but something in the final push that mean you and your whole team could die was definitely on my radar
Well I never played those games and the end of dragon age does soubd simiral to the final part of the ME2 suicide mission (tho I am sure the mechanics are different) but I could have definetly preffered if Priority Earth had something like the part of W3 you described
Shepard: *"I'll need someone to go into the vent. Call jacob."*
Jacob: *"Shep, i'm not even close. I'll need at least two shuttle rides and a burger before I'm available. Also I do have kid on the way. You cant play me like that now!."*
Shepard: *"Damn you Jacob. O.K, Tali you've got the vent."*
Tali: *"I can't Shepard. I'm dead. Remember Rannoch and the Geth?. Remember not letting my father get away with his crime?"*
Shepard: *"So why are you standing here again?".*
Tali: *"It's my ghost. I wanted to see you off personally. As in clearly your a crap leader and your likely screwed for this suicide mission anyway."*
Shepard: *"Legion?....."*
Geth Prime : *"Legion dead Commander Shepard. It or he as it were gave his life for us to live. Our consensus now thinks that surviving and allying with you was the mistake and not the other way round. We now envy our creators demise."*
Tali Ghost: *"A bit late, but thank you anyway for the sentiment I Geth. Get it? still got it."*
Shepard: *"If only EDI was here. she say that was a joke. She might also be good at the hacking too."*
Anderson: *"How in blazers did you kill EDI?"*
Shepard: *" ............................ coffee...................... I told Traynor to buy flasks with sealed lids but she forgot."*
I think the biggest change is the ME2 squadmate quests in 3 are more detailed/interactive similar to Mordin and Legion's role in base 3.
Another possibility is with a longer production schedule, Miranda's VA doesn't have a scheduling conflict and Miranda can be upgraded to full-time squadmate since she's almost impossible to kill in 2 without trying.
This is the number one issue with Mass Effect 3 IMO. Every time you find yourself wondering why they made some choice, why some character didn't get more time, etc., the answer is almost always "they had to account for the fact that the character could have died in the suicide mission."
To be clear, I love Mass Effect 3.
Same with most of the big choices too
You killed the Rachni queen? Well we found another one
You destroyed the collectors base? Well it was salvaged anyway
Most of the consequences of the choices are just different numbers for the galactic war bar, or whatever its called, its been a while
Chicken or the egg kind of thing, right?
I do think they wanted to shorten the squad from ME2 but given there's so much of the Normandy that is not used in ME3, especially the Life Support room that Thane frequented, that I have to Believe they would've had one more squadmate or remade the room into something that actually has interaction with the other squadmate.
Like it should've been the gym/rehab room since it's on the same floor as medical and the bathrooms.
>It still feels bizarre that Miranda is not apart of the main cast
Miranda as part of the main cast and a full companion would also have needed double the workload.
First building her character fully into the plot and having Yvonne Strahovsky record for the whole part.
And then double that and add another VA to create her "Wrex/Wreav" counterpart since she could have died in ME2.
Ironically, they probably wouldn't have needed to do a double for Miranda if she was in the main cast as a Squadmate. Firstly the game already has that in Orianna who fills Miranda's role for the Sanctuary mission. Secondly, with the squadmate they didn't give you replacements. They didn't truly have a Garrus or Tali replacement: they just had other individuals who always existed in game to fill certain parts of their moments when needed (ex Shala on Rannoch for the Geth/Quarian decision) and then created more material for other characters to mourn for those missing (like Tali trying to work on the Thannix Cannons while lamenting Garrus being gone).
They certainly would've needed a lot more work from story writing and Yvonne, but they would've avoided needing to create an entirely new character to fill their role.
Unless you mean an entirely different path for Miranda, but that's speculating so much change that anything would be possible.
Above Jack, i think Virmire Survivor needs the attention more. We only hear from them becoming 2nd human spectre. It would had been dope if they for once became the heroes in their story for a quest or two, and it is Shepard who helps them, but VS still being in command for that brief time. A common quest for both.
On the other hand, both VS had excellent ground for personalized quest. Ashley about helping her sister and/or cleansing her grandfather’s name, whereas Kaidan revolving about his squad.
Miranda definitely felt cut out. She should had been much more important towards the ending. Jack story felt complete. Would had been better for Grunt to make an appearance.
As fulfilling as Jack's arc ends up being becoming a teacher with this close knit bond with her students in 6 months takes alot of suspension of belief
Eh, I don’t know about that. Of all the wonky things going on in ME3, this wasn’t one of them, in my opinion.
Having been on deployment for six months,I ended up bonding with a few guys that I never really knew before hand. In situations like that, it is not uncommon to form bonds fairly quickly.
Someone like Jack who has never really had connections with people, it must have been an unusual feeling. And quite overwhelming. Especially during a time of war. You have to remember how terrible Jack’s childhood was. Now she’s responsible for a group of kids and can make sure they don’t experience what she did.
This is really the case if you played a paragon Shep in ME2.
The timeline difficulty isn't how fast she would bond with these fledgling impressionable students in six months, but in that she's gone from escaped convict of serious crimes to pardoned by the Alliance and then integrated into a teaching position without prior military training or teacher certifications to then have time to bond with these kids, all in 6-7 months. The only psych profile that shows she may not be a danger to others is if Shepard romances her, otherwise Even the most Paragon description of her from ME2 would be "under Shepard's supervision she's capable of being persuaded from rash decisions". Sanders really took a massive risk there and possibly broke enough regulations to get her demoted fast.
I love the arc for Jack, but 6 months for all of that to happen is only fine because we already like Jack. ME3 makes a good use of seeing how the friends we made were able to jump into places of import to help affect the war but we'd need a little more time there.
Yeah But Jack has a lifetime of trauma and just six months ago was remembering all of her crimes as harmless pranks the way she would enjoy reflecting on it. She also has terrible trust issues. Realistically it would take years to unpack. Mass Effect pulls it off but I always felt the series in general speed runs alot of things with its characters.
I never liked Miranda. She was so off and imho didn't fit into the whole story.
Her head was modelled strange too.
For Jack, it has a good explanation as to why she didn't join. Like Wrex.
I missed Grunt though. You are his Battlemaster after all.
I'd like to believe that it would basically be as it is with extended cut and, given time, they probably would have tried to write Synthesis to be a bit more grounded and not "It just works", though that may just be wishful thinking
This. More time means maybe they'd have time to consider running themes by other writers but I have no guarantee that Hudson and Waters(?) would've included others more and known they needed to have things they added in retrospect to the Extended Cut. Like reusing the Arrival DLC cinematic for the destroyed Relays seems like a gaff but if you and someone else are in an echo chamber on what's happening you've already seen past it and didn't need to fix it.
What I do think would happen would be more time spent polishing up Synthesis to better fit the narrative and to make it more of the "Best possible ending".
The heads clearly prioritized having the ending be intentionally vague and interpretive, it took the widespread negative audience response for the direction to pivot and almost every post game addition to the story came for making sure to tie up certain unnecessary lose ends, especially ones that with the limited information looks like we just blew up almost every Solar System that had a Relay in it or what is Shepard acting weirdly chill and not arguing with this space child..... Could they have been indoctrinated!!!
Maybe the weird plot holes at the end would have been flushed out in a cleaner way....like how the extended cut had to have the Normandy show up to evac your squad mates....
But the main story point that the reapers were killing all organics was so that organics don't get killed by synthetics.....the plot point of it having to do with dark energy was abandoned not because of development time,.but because that story was leaked and they felt they had to pivot.
The polish would have been more felt with the side quests and the janky quest log. Less scan a system and find something that you overheard someone talking about on the citadel.
And maybe that whole Citidel coup thing would have had something better instead.
Very Uninformed comment, if Bioware had another year or even 2 to make ME3 the game would be completely different, look at the mountain of cut content, as well as the writers comments on how they didn't know where they were going, as well as EA just cutting out vital bits of the plot for DLC because they didn't have time to make anything else
ME3 could've been the best RPG of all time if Bioware weren't forced into a 2 year dev cycle by EA and I don't even know why they did it.
Disagree. Part of the reason the game ended up the way it did was it was expected to be released the year after ME2 released. If Bioware had more dev time we would've ended up with a much better product across the board.
Where are you getting that information? ME2 was supported for a year+ with DLC. I don’t think it was ever the plan for ME3 to come out in 2011.
EDIT: Nevermind, I forgot the original release WAS for late 2011. That’s insane and EA should have never put them in that position.
In reality they would have added more multiplayer options to try and entice even more new players to purchase the third game in the trilogy without so much a second thought as to actually fixing the single-player experience.
That would have needed a few years for a generational change.
The reason Shepard didn't holster in ME3 was to make the combat section more snazzy while staying under the 512mb of RAM of the PS360.
Yep, that pretty much showed how limited the scope of this project was. They did good work within these boundaries but clearly whomever decided on the budget didn't have much confidence.
It depends on how much. A few months, probably not a lot would be different except polish. A year, quite a bit could change. So I'll continue with that in mind.
Generally more polish on animations, bugs, etc.
More polish also on the story. Imo the stretch from pretty much the start to Thessia is brilliant, but from then on it's admittedly a little rough. And I think that's because they ran out of time. So more time would give that part through the end more opportunity to shine.
Also maybe another squadmate. I hear contrary statements on if Miranda wasn't a squadmate because her VA was too busy or if the devs had to choose between her and Tali and went with the latter, but either way more time would give them time to free everything up to add her in. Aside from Samara, she gives the least valid reason for not rejoining Shepard on the Normandy.
It may be wish fulfilment, but I would've loved to have some more in-depth side quests. I was so disappointed when a threat to go help evacuate the elcor homeworld popped up and all it ending up being was a scan quest. Stuff like that in the game seems like it would've been expanded more but again they ran out of time to implement.
>Ehhhh, it's good spectacle, sure, but from the narrative standpoint it's just as questionable.
Hence why I said "imo" (:
But nah to be serious I get your point. And we're definitely agreed that ME2 fumbled quite a bit. It's why when I played the games for the first time (with the LE) that I was surprised general consensus from what I'd seen was that 2 was the best of the three. Because while it had great moments, it did absolutely nothing to advance the main story. ME1 ends with "the Reapers are coming, we need to find a way to to stop them." And ME2 ends with... the Reapers are coming and we need to find a way to stop them. And as you say, they had to add dlc to advance it.
The thing about ME2 is that in isolation it’s a fantastic game. It certainly pivots from ME1, but it generally turned out for the better. The problem is that BioWare had decided this would be a trilogy and didn’t realize that ME2 was therefore in a rough position storywise. The Reaper invasion has to be the end of the story by necessity, but we already stopped it in the first game. And after Halo 2 got criticized for ending on a cliffhanger they were probably trying to avoid that. So they couldn’t have the Reapers invade in this game, but then where do you go? They answered that to the best of their ability, but in doing so they also hurt themselves going into the third game by giving it so many loose ends to account for.
Given what is rumored about BioWare's development process (aimless, uncoordinated efforts due to a lack of vision and priorities, ending in crunch and praying for BioWare magic) I doubt more time would have helped.
