The Mass Effect Trilogy is Out of Order

This is an interesting perspective. I've never seen this approach before. I enjoyed reading through your post and this would make a super interesting story if the games were indeed switched around. Well done!

It's possible. Just change a few things. As you said, a few others have suggested it before.

The details aren't important here; the point is just to illustrate how the structure of the trilogy is flawed and how, ironically, it might flow better if some of the games were moved around. A lot of people on release noticed that ME2 felt like a soft reboot of the story. As such, ME2 has all the elements necessary in its premise to actually BE the beginning of the story. Certainly if you want to discuss the details there are lots of little things you'd need to change in each game and you'd also still need to fix a lot ME2's problems.

I definitely agree the Reapers would need to be nerfed a bit and that's not a difficult thing to do. Lots of options, just pick one.

I don't know that space battles or necessary, but it is fair criticism that the basic premise of ME3 I outlined has not explained why Shepard's three-man squad is needed or what it would be doing. Writing out why Shepard and his crew will be on the ground winning the war with their personal arms is quite the bigger task. You could use lots of ME3's concepts. All that limits you is your creativity. All in all, I think ME3 did a decent job of justifying why Shepard was needed to fight ground battles in ME3, within the confines set by that game anyway. Of-course a bigger problem with the whole Reaper War concept is that it makes little sense that the Reapers would be fighting any ground battles at all rather than bombing planets from interstellar distances. Figuring out that part is much more difficult. I do sympathize with your desire to wipe the slate and start from scratch and it is an option that I generally favor, but that wasn't the purpose of this thread. Think of it as a thought experiment. That said, I don't see why you couldn't incorporate SOME real-time-strategy elements to the galaxy map. Ever play Star Fox 2? I would imagine something like that may work. The galaxy map could be more interactive, as it already is in ME3, with Reaper 'ships' (that might actually represent squadrons) moving about only this time we add friendly fleets to counter them. They meet, perhaps on their own or when Shepard directs them to, and then some numbers are run to determine who wins what battle.

Now regarding Sovereign, I want you to keep in mind that Sovereign was probably designed to be very powerful and well equipped. Sovereign needed to survive on its own in a potentially hostile galaxy for tens of thousands of years at a time. It is thus natural to speculate that it might have been one of the most powerful Reapers in existence. As well, it was bigger than any Dreadnaught and at the end it seemed to be picking apart cruisers; we never see it fight a dreadnaught class ship. Another thing to remember is that in this version of the trilogy the Collector technology has already been taken by the Alliance (remember it's not a Cerberus Op) and so that boosts the 5th Fleet in their firepower. The time-gap between the first and second games might be longer than two-years too. Perhaps even the Council fleets have some of the tech (Alliance could share some for political, economic, or other gains). Thus the Council/Alliance fleets ought to be much more powerful than they were in the real ME1.

Another idea that occurred to me is that Vigil's data package could serve to wipe the Citadel's memory banks clear of all information. A forceful hard-drive reformat if you will. Thus the Reapers capture the station despite Sovereign's destruction, but are unable to data-mine the station for the locations of settle planets or homeworlds. That buys the rest of the galaxy some time and lets us extend the gap between ME2 and ME3 somewhat. (naturally, we'll need to change where Bekenstein is, but I think it was a weird choice to put it in the Serpent Nebula in the first place)

What the hell are you talking about? The Reaper invasion doesn't justify the Reapers being in their own game? Granted, I'm not sure it is their game. It'd argue it is Shepard's game and the plot is about him leading a war for survival, his choice of alliances, his sacrifices, shaping the fate of the galaxy. The Reapers are an obstacle to be overcome. I probably would not explore their origins or their motives since I don't that is terribly important to the story unless their motives/origins somehow lead to defeating them.



You are leaping to conclusions. I didn't say to exclude third person shooter gameplay. I did not imply it. In fact, I implied that the goal was to make sure it was included. Please do not put words in my mouth and don't project your own leaps of logic onto me either. Let me put it this way.

We want a satisfying conclusion to the Mass Effect trilogy. That means an ending that feels like the natural culmination of the events of the game, events which should be driven and shaped in a logical fashion. The first step in that process is to figure out what that logical progression could be. If you wind up with a premise that is logical but does not permit the gameplay you desire then you must go back to the drawing board and figure something else out. That could very well mean scrapping an idea entirely if it is not workable or might just mean making modifications.

What I proposed is fundamentally no different than what ME3 does in its structure, all I suggested was the addition of some light RPG/RTS elements on the galaxy map. Again, I stress, do not leap to conclusions. This is a thought experiment. What you are doing is grabbing one portion of a statement and then carrying out in isolation to an extreme. That is poor thinking on your part.

Obviously, in this thought experiment, we would want the mechanic to be fun. Working around save-scumming is one idea. Though I think a better idea is players being encouraged to do battle with their fleets from time to time, rather than trying to avoid it. In fact, avoiding it would be the last thing you'd want to do since it would incur losses in planets, solar systems, and ease of movement. Not to mention political fall out. If players want to load their save any time they lose a battle or take too many losses then that's their decision. I think good game design warrants leaving the option open for players to do whatever they wish that case. Load their save, or just ironman it and live with the consequences.

Every play X-COM? Most players of that game do not reload their save when a turn goes badly for them in a mission or even when an entire mission is lost. It's part of the appeal. After all, past decisions could have negative effects in ME3 and so some players might wish to re-do previous games and change what they did. Others will live with it. You seem to be of a similar mindset as the ME2 devs; if a game mechanic had problems then just strip it out entirely rather than try to improve it. Very limited thinking.

In reading the rest of your quotes it is becoming clear to me that your reading comprehension is suffering for whatever reason and that your style of quoting me line by line and responding to each sentence before you have finished reading and processing the concept presented is causing you a great deal of misunderstanding. As I said, it is probably necessary to depower the Reapers in some fashion so as to make the stakes more believable. We want the odds long but not insurmountable. I have already given examples of how that might be done and, I will repeat the concept here once more; the idea is that the Reapers think they have won because they have the Citadel. They break up into smaller groups and begin attacking worlds that they think are cut-off. Then Shepard's counter attack singles out these smaller groups and crushes them with overwhelming force. Eventually the Reapers will realize what is going and regroup at the Citadel with all their strength gathered. However much as Sovereign could not stand up to an entire fleet all on his own it is possible that the Reapers, who rely on manipulation, subterfuge, and isolating their enemies into more manageable sizes via' isolation tactics, would themselves not be able to stand up to an entire united galaxy with a population in the trillions. In this version of the story at least that would be the case.



You are an extremely negative person, more-so than me, and that's pretty impressive. Actually, I think you are just lazy. I would use the mechanic enough to be fun and to fill in the gameplay but not so much as to be boring. Hopefully people would never find it boring. The goal of any game is not to be boring, isn't that obvious?



Power consumption is part of logistics. As to the rest of your questions about the Reaper's designs and plans, I suggest you ask the ME1, ME2, and ME3 devs about that. They didn't make every Reaper a Sovereign sized Reaper. The Reapers limitations are whatever they are needed to be for the story to work. Had ME2 been written by a competent writer they'd have written a story that weakened the Reapers either directly or via' providing the protagonist with some information and technology that would uplift them to near the Reaper's level. The biggest takeaway I am getting now from your response is that you think the entire series was always doomed. That there was never at any point any way to resolve it in a satisfying way without pulling deus ex machina out of your ass. If that is the case then it is a failure of creativity on your part.






Now you ask good questions here, but these are all details that don't really matter in deciding what the premise is. These questions have a multitude of possible answers but answering them isn't really necessary in this thread unless you want collaborate with me on fleshing out this entire premise in total. While I do have some interest in fleshing it out I don't think you have the right mindset for such a task. Though perhaps you're a decent critic.

You can if you write a story where you can. The Reaper's aren't real. They are a fictional entities invented to serve a purpose in a narrative. They can be written however they need to be to best serve that narrative. You are not making any sense.

Are you angry that you aren't shooting Reapers dead with your rifle? Did that piss you off in ME3? I'm not sure I understand you here or that you are actually making any coherent point. The Reapers have servants and we can invent smaller ground units for them if need be. Like you know, husks? As well as indoctrinated victims or other factions or people compelled to do their bidding. I agree that making Cerberus a primary antagonist in ME3 was an ill-conceived move, and there is no reason they would be in this alternate universe ME3 I proposed. In fact, I haven't even mentioned Cerberus.

This is not the originally established universe. It's an alternate one. At this point getting bogged down in details. You see the reasoning behind all this is that the stakes in ME2 are not as high as in ME1. The final battle in ME1 is equal to the entirety of ME3 because if you lose in ME1 (i'm speaking the real ME1 here) then the Reapers enter the galaxy and everyone is doomed. In ME2 though I'm not sure why fighting the Collectors so important. I get that it's a good thing to be rid of them but the Reapers are going to arrive in a year's time anyway so what is so critical about it? It's a flaw in ME2's premise that the stakes are not as high among other things.

Frankly, I don't think the Reapers are that interesting and I'd be fine if they didn't exist. The Mass Effect universe has more than enough conflict within it to justify many games without ever needing galaxy-harvesting machines.