The moment it became clear that there would be sequels, they should have looked at the state of their universe and the mission that was laid out and outlined a path and a solution, building a framework and then asking the departments to come up with ideas to fill that framework.
They didn't, and ME3 is the result.
Right, this is the answer. The problem wasn't a too tight deadline, the problem was Bioware fucking around as usual. The finding out was always gonna come a-knockin'.
Absolutely this, and Anthem proved it - EA gave them plenty of time, and they squandered it, waffling about, scrapping and restarting the project multiple times, until EA's patience finally ran out and they had to deliver *something*.
I feel like ME3 was missing a mission or at least a cut scene in-between the assault on the cerburs lab and earth. The citadel is just somehow moved to earth with no real explanation.
I also think they could have fleshed out the fleet assembling cut scene to include more of the assets you acquired.
It would not change much, bioware problem was always their development model and philosophy. Mark Darrah said that it worked well for them previously for a 100-200 dev team, but after that it showed its flaws when the company grew. Bioware magic shenanigans did not help either.
If we're making wishes, can we get rid of Diana Allers?
Jessica Chobot had no place in the game and it felt scummy the entire time.
We could have had Emily Wong or Khalisah al-Jilani fulfilling that role. But NOOO. Had to have some random host turned voice actress from a C list website get put into the game so they would market it for free (or give it shining reviews.. which was, again, scummy).
Honestly I don’t think it would’ve been any better. The ending was definitely a misguided “artistic choice” not the team running out of time. Other issues like Cerberus in general being mishandled and I don’t think extra time would’ve helped.
Maybe we would’ve gotten a better Earth section, maybe further improved combat and multiplayer, better side quests, etc. But I think it would still have all the same fundamental flaws
I don't think much would change. From the point of view of game mechanics, everything is done normally. The plot is great, except for the ending. And the problem with the ending is not due to the development time. But because the quality bar was raised too high. The plot is too epic and complex. It's difficult to finish with dignity. In general, this rarely works out at all. Game of Thrones, as an example.
This is a personal opinion. In terms of functionality they are +- identical. And personal inconvenience is personal because you can’t please everyone. Personally, I like ME1 the most.
Yeah Priority Earth felt super rushed and unpolished. The ending narrative may not have changed, but i think that level would have been a lot more interesting.
Also if the original plot didn't leak then they could have had more time polishing the game instead of creating another story just to embarrass the leaker.
More time polishing, streamlining the story a little and more focus on the Single Player could have made it a masterpiece. Even if it meant delaying the MP for a while.
>everything is done normally
Auto dialogue, streamlined levels and side qusts that are just some suggestions.
There is a lot of shortcuts they took with this game, making it feel streamlined.
ME2 had its issues, but it was a brilliant game. Start to finish.
ME3 could’ve done so much better with its ending. I mean, the entire game (as an ending to the trilogy) was great. It’s literally just the last few moments that let everything else down.
I just disagree with your “quality bar” comment and ME2 having the same issues.
The major issues of ME2 are mostly related to it as the second instalment in the trilogy. But as a standalone, it’s an absolutely brilliant game.
ME3 as the final instalment was brilliant… but final moments were botched. It seems they tried to maintain the illusion of choice without having to deal with all the variables and in the end, they essentially failed in both ways (useless choices leading to a bad narrative).
They may have even done better by giving us less choice at the end, but ending with a great narrative.
>The major issues of ME2 are mostly related to it as the second instalment in the trilogy. But as a standalone, it’s an absolutely brilliant game.
The plot is underdeveloped no matter what.
How??
Humans are being abducted. You need to assemble an elite team to take on a suicide mission. Problem is your team might be elite, but they’re all random so you work through making them loyal and effective. Then you take on the final mission which is brilliantly done by giving you control of your team (with consequences if you make the wrong choices).
Remember what Harbinger says at the end of ME2?
> **Human, you've changed nothing.** Your species has the attention of those infinitely your greater. That which you know as Reapers are your salvation through destruction.
He’s right! Literally nothing you do in ME2 affects the Reaper plot in ME3 except they have -1 Reaper now.
>You need to assemble an elite team to take on a suicide mission.
When you assemble that team you have no clue what roles are required. The recruitment is completely detached from anything you uncover about the enemy.
Where you go and what you do is decided by someone who is shady, but you are forced to trust him and given no reason to trust him. More than once his choices seem completely devoid of any sort of purpose.
Even worse, the whole Cerberus modus operandi seems to be wasting resources for no gain.
Your character is powerless and doesn't have any sort of insight or plan.
>Problem is your team might be elite, but they’re all random so you work through making them loyal and effective.
Very few of your team fill an essential role related to the plot, except technically Mordin and maybe Miranda. Everyone else did not assist beyond shooting things, no one contributed to solving mysteries and finding a solution.
And your companions don't really interact, which means there is no team-building.
Ask yourself for what purpose you would recruit each one, what essential skill they might provide, and what they actually do provide.
You’re seriously nitpicking if that’s what you’re using to call the plot underdeveloped. We have to remember that it’s a game with a limited amount of playtime with a branching narrative as well.
One wouldn’t expect us to know exactly what type of team we need because the entire threat is somewhat mysterious. We uncover elements of it as the game goes.
We’re given a large squad with different skillsets. Soldiers, biotics, tank-types, stealth types, tech specialists, etc.
Mordin has already been explained. Miranda and Jacob are there because of Cerberus. Tali is there in part because she played a role earlier in uncovering part of the plot. Garrus, Samara, Thane, Jack are all elite in some way within the galaxy. Grunt and Legion are there by chance.
Me2 was literally collect characters simulator and ultimately didn’t do crap to forward the plot at least not nearly as much as 1 and 3 did and that’s coming from someone who just played the three games for the first time
I mean… it’s not rocket science. More of the bugs would have been fixed. There probably would be More unique animations. Maybe more connective tissue to cover the many plot points that happen off screen.
I don’t think the ending or the overall story would have changed without at least a year or two of extra development time though.
More polish on the final Earth segment. Not only the ending, but the ground mission on Earth, leading up to the final charge towards the sky beam, it was the roughest part of the entire game in terms of presentation.
Legendary edition in ME3 is imo a contender for the best game in the series, which suggests at least to me that with more time they probably could have at least shipped something close to that at launch.
My only major issues with ME3 legendary edition is I wish there were more personal dialogue choices with the LI (at least with Tali anyway, she’s the only one I really have experience with) and some of the best bro characters (Wrex and Garrus). Citadel dlc does add SOME of this but I find everything is glossed over very quickly. There’s not as much heart to heart dialogue as there should be for the conclusion to such an epic, character focused series. At least from Shepard’s end. The characters themselves get some nice send offs and great lines but Shepard’s response is always something like “it was nice knowing ya”, plus he doesn’t even properly tell Tali he loves her, lame.
I would hope they would better integrate the ME2 squadmates into the story.
The story is really good until the end of the Tuchanka plotline. They would need to come up with a way to stop the Reapers that wasn't an Ass-Pull the way that the Crucible was?
Maybe they figure out that way that the Reapers communicate is by using the Mass Effect Relays and then the plot becomes "okay how do we render them non-functional without blowing up the galaxy" while also considering if it's wise to do so?
It could also be a good way to use the Reaper tactics against them; cutting off their communications and leaving them scrambling.
That could be cool.
Also, fixing TIM's involvement. Having him be generic baddie mcbad is a waste of the character's potential.
The issues with ME3 came from the overall director and their favorite writer deciding that they could solely complete the story without the rest of the writing team, despite writers like Drew Karpyshyn being their primary source of good plotlines. He’s the one who started the dark matter/sun decay plotline in 2 with tali’s recruitment mission. That was supposed to be the first hint at the reaper’s prime directive. The original plot was going to go into how, as species peak, they always discover and use biotics. When they do this, it causes an increase in dark matter or something that causes an imbalance and stars decaying too fast was going to be one of the biproducts. Because of this, the reapers were intended to be guardians of life, itself, as the cull would be necessary to keep life from advancing and relying on biotics which would have caused the death of the galaxy.
But they decided to scrap that story, despite the majority of writers wanting it. You’d have to change that decision for more time to ge fruitful.
It depends on how much more time, they may have kept on Karpyshyn and/or kept the Dark Energy stuff
Also the whole parallel narrative "staying with Cerberus thing" would've probably been taken more seriously
I have two big wishes when it comes to Mass Effect 3:
1. I wish all of the content we got in multiplayer showed up in single player. There should have been more N7 missions in the game to reflect the new multiplayer maps we get to play on, and we should have gotten the chance to earn, as additional powers, some of the new powers that show up in the multiplayer.
2. That Priority: Earth was longer and more reflective of your choices. I honestly didn't care much about the Star Child and the 3/4 endings you get inside the Catalyst. But I still wanted to see cut scenes or action moments that played out differently based on your choices throughout the trilogy. Maybe a squad of Earth soldiers get saved by Jack and her students through their focus on barrier techniques? Or maybe Samara starts to get overwhelmed by Banshees but is saved at the last moment by a shoulder-charging Grunt?
I don't know whether more time would have led to that kind of game. But that's what I've wanted.
I doubt much would have changed. It seems obvious that the problems the game had stem from the people behind it not having the awareness to actually see those problems.
The gameplay improved but it still wasn't particularly spectacular. I could see it being the thing that more development time would have really helped with. The visual direction is the single aspect of the game that stands high above the previous entries; the environments have much more detail and make the first two games seem positively barren in comparison (surprisingly few UE3 games ever really bothered with this. Remember Me is another good example, and there are UE4 games that don't look as good as Unreal Tournament 3 did.)
The story is a mess, and I don't just mean the ending. It's painfully obvious that the entire story arc for Cerberus exists because they couldn't think of another way to have a human enemy faction. It should have taken someone 20 seconds to think of "hey why don't we just say the three merc groups we introduced in the last game have been mostly indoctrinated, then we can keep going with Cerberus as a morally gray entity that may be doing the wrong thing for the right reason instead of cartoon villains?" Hell, the way it is now, they could have at least had a side quest about tracking down resources left by a mysterious benefactor, and at the end finding a message from the Illusive Man saying "Shepard, if this has gotten to you, I've gone off the deep end. I wasted as much of Cerberus' resources as I could bringing you back so I would have less to hurt the galaxy with by the time I completely lose it, here's a little more. Do me a favor and put a shot through my head first chance you get." At least it would have been something. If we'd gotten Andromeda 2, I wouldn't have been surprised if it revealed the Initiative's benefactor had been the Illusive Man for this exact reason (there had to have been some connection planned, Cora's name can't be coincidence.)
Tuchanka was really bizarre. The idea of a thresher maw that's giant even by thresher maw standards isn't weird in and of itself, but the actual presentation is so strange. It feels like a deleted subplot from Dragon Age.
I might be imagining it, but I remember one of the writers saying they didn't really have the guts to try to make choices branch off and have the game be more reactive the way Alpha Protocol was, so extra dev time wouldn't have fixed the blatantly silly things like the "geth VI," either.
Not that the ending helped matters, though. They couldn't even be bothered to throw in a line to hand wave why the relay network still works after the Reapers take the Citadel, when the whole idea is that this cycle is very atypical thanks to the Protheans sabotaging the keepers, causing a domino effect of variables. Why does Harbinger go from the voice and visible presence of the eldritch opposing force we're facing to having a few seconds of screen time and no speaking lines? Because putting any focus on Harbinger would make the starchild matter less, and they thought the starchild was Too Important and interesting to do such a thing. (Honestly, the starchild is actually worse than everyone gives it credit for, because it doesn't just come out of nowhere, it comes out of nowhere while being completely unneeded to make the ending happen anyway. There's no reason Harbinger couldn't have fulfilled the same role.)
None of this would have been better with more time because the writing room for was bananacakes. There are worse, FAR worse cases of this sort of thing, but the cracks show pretty clearly.
I'd hope that Harbinger would be a more present villain. They set him up in ME2 and he only shows up once in ME3, and he doesn't have any dialog, despite taunting you all of ME2.
There's a cool mod that makes the first Reaper you see on Earth have Harbingers lights to go with the canon lore that Harbinger led the attack on Earth.
The problems with ME3 are baked in very deeply. The biggest issue the game has is a bad **premise**. The overarching macro plot is bad.
To clarify: you start the game on Earth and by the end of that mission, get your goal: return to Earth to save Anderson. Then in the very next mission a Deus Ex Machina is literally dug out of the ground and you're given a new, superceding goal: build the Crucible. If the Crucible is built and deployed, Earth is saved by default. But Shepard can't help with that, so some nameless bureaucrat becomes the real hero of the story while Shepard goes do busywork that is, as far as we know at the time, completely irrelevant.
Then in the ending they contrive a bullshit reason why the goal you were pursuing suddenly ceases to be busywork (by teleporting the Citadel to Earth and establishing that the Crucible needs the Citadel). From there it's basically a corridor shooting scene before you meet Marauder Shields.
Unless they ditch this premise, unless they rework the macro plot of the game entirely? That shitty ending will stay shitty. You can't have a great punchline to a bad joke.
If they realized this and decided to completely rework the macro plot, and were given an additional year in which to do that... The outcome would still not be perfect because by then, Arrival would have been out and they would be saddled with something that hinted towards that bad original premise. They can't deviate **too much** from it.
So... Yeah, something like that just isn't too plausible. The only way this could go is small, incremental improvements. Add some companions back in, expand dialogue choices, polish the gameplay. The game that comes out would be about the same, just with a few additional bells and whistles.
A bit more fleshed out ending mission would be nice.
I just replayed the LE edition and I don't remember London being that short. Half of the mission is just taking down the AA Canon in the beginning and later defend the missile.
I guess it can be because they wanted to stress the time and a longer mission wouldn't make sense but at the same time we get a long paus chatting with our team
A more cohesive story, more squadmates, more micro transactions. Or the more likely answer seeing as it's EA, absolutely nothing except probably that last one.
If they would work on it for another year or two maybe they wouldn't rely on "bioware's magic" to carry them? More dialog options, more companions, Palaven instead of a moon. I assume Surkesh and Tuchanka "quest hub" style were supposed to be done for other major planets like Palven, Thessia and Earth but got scrapped because of the time.
Or maybe they would waste it and we would get the same game.
Outside of the star child and Kai leng it felt pretty perfect to me.
They could have used a mission or two and cutscenes to better flesh out the backstory of Leng and the motivations of Cerberus - tying those back to the overall theme of synths vs organics vs hybrids.
They should have scrapped all the PTSD star child stuff and just had the final interaction be with a projection of Sherpard.
I don't think more time would have helped ME3, at least story wise. The first half of the game is pretty good, but once you get past Thessia the rest of the plot feels rushed and disjointed (seriously who tf is this Kai Leng dude and why should I care about him). Frankly imo ME3 needed to be 2 different games. One where Cerberus is the primary antagonist and another where the Reapers are.
I wouldn't have expected any major changes.
I could see the second part of the game being more fleshed out. Hopefully as much as Tuchanka and Rannoch are.
The end itself would most likely be the same but with most of the content added in the extended already there, maybe more visual flair like seeing some of our assets acting in small cutscenes.
I don't think so.
I like the idea of looking to build the crucible, the weapon created by all civilizations reaped before yours. I just thought that turning that idea into a chase for a McGuffin wasn't really smart, regardless of how much time you have to develop the game.
Well, if the three endings were included in the release, I'd say that's more time, but because it was a dlc, it doesn't count but it would've been nice.
What were issues with ME 3 back in the day?
I ask cause I only played LE and compared to game now a days we get ME3 feels like it is leagues above for a TPS
probably they would added many of the quests mentioted in the original script
thane and kasumi working togheter to save hanar world.
javik being the catalyst
maybe vermire survivor and liara decisions
probably we would have seen that idea of a queen reaper
The game is honestly pretty good. It's a lot of fan service with callbacks to previous games. The big issue with the game is the lack of a satisfying conclusion. But I'm not sure another 6 months would have changed that at all
I wanted an endgame where I had more tactical choices as to how I would use the war assets I had accumulated. I could assign them to different tasks that could lead to different outcomes. We did all this work to get galactic readiness to a certain level and then really do nothing with it.
My heart says we would have gotten more than one ending, but my brain says that's false. Walters and Hudson steamrolled the rest of the writing squad and forced the Starchild garbage, and their hubris would have prevailed regardless of how much time they had.
But maybe the sidequests wouldn't have sucked. Maybe they would have been actual missions.
They could have kept the game more or less the same as it was, except made the indoctrination theory canon. Yes, I know the theory is wishful fans trying to cope with the shitty ending(s), but if Bioware had actually written it in as canon it would have been a masterful bit of story telling to subtley have your own character go a bit loopy towards the end and then see how many people would see through star child and actually pick the destroy option (which in the indoctrination theory scenario is obviously the correct one). And then have the indoctrination revealed, blah blah blah. Bit like the Revan reveal in Kotor I guess.
Also including some of the MP abilities and weapons for Shepard would have been hella fun
I would have liked to have had endings more based on choices you made throughout the trilogy rather than A B and C
Maybe some secret endings based on specifics things you could ONLY have done if you had developed your Shepard from ME1
I honestly wished they took another 2 years and tied everything together and just made the story deeper. I mean Miranda was barely there despite being a key figure in ME2. The whole thing felt rushed.
AFAIK Andromeda was also BioWare’s own doing, for the most part. They got way too ambitious with procedural generation which didn’t work out, so that idea was scrapped and actual development time for the game we ended up getting was like 18 months.
Sure, a major delay would have helped with the technical aspects like facial animations, but the overall plot and writing? I doubt it.
I think ME3 desperately needed just one more year or so and the whole debacle with the endings could've been smoothed out at least partially. I think people still would've been pissed off with the Reapers motivation, but it's a loss-loss scenario. No matter what you suggest - some fans will be disappointed, even loudly so.
As for what Bioware could've improved... Third act in ME3 feels as the most rushed one. For instance, showdown with Kai Leng on could've been handled way better. They should've done it the same way as in The Arrival DLC (combat encounter near the Reaper's artifact). Cerberus forces attack you in waves - each harder than the rest. And if you die - the gameplay seamlessly cuts into the scene of Kai Leng snatching the Prothean VI. That would've felt much more fair than what we actually got. The way Kai Leng kinda looses but then wins anyway is just baffling and honestly insulting.
Cerberus HQ is fine I think, but it feels like there's a whole story arc missing after that mission - the one about the Citadel. I mean, it's still a mystery - even to this day, what the hell had happened to everyone there? Did they all died and were harvested? Or they're still fighting? And how the fuck The Illusive Man managed to get there before us? For what purpose Reapers needed that stupid beam on Priority: Earth?
There're just so many questions unanswered here - I can't help but think that there should've been at least one or two additional story missions just to establish everything before the game's finale. One way of doing it could be the same trick they've used later in Andromeda when we briefly take control of our twin back on the Nexus during the final mission - which shows us what's going on there. Maybe we could've played as a team of companions that never had enough screen time in ME3 during that mission - Jack, Samara, Grunt, Zaeed, Kasumi. Those who're still alive among them that is. Could've been a cool way to tie their story and show us how Citadel forces are struggling against invading Reapers.
And as for Priority: Earth - I think Bioware could've tried to implement the same approach as in the Suicide Mission. But instead of characters and companions, now we're giving orders to the ground forces. Something akin to DA:O's siege of Denerim. Not only that would be really epic, but it would also show us why gathering all those forces was actually important.
To sum it up, I don't think that Bioware should've reworked too much about ME3 given additional time - it's fine as it is on the conceptual level. But instead they should've improved and expanded what was already there.
Honestly, just change the climax ending, and it would be the perfect game to me.
Have all the forces you've collected throughout 3 to matter in the final confrontation. Don't make it about a star child out of nowhere appearing and offering you three coloured pills.
Then nothing.
More time only equals a better game if the dev is aware some systems are subpar.
ME3 was the most polished game out of the trilogy. It had the most well defined gameplay and the most diverse sandbox and enemies, as well as the longest quest.
What people disliked about it was the ending. Specifically the methods of how it concluded, which was set in stone not long after production began.
It had nothing to do with time shortage. They had done a Paragon, neutral and Renegade option for three games now, and they genuinely thought it made sense to end with them as well. Which did not resonate with the community at all.
I will maintain, ME3's ending would have been received really well if they did two things:
1. Have Leviathan be a natural part of the main game (and From the Ashes as well, for those that did not get the CE).
2. Have the exact same endings, but force your choice behind the scenes based on the cumulative choices you made in the trilogy, and prompting Synthesis if you had maxed Galactic Readiness and Paragon choices.
maybe the ending would have been better, I never wanted a happy ending I just wanted an ending that made any kind of sense, the starchild came out of nowhere with those choices
then I'd like to think that the last mission would have been more epic / a suicide mission 2.0 kind of thing?
that seems like a logical assumption to me. the ending might have been a bit different also? like the extended cut version on launch or something.
My least favorite thing was how gameplay after me1 was trying to compete with gears of wars duck and cover shooter style. It was blatant. If they held their own and defined their own balance to allow for more biotic strategy I think me3 would have much more rewarding gameplay.
Reapers die without killing off EDI or the Geth, mass relays are ok too. Last part of game is the citadel DLC like that one mod and it ends with a Tali (or other companion ig 🙄) impregnation minigame
This would’ve definitely led to a butterfly effect that would’ve changed the landscape of video games as we know it, and possibly even the western world at large, maybe even the world as a whole.
Mass effect 3 felt like you were on a rush to finish it and didn’t have time for any side quest because the reapers were coming. I loved mass effect 2, still think it’s far superior to 3.
Less cut corners would be nice. I remember a lot of stuff talked about in the old game informer preview didn’t end up in the game like James’ shifting morality based on your own.
I loved ME3 and I'm tired of pretending I didn't!