We are in agreement.



By all means share your ideas with me.



That is where you are wrong. A big problem with ME2 and ME3, and thus with the Reapers, is that neither takes any steps weaken them or to empower Shepard and co. Here is something important left out: how did the Reapers ever get back to the Milky Way without the Citadel? If they always had the option of just flying back in a couple of years then why the slow, careful, and finally desperate attack by Sovereign on the Citadel? Mind you it is implied Sovereign was behind the Rachni Wars, which could mean he was attempting to use them to capture the Citadel a few thousand years ago.

So here is how I'd have weakened the Reapers in the original trilogy: without the Citadel relay the Reapers must consume themselves to fuel a journey back to the Milky Way through normal space. This means reducing their numbers and weakening their energy reserves. That weakens them. It's not the only thing I'd do, of-course, but it's a start. This is a separate discussion though and isn't relevant to the re-ordered trilogy I proposed.

In my re-ordered trilogy I weakened the Reapers by enabling the Alliance (and possibly other species) to gain access to the Collector(Reaper) tech at climax of the first game. Furthermore, when the Reapers do capture the Citadel they do so with a galaxy that they have no information and but otherwise falsely believe they have already beaten and isolated. This gives the organics time to rebuild their strength and to organize, and it also causes the Reapers to commit a strategic error that results in a portion of their numbers being destroyed piece meal after they spread out into smaller groups to harvest worlds they think will be defenseless.

Ultimately the strength of the Reapers should be such that no single species could defeat them but a united galaxy would have at least a 50/50 shot at it. That's the philosophy anyway.

That is an interesting and radical concept. Did they evolve this way or did they transition into becoming dark energy, ascend beyond the material plane as it were?



Yeah, and they also need to be beatable or else the only story you can tell is one of defeat. It stuns me that I should need to point that out to you, frankly. It has been a stimulating a discussion, at least somewhat, but I think you and I are done here.

That is actually an interesting idea. It is workable, but some things need to be blended together between ME1 and ME2, and I would change a few things. I'd let Nihlus be your mentor for example, with Saren showing up from time to time to help Nihlus. Nihlus and Saren would form a nice duality of Paragon and Renegade. This will make the Saren betrayal of Nihlus a lot more impactful in the second game.

I would never end the second game with a defeat. It's a great way to piss off your fan base, and definitely to piss off the ones that did not play the first game. How I know? Look how many people hate the mission on Thessia in ME3, and that was one very well put together mission within a game. If you make people wait a year or two after such an ending, they will bail out on you. Gamers are still too immature to appreciate that content. The second game should end like the current ME1, and have the final scene of the reaper armada of ME2 closing in on the galaxy.

I'd change very little of ME3.

Let me elaborate... I'd change very little of ME3 in terms of story structure, which is basically what we're talking about here... The implementation is another story (no pun intended), and some things should have been set in the prior game. If we're gonna have a crucible, it should have been discovered in the prior game for example. Obviously I'd strip out the star child and change the last 10 minutes of the ending. I'd give Cerberus a completely different role (if any), and the majority of the game should have been sort of like the current ME2 ending, where what you did and what you choose influences the outcome.

The thing about ME3 is, that it relies a lot on how the prior games were done, because of the choice carry-over of all prior games. Considering the vastness of ME3, I still consider the changes mentioned above as 'very little', simply because if we change the prior two games, ME3 will in turn have to adapt 'automatically'. But one thing I would definitely not change is the dramatic deaths of the beloved team mates, and the 'heavy' feeling the game gives off. 

I can't agree with this...

The fact that you start on earth is because of what you did in ME2 Arrival.

Whoever lives or dies is mostly based on characters from the prior games, thus their story and background needs to be taken into account for their death stories.

Council choice despite being quite irrelevant to the overall story, needs to be taken into account to include them in the story.

Collector base choice was poorly resolved, but still needed to be included in some way to have coherence. If it wasn't people would complain about it, just like the dark energy stuff from Tali's mission in ME2 missing in ME3.

The rachni choice was no longer a choice for ME3, because if she was dead she would show up anyway. And that is one of the biggest examples of how the prior games influence this one. They could not leave her out for the players that saved her, but they didn't have resources to do something else, so the ones that killed her met her anyway. If that is not evidence of other games influencing ME3, I don't know what is.

As for Shepard, Anderson, Udina, and Illusive Man, they might be off, but required inclusion that conforms to certain expectations.

ME3 is purely a product of the prior games and time constraints. ME3 has to rely on what the other games provided, since it's basically a conclusion chapter. Conclusions of the smallest details and the largest plot. To say it relies very little on the influence of the previous two games is not based on reality, at least when talking about the plot and story.