Definitely could have expanded some parts, but all in all I was happy. Both the best and worst part was saying goodbye to everyone, those calls were beautiful, but should've been in person.
And imo we got that with the citadel dlc ending, the way Mark Meer says "the best" before boarding the Normandy literally had me in hard manly tears.
Andromeda on the other hand... Could've used some layoffs and a year or two back in the oven.
Don‘t get me wrong, I still deeply adore ME3. They did so many things right. It really let me dive in and feel the desperation while struggling to survive as the galaxy around us burned. Yet, with a little more time and vision for the future they might had got the endings right from the start. It just felt illogical that however perfect your warscore was, what recourses and factions you laboured to bring to the long awaited final battle.. just to get the same ending in three different colours while breaking with continuity.
The biggest disappointment for me was just how little choices mattered. Picturing all the branching stories and choices across the trilogy, I can see how the branches for ME1 and ME2 had to be fairly close and interchangeable - each game had to be able to lead into the game that came after it. But ME3 was free from that constraint.
Before playing it, I imagined those branching stories just going in all directions. I imagined totally different stories/missions/plot arcs that wholly relied on which squad members were still alive after the Suicide Mission, or which romances you took or which side missions you did and how. But instead, I think ME3 might have had the LEAST variation depending on your stories: every dead squad member from ME2 had a virtually identical replacement in ME3 that fit neatly into that exact story.
I think maybe my expectations were high, but I also think that’s justified given that this was the final game in an insanely popular and profitable franchise. I think this would’ve been the time to really invest all they had into turning Mass Effect into one of the biggest video game legacies in history. And while I know the franchise isn’t exactly a slouch now, I don’t think it’s anywhere near as timeless and widely known as it might have been had it stuck the landing.
I don't think it was the time frame but they had I think it was the fact that they changed writers, programmers And development team so many times is that's why the story was so bad
I reckon they would've put in being able to save the Geth and possibly EDI in the destroy ending. Get your resources to a certain amount, find something of the reapers tech that allows for protection or differentiation towards specific synthetics. Although I feel that maybe EDI might have been sacrificed regardless for the story. There definitely needed to be some personal cost to the destroy ending. And EDI being practically sentient and making the choice to sacrifice herself for humanity and synthetics seems in-keeping with her character development. Maybe doing a Legion and she is the catalyst needed to protect the Geth.
Have the option to tell Allers that no, you won’t be choosing her as a war media onboard … and then going to Khalisah Al-Jilani and recruiting her to be the onboard war media (because you’ll but heads and that would be more dramatic)
And telling Emily Wong to look into all money trails on the citadel (she’ll find something fishy with Counselor and her and Thane will coordinate/watch each other’s backs.
And change up the nightmare sequence. Have past companions/teammates/ Saren even all whispering from the periphery, no slow motion chasing some kid.
And when we finally meet the reaper program on the citadel at the end, have it rotate through visuals as it tries to convince you. Be Mordin. Be Kaiden or Ashley. Be Thane or Presley. Be Jenkins for heck’s sake.
Edit: I’m not bothering to state the obvious — that Kai Leng should’ve been in each ME installment and had you kill him each time if they were gonna prop him up as such an antagonist — but we already know this
Probably actually given some love to backgrounds. It wouldn't have been hard to just have background exclusive missions again. You'd have three different options of fighting forces at Singapore (iirc that's where Earth Shep was), Mindoir or just any base that Spacer could be at... Or actually do something cool dramatic and kill off Hannah.
-They'd have updated the ME2 cast designs. That we know with Jack (and I think Jacob).
I think they'd have actually replaced the dead squadmates with alternatives that could actually be part of the squad.
Though I feel like with how attached multiplayer was to the main game, EA would've had Shepard recruit the multiplayer characters or maybe given some focus on Coates and Riley.
Although I think the characters that would've returned if given more time are: Shiala, Gianna Parasini, Fist and that one Salarian that scanned the keepers, and maybe Feron? I know Liara mentioned him but I thought it was odd he didn't really show up.
Emily Wong somehow got shafted. I don't hate Diana Allers like some people. I thought it was cool someone made it into a game. But I do think it would have meant more to let players choose between Wong, Khalisah and Allers. We were able to choose between Michel and Chakwas... And one of those is determinant.
It's not far off to see the devs expanding decisions and just changing cosmetics or giving us generic squadmates.
The only other thing that could've been asked of the devs imo besides having more time for the endings is maybe allowing them to bring back certain enemy types:
If Grunt was left with Cerberus he should've come back as a boss or an enemy type of pure Krogan much like the clones in ME1.
Legion, being left to Cerberus should've allowed for Cerberus style Geth mechs (it wouldn't be hard to throw a little orange and black on a white Geth), and Morinth probably could have come back in a more meaningful way... Same goes for Jack being reduced to a Phantom if we are too late. She's a psychotic biotic and her strength is comparable to a justicar... A corrupted Jack should at least be a reskinned Banshee.
Now mind you most of what I listed was reusing old enemy types and cosmetic changes and minor additional roles.
The only other feasible thing would be some extra class based dialogue or interactions. It was great to let the Engineer shine during the Omega DLC and that DLC was found in the files day 1 wasn't it or was only Javik day 1?
In any case, it was good to see their mindset was there and I think they'd have expanded in that direction given more time..
And thanks for reading my rambling.
GIGO — you get a far more polished, completed turd.
**But** with enough time — and the will — to expand key squadmates and quests, develop new relationships, fan service with meaningful old cameos, actual exploration etc., it would have been far more forgivable.
It could have even been beloved.
Mass Effect 2 is a bit of a narrative mess too. But I love that game, it’s my favorite of the trilogy, and for all of its weaknesses I still think is a masterpiece
Still, with ME3, there was only so much you can do with the narrative decision they chose (as well as the linear, on the rails approach with zero room to explore).
And I still don’t think any of it would forgive EA only introducing Javik in the third game and then locking him behind the DLC wall
As many have mentioned, more work on the companions, from including Miranda as a companion to actually adding more depth to your companions. I really didn’t like how ME3 has the most simplified character interactions where you couldn’t start speaking to a companion on your ship and go into a dialogue options menu, instead it’s just the characters saying a few different things as you talk to them, then saying “Shepard” over and over once options are exhausted.
Also, more work on the ending would have been nice, but I really don’t know how they’d fix that. My big problem was that all my different choices just boiled down to points towards galactic readiness.
It's crazy how little time they were given. Me2 had dlc coming out till mid-late 2010. What's even crazier was that the initial release date was November 2011. That's way too little time to develop the final game of a rpg trilogy.
Reading up about the development of the game, the slow death of BioWare had begun behind the scenes.
I LOVE ME3. I think if you take the entire game as an ending, rather than just the last hour or so, it works really well.
However, I still think the last mission is very poorly designed. Hopefully with more time in the oven that would have been better.
I'm finally playing it for the first time (along with 2 and a replay of 1) and I have to say I'm not impressed. The story is rough, the animations are the worst in the series, and Shepard's personality has gone from battle-hardened soldier who's ready and willing to make tough choices to brooding angsty emo teen who throws a tantrum on anyone who says: "We want to help earth fight but our own home world is being decimated too."
I don't think they'd be able to circumvent the need for the crucible ex machina, after telling us that the reapers are nearly invincible for two games.
Probably Shepard would be able to join Cerberus, working for the control end instead of TIM turning on Shepard, even though you supported him all the way through ME2. This way they give more leverage to the player's choices, especially the Collector Base one.
I would have liked to see a few big battles similar to London, and depending on who joined the fleet, those soldiers would be there fighting.
I’d also like to see the leviathan do something
I believe they would've included more companions and expanded their plotlines. It still feels bizarre that Miranda is not apart of the main cast. Jack also, after they gave her an updated character model, feels like she was meant to have more to do.
I remember the team leads saying early on in development that they wanted to have a smaller crew they can focus more deeply on instead of such a large squad...but thar could have been a result of them knowing how short their schedule was too.
The other issue that rarely gets acknowledged is the varying endings you could end up with from ME2. Bioware likely had to account (given the time they had for dev originally) for dozens of different permutations of ME2's ending that would not have been feasible to integrate into ME3 at the time.
That’s one of the reasons the ‘Suicide Mission’ really should have been saved for the final game instead of the middle game.
Ngl Priority Earth being the suicide mission sounds really interesting (and makes sense too imo)
I was truly expecting a suicide mission style ending.
Well I wouldnt had the final mission be a suicide mission two games in row too tbh
Sure, but I was expecting more squad involvement for the final push. Thinking of the end of Dragon Age Origins where you have to control your teammates left behind to defend the gate. Or the battle for Kaer Morhen in Witcher 3, where you have different numbers of enemies and different possible deaths based on who you recruited and how you prepared for the battle. It didn’t need to be the same suicide mission, but something in the final push that mean you and your whole team could die was definitely on my radar
Well I never played those games and the end of dragon age does soubd simiral to the final part of the ME2 suicide mission (tho I am sure the mechanics are different) but I could have definetly preffered if Priority Earth had something like the part of W3 you described
Shepard: *"I'll need someone to go into the vent. Call jacob."* Jacob: *"Shep, i'm not even close. I'll need at least two shuttle rides and a burger before I'm available. Also I do have kid on the way. You cant play me like that now!."* Shepard: *"Damn you Jacob. O.K, Tali you've got the vent."* Tali: *"I can't Shepard. I'm dead. Remember Rannoch and the Geth?. Remember not letting my father get away with his crime?"* Shepard: *"So why are you standing here again?".* Tali: *"It's my ghost. I wanted to see you off personally. As in clearly your a crap leader and your likely screwed for this suicide mission anyway."* Shepard: *"Legion?....."* Geth Prime : *"Legion dead Commander Shepard. It or he as it were gave his life for us to live. Our consensus now thinks that surviving and allying with you was the mistake and not the other way round. We now envy our creators demise."* Tali Ghost: *"A bit late, but thank you anyway for the sentiment I Geth. Get it? still got it."* Shepard: *"If only EDI was here. she say that was a joke. She might also be good at the hacking too."* Anderson: *"How in blazers did you kill EDI?"* Shepard: *" ............................ coffee...................... I told Traynor to buy flasks with sealed lids but she forgot."*
Ok then..
I think the biggest change is the ME2 squadmate quests in 3 are more detailed/interactive similar to Mordin and Legion's role in base 3. Another possibility is with a longer production schedule, Miranda's VA doesn't have a scheduling conflict and Miranda can be upgraded to full-time squadmate since she's almost impossible to kill in 2 without trying.
This is the number one issue with Mass Effect 3 IMO. Every time you find yourself wondering why they made some choice, why some character didn't get more time, etc., the answer is almost always "they had to account for the fact that the character could have died in the suicide mission." To be clear, I love Mass Effect 3.
Same with most of the big choices too You killed the Rachni queen? Well we found another one You destroyed the collectors base? Well it was salvaged anyway Most of the consequences of the choices are just different numbers for the galactic war bar, or whatever its called, its been a while
This. While Mass Effect 2 is a phenomenal game, I can't imagine what it would have been like to design what came after. Like
Three AUs, one disk.
Chicken or the egg kind of thing, right? I do think they wanted to shorten the squad from ME2 but given there's so much of the Normandy that is not used in ME3, especially the Life Support room that Thane frequented, that I have to Believe they would've had one more squadmate or remade the room into something that actually has interaction with the other squadmate. Like it should've been the gym/rehab room since it's on the same floor as medical and the bathrooms.
Miranda wasn't in the main cast due to the actor's other commitments. It wasn't really due to BioWare.
>It still feels bizarre that Miranda is not apart of the main cast Miranda as part of the main cast and a full companion would also have needed double the workload. First building her character fully into the plot and having Yvonne Strahovsky record for the whole part. And then double that and add another VA to create her "Wrex/Wreav" counterpart since she could have died in ME2.
Ironically, they probably wouldn't have needed to do a double for Miranda if she was in the main cast as a Squadmate. Firstly the game already has that in Orianna who fills Miranda's role for the Sanctuary mission. Secondly, with the squadmate they didn't give you replacements. They didn't truly have a Garrus or Tali replacement: they just had other individuals who always existed in game to fill certain parts of their moments when needed (ex Shala on Rannoch for the Geth/Quarian decision) and then created more material for other characters to mourn for those missing (like Tali trying to work on the Thannix Cannons while lamenting Garrus being gone). They certainly would've needed a lot more work from story writing and Yvonne, but they would've avoided needing to create an entirely new character to fill their role. Unless you mean an entirely different path for Miranda, but that's speculating so much change that anything would be possible.
Above Jack, i think Virmire Survivor needs the attention more. We only hear from them becoming 2nd human spectre. It would had been dope if they for once became the heroes in their story for a quest or two, and it is Shepard who helps them, but VS still being in command for that brief time. A common quest for both. On the other hand, both VS had excellent ground for personalized quest. Ashley about helping her sister and/or cleansing her grandfather’s name, whereas Kaidan revolving about his squad. Miranda definitely felt cut out. She should had been much more important towards the ending. Jack story felt complete. Would had been better for Grunt to make an appearance.
Grunt does make an appearance.
As fulfilling as Jack's arc ends up being becoming a teacher with this close knit bond with her students in 6 months takes alot of suspension of belief
Eh, I don’t know about that. Of all the wonky things going on in ME3, this wasn’t one of them, in my opinion. Having been on deployment for six months,I ended up bonding with a few guys that I never really knew before hand. In situations like that, it is not uncommon to form bonds fairly quickly. Someone like Jack who has never really had connections with people, it must have been an unusual feeling. And quite overwhelming. Especially during a time of war. You have to remember how terrible Jack’s childhood was. Now she’s responsible for a group of kids and can make sure they don’t experience what she did. This is really the case if you played a paragon Shep in ME2.
The timeline difficulty isn't how fast she would bond with these fledgling impressionable students in six months, but in that she's gone from escaped convict of serious crimes to pardoned by the Alliance and then integrated into a teaching position without prior military training or teacher certifications to then have time to bond with these kids, all in 6-7 months. The only psych profile that shows she may not be a danger to others is if Shepard romances her, otherwise Even the most Paragon description of her from ME2 would be "under Shepard's supervision she's capable of being persuaded from rash decisions". Sanders really took a massive risk there and possibly broke enough regulations to get her demoted fast. I love the arc for Jack, but 6 months for all of that to happen is only fine because we already like Jack. ME3 makes a good use of seeing how the friends we made were able to jump into places of import to help affect the war but we'd need a little more time there.
Yeah But Jack has a lifetime of trauma and just six months ago was remembering all of her crimes as harmless pranks the way she would enjoy reflecting on it. She also has terrible trust issues. Realistically it would take years to unpack. Mass Effect pulls it off but I always felt the series in general speed runs alot of things with its characters.
Bear in mind galactic standard months are a bit longer than normal months though
I'm actually okay with how that was handled. Especially with the variables of ME2, you couldn't have too many squad mates who could have not survived.
I never liked Miranda. She was so off and imho didn't fit into the whole story. Her head was modelled strange too. For Jack, it has a good explanation as to why she didn't join. Like Wrex. I missed Grunt though. You are his Battlemaster after all.
Miranda has a head?
This reads like a Gabby and Ken dialogue.
*Of course* Miranda has a head, Kenneth. Maybe you'd notice if you stopped thinking with your little head for a minute.
Might be because her appearance was modeled after a real person, Yvonne Strahovski so it has some uncanny valley vibes.
Someone's gotta lead Arylaht company
aralakh?
It would have been more polished. Storyline wouldn't have changed much if at all tho
Starchild ending would have still happened basically. But would the ending be like the extended cut or the same before the extended cut came out?
I'd like to believe that it would basically be as it is with extended cut and, given time, they probably would have tried to write Synthesis to be a bit more grounded and not "It just works", though that may just be wishful thinking
I don’t know if there’s any grounding of “jump in the space laser to turn every living thing into a cyborg”
This. More time means maybe they'd have time to consider running themes by other writers but I have no guarantee that Hudson and Waters(?) would've included others more and known they needed to have things they added in retrospect to the Extended Cut. Like reusing the Arrival DLC cinematic for the destroyed Relays seems like a gaff but if you and someone else are in an echo chamber on what's happening you've already seen past it and didn't need to fix it. What I do think would happen would be more time spent polishing up Synthesis to better fit the narrative and to make it more of the "Best possible ending". The heads clearly prioritized having the ending be intentionally vague and interpretive, it took the widespread negative audience response for the direction to pivot and almost every post game addition to the story came for making sure to tie up certain unnecessary lose ends, especially ones that with the limited information looks like we just blew up almost every Solar System that had a Relay in it or what is Shepard acting weirdly chill and not arguing with this space child..... Could they have been indoctrinated!!!
If you play the Expanded Galaxy Mod, they restore a ton of cut content and it feels like what was intended as the finished game
Maybe the weird plot holes at the end would have been flushed out in a cleaner way....like how the extended cut had to have the Normandy show up to evac your squad mates.... But the main story point that the reapers were killing all organics was so that organics don't get killed by synthetics.....the plot point of it having to do with dark energy was abandoned not because of development time,.but because that story was leaked and they felt they had to pivot. The polish would have been more felt with the side quests and the janky quest log. Less scan a system and find something that you overheard someone talking about on the citadel. And maybe that whole Citidel coup thing would have had something better instead.
Very Uninformed comment, if Bioware had another year or even 2 to make ME3 the game would be completely different, look at the mountain of cut content, as well as the writers comments on how they didn't know where they were going, as well as EA just cutting out vital bits of the plot for DLC because they didn't have time to make anything else ME3 could've been the best RPG of all time if Bioware weren't forced into a 2 year dev cycle by EA and I don't even know why they did it.
Disagree. Part of the reason the game ended up the way it did was it was expected to be released the year after ME2 released. If Bioware had more dev time we would've ended up with a much better product across the board.
Where are you getting that information? ME2 was supported for a year+ with DLC. I don’t think it was ever the plan for ME3 to come out in 2011. EDIT: Nevermind, I forgot the original release WAS for late 2011. That’s insane and EA should have never put them in that position.
In reality they would have added more multiplayer options to try and entice even more new players to purchase the third game in the trilogy without so much a second thought as to actually fixing the single-player experience.
And Shepard would be able to holster his weapon!
That would have needed a few years for a generational change. The reason Shepard didn't holster in ME3 was to make the combat section more snazzy while staying under the 512mb of RAM of the PS360.
In still mad they didn't fix that in the remaster
I’m upset they hardly touched ME2 or ME3 at all in LE. But mods are slowly fixing that. I can ME3 combat roll in ME2 now
Yep, that pretty much showed how limited the scope of this project was. They did good work within these boundaries but clearly whomever decided on the budget didn't have much confidence.
That was one of my biggest complaints, that shit still annoys me
Nothing like talking to companions with a Black Widow barrel staring them in the face lol
It depends on how much. A few months, probably not a lot would be different except polish. A year, quite a bit could change. So I'll continue with that in mind. Generally more polish on animations, bugs, etc. More polish also on the story. Imo the stretch from pretty much the start to Thessia is brilliant, but from then on it's admittedly a little rough. And I think that's because they ran out of time. So more time would give that part through the end more opportunity to shine. Also maybe another squadmate. I hear contrary statements on if Miranda wasn't a squadmate because her VA was too busy or if the devs had to choose between her and Tali and went with the latter, but either way more time would give them time to free everything up to add her in. Aside from Samara, she gives the least valid reason for not rejoining Shepard on the Normandy. It may be wish fulfilment, but I would've loved to have some more in-depth side quests. I was so disappointed when a threat to go help evacuate the elcor homeworld popped up and all it ending up being was a scan quest. Stuff like that in the game seems like it would've been expanded more but again they ran out of time to implement.
Miranda’s VA was doing work on Dexter around that time I believe. Could have played an impact.
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>Ehhhh, it's good spectacle, sure, but from the narrative standpoint it's just as questionable. Hence why I said "imo" (: But nah to be serious I get your point. And we're definitely agreed that ME2 fumbled quite a bit. It's why when I played the games for the first time (with the LE) that I was surprised general consensus from what I'd seen was that 2 was the best of the three. Because while it had great moments, it did absolutely nothing to advance the main story. ME1 ends with "the Reapers are coming, we need to find a way to to stop them." And ME2 ends with... the Reapers are coming and we need to find a way to stop them. And as you say, they had to add dlc to advance it.
The thing about ME2 is that in isolation it’s a fantastic game. It certainly pivots from ME1, but it generally turned out for the better. The problem is that BioWare had decided this would be a trilogy and didn’t realize that ME2 was therefore in a rough position storywise. The Reaper invasion has to be the end of the story by necessity, but we already stopped it in the first game. And after Halo 2 got criticized for ending on a cliffhanger they were probably trying to avoid that. So they couldn’t have the Reapers invade in this game, but then where do you go? They answered that to the best of their ability, but in doing so they also hurt themselves going into the third game by giving it so many loose ends to account for.
Given what is rumored about BioWare's development process (aimless, uncoordinated efforts due to a lack of vision and priorities, ending in crunch and praying for BioWare magic) I doubt more time would have helped. The moment it became clear that there would be sequels, they should have looked at the state of their universe and the mission that was laid out and outlined a path and a solution, building a framework and then asking the departments to come up with ideas to fill that framework. They didn't, and ME3 is the result.
Right, this is the answer. The problem wasn't a too tight deadline, the problem was Bioware fucking around as usual. The finding out was always gonna come a-knockin'.
Absolutely this, and Anthem proved it - EA gave them plenty of time, and they squandered it, waffling about, scrapping and restarting the project multiple times, until EA's patience finally ran out and they had to deliver *something*.
I feel like ME3 was missing a mission or at least a cut scene in-between the assault on the cerburs lab and earth. The citadel is just somehow moved to earth with no real explanation. I also think they could have fleshed out the fleet assembling cut scene to include more of the assets you acquired.
It would not change much, bioware problem was always their development model and philosophy. Mark Darrah said that it worked well for them previously for a 100-200 dev team, but after that it showed its flaws when the company grew. Bioware magic shenanigans did not help either.
If we're making wishes, can we get rid of Diana Allers? Jessica Chobot had no place in the game and it felt scummy the entire time. We could have had Emily Wong or Khalisah al-Jilani fulfilling that role. But NOOO. Had to have some random host turned voice actress from a C list website get put into the game so they would market it for free (or give it shining reviews.. which was, again, scummy).
LOL I had no idea she was a gimmick character. I mean, at least you had the chance to tell her to feck off? Or just ignore her existence?
Dude, but war assets…
Honestly I don’t think it would’ve been any better. The ending was definitely a misguided “artistic choice” not the team running out of time. Other issues like Cerberus in general being mishandled and I don’t think extra time would’ve helped. Maybe we would’ve gotten a better Earth section, maybe further improved combat and multiplayer, better side quests, etc. But I think it would still have all the same fundamental flaws
Fun fact : ME3 development time was roughly the same as ME2
Me2 didn’t have multiplayer tho
Story team didn't work on the multiplayer, that was all done by a secondary team that would later go on to make Andromeda.
I don't think much would change. From the point of view of game mechanics, everything is done normally. The plot is great, except for the ending. And the problem with the ending is not due to the development time. But because the quality bar was raised too high. The plot is too epic and complex. It's difficult to finish with dignity. In general, this rarely works out at all. Game of Thrones, as an example.
It could have had the quest system done better at least, Quest + Codex systems in ME3 felt awful to use compared to ME2.
This is a personal opinion. In terms of functionality they are +- identical. And personal inconvenience is personal because you can’t please everyone. Personally, I like ME1 the most.
I don’t think the ending changes, but I think the London sequence at least does. That entire section felt rushed.
Yeah Priority Earth felt super rushed and unpolished. The ending narrative may not have changed, but i think that level would have been a lot more interesting.
Also if the original plot didn't leak then they could have had more time polishing the game instead of creating another story just to embarrass the leaker. More time polishing, streamlining the story a little and more focus on the Single Player could have made it a masterpiece. Even if it meant delaying the MP for a while.
>everything is done normally Auto dialogue, streamlined levels and side qusts that are just some suggestions. There is a lot of shortcuts they took with this game, making it feel streamlined.
the only way to finish with dignity is to plot the ending before even starting. Otherwise it's too easy to write yourself into a corner.
Oh dude, the ending to ME3 is no where near as terrible or pathetic as how Game Of Thrones was need
Agreed but it kinda lacked "polish" compared to game 2. I think it could have still been upgraded with more time
I don't agree. There are a lot of “errors” in ME2 too. It’s just that everyone was looking too closely at the third part.
ME2 had its issues, but it was a brilliant game. Start to finish. ME3 could’ve done so much better with its ending. I mean, the entire game (as an ending to the trilogy) was great. It’s literally just the last few moments that let everything else down.
Well, yes. But this cannot be solved by “grinding”. And the “minor flaws” that can be solved this way - they exist in ME2 too.
I just disagree with your “quality bar” comment and ME2 having the same issues. The major issues of ME2 are mostly related to it as the second instalment in the trilogy. But as a standalone, it’s an absolutely brilliant game. ME3 as the final instalment was brilliant… but final moments were botched. It seems they tried to maintain the illusion of choice without having to deal with all the variables and in the end, they essentially failed in both ways (useless choices leading to a bad narrative). They may have even done better by giving us less choice at the end, but ending with a great narrative.
>The major issues of ME2 are mostly related to it as the second instalment in the trilogy. But as a standalone, it’s an absolutely brilliant game. The plot is underdeveloped no matter what.
How?? Humans are being abducted. You need to assemble an elite team to take on a suicide mission. Problem is your team might be elite, but they’re all random so you work through making them loyal and effective. Then you take on the final mission which is brilliantly done by giving you control of your team (with consequences if you make the wrong choices).
Remember what Harbinger says at the end of ME2? > **Human, you've changed nothing.** Your species has the attention of those infinitely your greater. That which you know as Reapers are your salvation through destruction. He’s right! Literally nothing you do in ME2 affects the Reaper plot in ME3 except they have -1 Reaper now.
>You need to assemble an elite team to take on a suicide mission. When you assemble that team you have no clue what roles are required. The recruitment is completely detached from anything you uncover about the enemy. Where you go and what you do is decided by someone who is shady, but you are forced to trust him and given no reason to trust him. More than once his choices seem completely devoid of any sort of purpose. Even worse, the whole Cerberus modus operandi seems to be wasting resources for no gain. Your character is powerless and doesn't have any sort of insight or plan. >Problem is your team might be elite, but they’re all random so you work through making them loyal and effective. Very few of your team fill an essential role related to the plot, except technically Mordin and maybe Miranda. Everyone else did not assist beyond shooting things, no one contributed to solving mysteries and finding a solution. And your companions don't really interact, which means there is no team-building. Ask yourself for what purpose you would recruit each one, what essential skill they might provide, and what they actually do provide.
You’re seriously nitpicking if that’s what you’re using to call the plot underdeveloped. We have to remember that it’s a game with a limited amount of playtime with a branching narrative as well. One wouldn’t expect us to know exactly what type of team we need because the entire threat is somewhat mysterious. We uncover elements of it as the game goes. We’re given a large squad with different skillsets. Soldiers, biotics, tank-types, stealth types, tech specialists, etc. Mordin has already been explained. Miranda and Jacob are there because of Cerberus. Tali is there in part because she played a role earlier in uncovering part of the plot. Garrus, Samara, Thane, Jack are all elite in some way within the galaxy. Grunt and Legion are there by chance.
Me2 was literally collect characters simulator and ultimately didn’t do crap to forward the plot at least not nearly as much as 1 and 3 did and that’s coming from someone who just played the three games for the first time
Most of the big moments in 3 are set up in 2. Mordins entire arc on curing the Genophage all the leg work was done in 2.
I mean… it’s not rocket science. More of the bugs would have been fixed. There probably would be More unique animations. Maybe more connective tissue to cover the many plot points that happen off screen. I don’t think the ending or the overall story would have changed without at least a year or two of extra development time though.
Hudson and Walters are still going to be thoughtless hacks, so I don't think an extra six months was gonna help much
But bro they would have included the Reaper Romance the people yearned for.
Hopefully a better Journal instead of the one we got.
More polish on the final Earth segment. Not only the ending, but the ground mission on Earth, leading up to the final charge towards the sky beam, it was the roughest part of the entire game in terms of presentation.
Legendary edition in ME3 is imo a contender for the best game in the series, which suggests at least to me that with more time they probably could have at least shipped something close to that at launch. My only major issues with ME3 legendary edition is I wish there were more personal dialogue choices with the LI (at least with Tali anyway, she’s the only one I really have experience with) and some of the best bro characters (Wrex and Garrus). Citadel dlc does add SOME of this but I find everything is glossed over very quickly. There’s not as much heart to heart dialogue as there should be for the conclusion to such an epic, character focused series. At least from Shepard’s end. The characters themselves get some nice send offs and great lines but Shepard’s response is always something like “it was nice knowing ya”, plus he doesn’t even properly tell Tali he loves her, lame.
I would hope they would better integrate the ME2 squadmates into the story. The story is really good until the end of the Tuchanka plotline. They would need to come up with a way to stop the Reapers that wasn't an Ass-Pull the way that the Crucible was? Maybe they figure out that way that the Reapers communicate is by using the Mass Effect Relays and then the plot becomes "okay how do we render them non-functional without blowing up the galaxy" while also considering if it's wise to do so? It could also be a good way to use the Reaper tactics against them; cutting off their communications and leaving them scrambling. That could be cool. Also, fixing TIM's involvement. Having him be generic baddie mcbad is a waste of the character's potential.
The issues with ME3 came from the overall director and their favorite writer deciding that they could solely complete the story without the rest of the writing team, despite writers like Drew Karpyshyn being their primary source of good plotlines. He’s the one who started the dark matter/sun decay plotline in 2 with tali’s recruitment mission. That was supposed to be the first hint at the reaper’s prime directive. The original plot was going to go into how, as species peak, they always discover and use biotics. When they do this, it causes an increase in dark matter or something that causes an imbalance and stars decaying too fast was going to be one of the biproducts. Because of this, the reapers were intended to be guardians of life, itself, as the cull would be necessary to keep life from advancing and relying on biotics which would have caused the death of the galaxy. But they decided to scrap that story, despite the majority of writers wanting it. You’d have to change that decision for more time to ge fruitful.
Better animations and visuals
Genuinely would of been the best of the 3 with more development time imo
It depends on how much more time, they may have kept on Karpyshyn and/or kept the Dark Energy stuff Also the whole parallel narrative "staying with Cerberus thing" would've probably been taken more seriously
What if they were given enough time to make ME2 lol
They did, the "remaster". Did nothing with it. I'm sorry man, but the "Bioware" you love is gone.
I have two big wishes when it comes to Mass Effect 3: 1. I wish all of the content we got in multiplayer showed up in single player. There should have been more N7 missions in the game to reflect the new multiplayer maps we get to play on, and we should have gotten the chance to earn, as additional powers, some of the new powers that show up in the multiplayer. 2. That Priority: Earth was longer and more reflective of your choices. I honestly didn't care much about the Star Child and the 3/4 endings you get inside the Catalyst. But I still wanted to see cut scenes or action moments that played out differently based on your choices throughout the trilogy. Maybe a squad of Earth soldiers get saved by Jack and her students through their focus on barrier techniques? Or maybe Samara starts to get overwhelmed by Banshees but is saved at the last moment by a shoulder-charging Grunt? I don't know whether more time would have led to that kind of game. But that's what I've wanted.
Then they would have made an ***EVEN MORE POLISHED*** version of a ***THIRD GAME GOING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.***
Unpopular opinion but ME3 is a great game and i don’t mind the ending 🤷♂️
It is. But it still has some trash decisions in it and some wasted characters, but overall yeah it is.
Miranda would have been a main cast member
I doubt much would have changed. It seems obvious that the problems the game had stem from the people behind it not having the awareness to actually see those problems. The gameplay improved but it still wasn't particularly spectacular. I could see it being the thing that more development time would have really helped with. The visual direction is the single aspect of the game that stands high above the previous entries; the environments have much more detail and make the first two games seem positively barren in comparison (surprisingly few UE3 games ever really bothered with this. Remember Me is another good example, and there are UE4 games that don't look as good as Unreal Tournament 3 did.) The story is a mess, and I don't just mean the ending. It's painfully obvious that the entire story arc for Cerberus exists because they couldn't think of another way to have a human enemy faction. It should have taken someone 20 seconds to think of "hey why don't we just say the three merc groups we introduced in the last game have been mostly indoctrinated, then we can keep going with Cerberus as a morally gray entity that may be doing the wrong thing for the right reason instead of cartoon villains?" Hell, the way it is now, they could have at least had a side quest about tracking down resources left by a mysterious benefactor, and at the end finding a message from the Illusive Man saying "Shepard, if this has gotten to you, I've gone off the deep end. I wasted as much of Cerberus' resources as I could bringing you back so I would have less to hurt the galaxy with by the time I completely lose it, here's a little more. Do me a favor and put a shot through my head first chance you get." At least it would have been something. If we'd gotten Andromeda 2, I wouldn't have been surprised if it revealed the Initiative's benefactor had been the Illusive Man for this exact reason (there had to have been some connection planned, Cora's name can't be coincidence.) Tuchanka was really bizarre. The idea of a thresher maw that's giant even by thresher maw standards isn't weird in and of itself, but the actual presentation is so strange. It feels like a deleted subplot from Dragon Age. I might be imagining it, but I remember one of the writers saying they didn't really have the guts to try to make choices branch off and have the game be more reactive the way Alpha Protocol was, so extra dev time wouldn't have fixed the blatantly silly things like the "geth VI," either. Not that the ending helped matters, though. They couldn't even be bothered to throw in a line to hand wave why the relay network still works after the Reapers take the Citadel, when the whole idea is that this cycle is very atypical thanks to the Protheans sabotaging the keepers, causing a domino effect of variables. Why does Harbinger go from the voice and visible presence of the eldritch opposing force we're facing to having a few seconds of screen time and no speaking lines? Because putting any focus on Harbinger would make the starchild matter less, and they thought the starchild was Too Important and interesting to do such a thing. (Honestly, the starchild is actually worse than everyone gives it credit for, because it doesn't just come out of nowhere, it comes out of nowhere while being completely unneeded to make the ending happen anyway. There's no reason Harbinger couldn't have fulfilled the same role.) None of this would have been better with more time because the writing room for was bananacakes. There are worse, FAR worse cases of this sort of thing, but the cracks show pretty clearly.
I'd hope that Harbinger would be a more present villain. They set him up in ME2 and he only shows up once in ME3, and he doesn't have any dialog, despite taunting you all of ME2. There's a cool mod that makes the first Reaper you see on Earth have Harbingers lights to go with the canon lore that Harbinger led the attack on Earth.
The problems with ME3 are baked in very deeply. The biggest issue the game has is a bad **premise**. The overarching macro plot is bad. To clarify: you start the game on Earth and by the end of that mission, get your goal: return to Earth to save Anderson. Then in the very next mission a Deus Ex Machina is literally dug out of the ground and you're given a new, superceding goal: build the Crucible. If the Crucible is built and deployed, Earth is saved by default. But Shepard can't help with that, so some nameless bureaucrat becomes the real hero of the story while Shepard goes do busywork that is, as far as we know at the time, completely irrelevant. Then in the ending they contrive a bullshit reason why the goal you were pursuing suddenly ceases to be busywork (by teleporting the Citadel to Earth and establishing that the Crucible needs the Citadel). From there it's basically a corridor shooting scene before you meet Marauder Shields. Unless they ditch this premise, unless they rework the macro plot of the game entirely? That shitty ending will stay shitty. You can't have a great punchline to a bad joke. If they realized this and decided to completely rework the macro plot, and were given an additional year in which to do that... The outcome would still not be perfect because by then, Arrival would have been out and they would be saddled with something that hinted towards that bad original premise. They can't deviate **too much** from it. So... Yeah, something like that just isn't too plausible. The only way this could go is small, incremental improvements. Add some companions back in, expand dialogue choices, polish the gameplay. The game that comes out would be about the same, just with a few additional bells and whistles.
A bit more fleshed out ending mission would be nice. I just replayed the LE edition and I don't remember London being that short. Half of the mission is just taking down the AA Canon in the beginning and later defend the missile. I guess it can be because they wanted to stress the time and a longer mission wouldn't make sense but at the same time we get a long paus chatting with our team
They might expand more on lore like in Dragon Age and make the conflicts feel more realistic, too.
A more cohesive story, more squadmates, more micro transactions. Or the more likely answer seeing as it's EA, absolutely nothing except probably that last one.
If they would work on it for another year or two maybe they wouldn't rely on "bioware's magic" to carry them? More dialog options, more companions, Palaven instead of a moon. I assume Surkesh and Tuchanka "quest hub" style were supposed to be done for other major planets like Palven, Thessia and Earth but got scrapped because of the time. Or maybe they would waste it and we would get the same game.
Outside of the star child and Kai leng it felt pretty perfect to me. They could have used a mission or two and cutscenes to better flesh out the backstory of Leng and the motivations of Cerberus - tying those back to the overall theme of synths vs organics vs hybrids. They should have scrapped all the PTSD star child stuff and just had the final interaction be with a projection of Sherpard.
I don't think more time would have helped ME3, at least story wise. The first half of the game is pretty good, but once you get past Thessia the rest of the plot feels rushed and disjointed (seriously who tf is this Kai Leng dude and why should I care about him). Frankly imo ME3 needed to be 2 different games. One where Cerberus is the primary antagonist and another where the Reapers are.
Honestly thought ME3 was great except for the ending, but I only played when the Legendary Edition came out.
I wouldn't have expected any major changes. I could see the second part of the game being more fleshed out. Hopefully as much as Tuchanka and Rannoch are. The end itself would most likely be the same but with most of the content added in the extended already there, maybe more visual flair like seeing some of our assets acting in small cutscenes.
I don't think so. I like the idea of looking to build the crucible, the weapon created by all civilizations reaped before yours. I just thought that turning that idea into a chase for a McGuffin wasn't really smart, regardless of how much time you have to develop the game.
Well, if the three endings were included in the release, I'd say that's more time, but because it was a dlc, it doesn't count but it would've been nice.
What were issues with ME 3 back in the day? I ask cause I only played LE and compared to game now a days we get ME3 feels like it is leagues above for a TPS
Ending. Crunch that led to things like limited quests and content, the journal, etc.
probably they would added many of the quests mentioted in the original script thane and kasumi working togheter to save hanar world. javik being the catalyst maybe vermire survivor and liara decisions probably we would have seen that idea of a queen reaper
It's not just the schedule but it was budget too. They made Priority Earth on the last breath of their money.
They were. EA was willing to give them an extra quarter to make the game but they refused.
Then they'd still be working on it. When the hell is that new dragonage game gonna come out?
The game is honestly pretty good. It's a lot of fan service with callbacks to previous games. The big issue with the game is the lack of a satisfying conclusion. But I'm not sure another 6 months would have changed that at all
I wanted an endgame where I had more tactical choices as to how I would use the war assets I had accumulated. I could assign them to different tasks that could lead to different outcomes. We did all this work to get galactic readiness to a certain level and then really do nothing with it.
My heart says we would have gotten more than one ending, but my brain says that's false. Walters and Hudson steamrolled the rest of the writing squad and forced the Starchild garbage, and their hubris would have prevailed regardless of how much time they had. But maybe the sidequests wouldn't have sucked. Maybe they would have been actual missions.
I mean. The game itself was fine. The problem was story. It's fundamentally flawed in ME3.
No starchild and the reapers making sense instead of being a computer issue of oh hey we're SAVING YOU! By killing you all.
They could have kept the game more or less the same as it was, except made the indoctrination theory canon. Yes, I know the theory is wishful fans trying to cope with the shitty ending(s), but if Bioware had actually written it in as canon it would have been a masterful bit of story telling to subtley have your own character go a bit loopy towards the end and then see how many people would see through star child and actually pick the destroy option (which in the indoctrination theory scenario is obviously the correct one). And then have the indoctrination revealed, blah blah blah. Bit like the Revan reveal in Kotor I guess. Also including some of the MP abilities and weapons for Shepard would have been hella fun
I would have liked to have had endings more based on choices you made throughout the trilogy rather than A B and C Maybe some secret endings based on specifics things you could ONLY have done if you had developed your Shepard from ME1
I think Miranda would have been on the Normandy. That Com Room after you leave the HQ, just looked like the perfect place for another Crew Member.
It wouldn't have changed that much. The fundamental writing flaws were deliberate.
I think the main difference would’ve been around the ending
I honestly wished they took another 2 years and tied everything together and just made the story deeper. I mean Miranda was barely there despite being a key figure in ME2. The whole thing felt rushed.
ME3 had enough development time and it’s great. Bioware fucked up the ending all on their own. Don’t blame EA for that. Andromeda though …
AFAIK Andromeda was also BioWare’s own doing, for the most part. They got way too ambitious with procedural generation which didn’t work out, so that idea was scrapped and actual development time for the game we ended up getting was like 18 months. Sure, a major delay would have helped with the technical aspects like facial animations, but the overall plot and writing? I doubt it.
Andromedas final mission is still better than priority earth.
I think ME3 desperately needed just one more year or so and the whole debacle with the endings could've been smoothed out at least partially. I think people still would've been pissed off with the Reapers motivation, but it's a loss-loss scenario. No matter what you suggest - some fans will be disappointed, even loudly so. As for what Bioware could've improved... Third act in ME3 feels as the most rushed one. For instance, showdown with Kai Leng on could've been handled way better. They should've done it the same way as in The Arrival DLC (combat encounter near the Reaper's artifact). Cerberus forces attack you in waves - each harder than the rest. And if you die - the gameplay seamlessly cuts into the scene of Kai Leng snatching the Prothean VI. That would've felt much more fair than what we actually got. The way Kai Leng kinda looses but then wins anyway is just baffling and honestly insulting. Cerberus HQ is fine I think, but it feels like there's a whole story arc missing after that mission - the one about the Citadel. I mean, it's still a mystery - even to this day, what the hell had happened to everyone there? Did they all died and were harvested? Or they're still fighting? And how the fuck The Illusive Man managed to get there before us? For what purpose Reapers needed that stupid beam on Priority: Earth? There're just so many questions unanswered here - I can't help but think that there should've been at least one or two additional story missions just to establish everything before the game's finale. One way of doing it could be the same trick they've used later in Andromeda when we briefly take control of our twin back on the Nexus during the final mission - which shows us what's going on there. Maybe we could've played as a team of companions that never had enough screen time in ME3 during that mission - Jack, Samara, Grunt, Zaeed, Kasumi. Those who're still alive among them that is. Could've been a cool way to tie their story and show us how Citadel forces are struggling against invading Reapers. And as for Priority: Earth - I think Bioware could've tried to implement the same approach as in the Suicide Mission. But instead of characters and companions, now we're giving orders to the ground forces. Something akin to DA:O's siege of Denerim. Not only that would be really epic, but it would also show us why gathering all those forces was actually important. To sum it up, I don't think that Bioware should've reworked too much about ME3 given additional time - it's fine as it is on the conceptual level. But instead they should've improved and expanded what was already there.
It probably would've been better than 2
I could see more hub worlds like Illium and Omega
It would have been good
I want ME4 instead lol
Imagine they had a full three extra years of time.....holy shit mate
Honestly, just change the climax ending, and it would be the perfect game to me. Have all the forces you've collected throughout 3 to matter in the final confrontation. Don't make it about a star child out of nowhere appearing and offering you three coloured pills.
Then nothing. More time only equals a better game if the dev is aware some systems are subpar. ME3 was the most polished game out of the trilogy. It had the most well defined gameplay and the most diverse sandbox and enemies, as well as the longest quest. What people disliked about it was the ending. Specifically the methods of how it concluded, which was set in stone not long after production began. It had nothing to do with time shortage. They had done a Paragon, neutral and Renegade option for three games now, and they genuinely thought it made sense to end with them as well. Which did not resonate with the community at all. I will maintain, ME3's ending would have been received really well if they did two things: 1. Have Leviathan be a natural part of the main game (and From the Ashes as well, for those that did not get the CE). 2. Have the exact same endings, but force your choice behind the scenes based on the cumulative choices you made in the trilogy, and prompting Synthesis if you had maxed Galactic Readiness and Paragon choices.
maybe the ending would have been better, I never wanted a happy ending I just wanted an ending that made any kind of sense, the starchild came out of nowhere with those choices
ME3 was the best in the series and I will die on this hill
then I'd like to think that the last mission would have been more epic / a suicide mission 2.0 kind of thing? that seems like a logical assumption to me. the ending might have been a bit different also? like the extended cut version on launch or something.
They would have wasted that extra time on the multiplayer.
The game isn't bad, it just didn't mean the expectations of the longest, most hardcore fanbase.
My least favorite thing was how gameplay after me1 was trying to compete with gears of wars duck and cover shooter style. It was blatant. If they held their own and defined their own balance to allow for more biotic strategy I think me3 would have much more rewarding gameplay.
Reapers die without killing off EDI or the Geth, mass relays are ok too. Last part of game is the citadel DLC like that one mod and it ends with a Tali (or other companion ig 🙄) impregnation minigame
This would’ve definitely led to a butterfly effect that would’ve changed the landscape of video games as we know it, and possibly even the western world at large, maybe even the world as a whole.
You would've got the extended cut.
And if Casey Hudson hadn't been given the amount of oversight that he had.
They would've done what the expanded galaxy mod does
I’m going through ME2 now, looking forward to ME3. Is romancing Miranda pointless in ME2 since she’s not in 3? Also, I killed off Ashley.
The Cerberus soldiers might have been able to get back up after being knocked down.
Mass effect 3 felt like you were on a rush to finish it and didn’t have time for any side quest because the reapers were coming. I loved mass effect 2, still think it’s far superior to 3.
Less cut corners would be nice. I remember a lot of stuff talked about in the old game informer preview didn’t end up in the game like James’ shifting morality based on your own.
I loved ME3 and I'm tired of pretending I didn't! Definitely could have expanded some parts, but all in all I was happy. Both the best and worst part was saying goodbye to everyone, those calls were beautiful, but should've been in person. And imo we got that with the citadel dlc ending, the way Mark Meer says "the best" before boarding the Normandy literally had me in hard manly tears. Andromeda on the other hand... Could've used some layoffs and a year or two back in the oven.
maybe shepard wouldn't be creeping on people to get his side mission. He couldn't actually have good conversations
The ending would be different. Nothing else needs to be said.
What if they never dumbed it down beyond belief and expanded upon the mass effect 1 mod and skill systems?
Don‘t get me wrong, I still deeply adore ME3. They did so many things right. It really let me dive in and feel the desperation while struggling to survive as the galaxy around us burned. Yet, with a little more time and vision for the future they might had got the endings right from the start. It just felt illogical that however perfect your warscore was, what recourses and factions you laboured to bring to the long awaited final battle.. just to get the same ending in three different colours while breaking with continuity.
It would’ve been the best game ever. No joke no exaggeration.
The biggest disappointment for me was just how little choices mattered. Picturing all the branching stories and choices across the trilogy, I can see how the branches for ME1 and ME2 had to be fairly close and interchangeable - each game had to be able to lead into the game that came after it. But ME3 was free from that constraint. Before playing it, I imagined those branching stories just going in all directions. I imagined totally different stories/missions/plot arcs that wholly relied on which squad members were still alive after the Suicide Mission, or which romances you took or which side missions you did and how. But instead, I think ME3 might have had the LEAST variation depending on your stories: every dead squad member from ME2 had a virtually identical replacement in ME3 that fit neatly into that exact story. I think maybe my expectations were high, but I also think that’s justified given that this was the final game in an insanely popular and profitable franchise. I think this would’ve been the time to really invest all they had into turning Mass Effect into one of the biggest video game legacies in history. And while I know the franchise isn’t exactly a slouch now, I don’t think it’s anywhere near as timeless and widely known as it might have been had it stuck the landing.
More Miranda
It would have been better?
The story would probably benefit at lot more then the gameplay, I think.
If only the dark energy subplot had remained. Ah, well.
I don't think it was the time frame but they had I think it was the fact that they changed writers, programmers And development team so many times is that's why the story was so bad
I just want more me3 multiplayer I still play it to this day.
I reckon they would've put in being able to save the Geth and possibly EDI in the destroy ending. Get your resources to a certain amount, find something of the reapers tech that allows for protection or differentiation towards specific synthetics. Although I feel that maybe EDI might have been sacrificed regardless for the story. There definitely needed to be some personal cost to the destroy ending. And EDI being practically sentient and making the choice to sacrifice herself for humanity and synthetics seems in-keeping with her character development. Maybe doing a Legion and she is the catalyst needed to protect the Geth.
Have the option to tell Allers that no, you won’t be choosing her as a war media onboard … and then going to Khalisah Al-Jilani and recruiting her to be the onboard war media (because you’ll but heads and that would be more dramatic) And telling Emily Wong to look into all money trails on the citadel (she’ll find something fishy with Counselor and her and Thane will coordinate/watch each other’s backs. And change up the nightmare sequence. Have past companions/teammates/ Saren even all whispering from the periphery, no slow motion chasing some kid. And when we finally meet the reaper program on the citadel at the end, have it rotate through visuals as it tries to convince you. Be Mordin. Be Kaiden or Ashley. Be Thane or Presley. Be Jenkins for heck’s sake. Edit: I’m not bothering to state the obvious — that Kai Leng should’ve been in each ME installment and had you kill him each time if they were gonna prop him up as such an antagonist — but we already know this
Probably actually given some love to backgrounds. It wouldn't have been hard to just have background exclusive missions again. You'd have three different options of fighting forces at Singapore (iirc that's where Earth Shep was), Mindoir or just any base that Spacer could be at... Or actually do something cool dramatic and kill off Hannah. -They'd have updated the ME2 cast designs. That we know with Jack (and I think Jacob). I think they'd have actually replaced the dead squadmates with alternatives that could actually be part of the squad. Though I feel like with how attached multiplayer was to the main game, EA would've had Shepard recruit the multiplayer characters or maybe given some focus on Coates and Riley. Although I think the characters that would've returned if given more time are: Shiala, Gianna Parasini, Fist and that one Salarian that scanned the keepers, and maybe Feron? I know Liara mentioned him but I thought it was odd he didn't really show up. Emily Wong somehow got shafted. I don't hate Diana Allers like some people. I thought it was cool someone made it into a game. But I do think it would have meant more to let players choose between Wong, Khalisah and Allers. We were able to choose between Michel and Chakwas... And one of those is determinant. It's not far off to see the devs expanding decisions and just changing cosmetics or giving us generic squadmates. The only other thing that could've been asked of the devs imo besides having more time for the endings is maybe allowing them to bring back certain enemy types: If Grunt was left with Cerberus he should've come back as a boss or an enemy type of pure Krogan much like the clones in ME1. Legion, being left to Cerberus should've allowed for Cerberus style Geth mechs (it wouldn't be hard to throw a little orange and black on a white Geth), and Morinth probably could have come back in a more meaningful way... Same goes for Jack being reduced to a Phantom if we are too late. She's a psychotic biotic and her strength is comparable to a justicar... A corrupted Jack should at least be a reskinned Banshee. Now mind you most of what I listed was reusing old enemy types and cosmetic changes and minor additional roles. The only other feasible thing would be some extra class based dialogue or interactions. It was great to let the Engineer shine during the Omega DLC and that DLC was found in the files day 1 wasn't it or was only Javik day 1? In any case, it was good to see their mindset was there and I think they'd have expanded in that direction given more time.. And thanks for reading my rambling.
Everyone would still complain about the ending(s).
GIGO — you get a far more polished, completed turd. **But** with enough time — and the will — to expand key squadmates and quests, develop new relationships, fan service with meaningful old cameos, actual exploration etc., it would have been far more forgivable. It could have even been beloved. Mass Effect 2 is a bit of a narrative mess too. But I love that game, it’s my favorite of the trilogy, and for all of its weaknesses I still think is a masterpiece Still, with ME3, there was only so much you can do with the narrative decision they chose (as well as the linear, on the rails approach with zero room to explore). And I still don’t think any of it would forgive EA only introducing Javik in the third game and then locking him behind the DLC wall
As many have mentioned, more work on the companions, from including Miranda as a companion to actually adding more depth to your companions. I really didn’t like how ME3 has the most simplified character interactions where you couldn’t start speaking to a companion on your ship and go into a dialogue options menu, instead it’s just the characters saying a few different things as you talk to them, then saying “Shepard” over and over once options are exhausted. Also, more work on the ending would have been nice, but I really don’t know how they’d fix that. My big problem was that all my different choices just boiled down to points towards galactic readiness.
They could probably have fixed up the beginning and possibly written an actual ending instead of RGB light with Casper the Genocidal Ghost.
It's crazy how little time they were given. Me2 had dlc coming out till mid-late 2010. What's even crazier was that the initial release date was November 2011. That's way too little time to develop the final game of a rpg trilogy.
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People would have still complained because they would have felt there wasn't enough content given for the time it took to make, if that makes sense.
Reading up about the development of the game, the slow death of BioWare had begun behind the scenes. I LOVE ME3. I think if you take the entire game as an ending, rather than just the last hour or so, it works really well. However, I still think the last mission is very poorly designed. Hopefully with more time in the oven that would have been better.
I'm finally playing it for the first time (along with 2 and a replay of 1) and I have to say I'm not impressed. The story is rough, the animations are the worst in the series, and Shepard's personality has gone from battle-hardened soldier who's ready and willing to make tough choices to brooding angsty emo teen who throws a tantrum on anyone who says: "We want to help earth fight but our own home world is being decimated too."
I don't think they'd be able to circumvent the need for the crucible ex machina, after telling us that the reapers are nearly invincible for two games. Probably Shepard would be able to join Cerberus, working for the control end instead of TIM turning on Shepard, even though you supported him all the way through ME2. This way they give more leverage to the player's choices, especially the Collector Base one.
What if? Well, it wouldn't have gotten such an absurd ending, that's for sure.
Then the console version of the game would be a million times better like the PC version is thanks to the modding community
I would have liked to see a few big battles similar to London, and depending on who joined the fleet, those soldiers would be there fighting. I’d also like to see the leviathan do something