What should Alex do? (Mass Alex spoiler poll)

I'm kinda torn on whether Alex should redo the final mission to save Tali (or cheat...) or just stick with how things turned out.

Yeah, Tali is one of the best characters in the series. But, also, I think there's something to be said about living with the consequences of your choices.

I think Tali should remain dead.

Yeah, its a pity. Tali is a great character and an important part of an arc of 3, but carrying on with the consequences is the nature of the series.

Having not played ME3, I'd still assume that game has something else worthwhile going for it even without Tali being there and that doesn't just ruin the whole game, which is the feeling I get from reading so many comments about people wanting him to go back.

I remember being super bummed when I ended up getting Wrex killed in the first game, but I just continued on cause stuff happens. Suppose I also didn't really care that much for Tali, so maybe both that and me not having played ME3 kinda make this a non-issue for me.

Well, that and the fact that it's Alex playing the game, not me. So I don't know? Guess I'm fine with either option, but maybe slightly steering towards sticking with the consequences.

Now we know why he's so sad;

Just keep going it’s not that big a deal really. I mean when I played I sure as heck save scummed my way to a perfect mission outcome but I don’t think Alex is THAT into it. Ironically I later lost my save during a move so I got a shitty stock ME3 story anyway.

I am stunned by the mentality that pushes people to have the “perfect save” in games, the variety is the spice! Make a decision in a game about those and take the consequences! What is the point otherwise? Might as well play the mode that eliminates all dialogue (I think that is in ME3).

Follow the true Mass Effect experience that most people followed and scum until your favs all make it.

I lost Wrex and Mordin and soldiered on with my canon story, despite apparently missing cool shit later. Sometimes you lose people you don't want to lose, no matter what choices you make. What happened happened, and Alex's reaction seemed genuine.

So let's stick to the current timeline.

He should absolutely bring her back, which is largely based in my opinion that ME3 is - full stop, no qualifiers, no lifelines needed Regis - a bad game. Nearly every part of ME3 from the story, to the graphics, gameplay, sound design, and the music - are a step or two down from what came before.

Literally the only things that keep it from being a complete dumpster fire are the individual character moments you get, the most meaningful of which are the ones with the longest standing companions. Not having Tali there is removing one of the biggest reasons you could have for recommending any part of that game.

This episode made me have a lesser opinion of the suicide mission. The character deaths don’t seem entirely related to what their role is. Tali is a tech expert but is not quite expert enough to close a door, which didn’t have anything to do with her being in the vents? I love what they were going for but seeing someone go through it for the first time makes the structure of the mission seem odd and misleading.

"Many decisions lie ahead. None of them easy."

What's dead is dead. This is the whole point of the Mass Effect experience.

If mass effect was actually written in a way that made living with the consequences and branching stories a fun and worthwhile experience I'd say carry on.

But its not at all. It has a very specific narrative it wants to tell and the player is punished for losing characters. Some Mass Effect fans would like to pretend the writing holds up in all possible choices but it just doesn't. Thats not a knock against Mass Effect, noone has yet fully realised branching stories in a way that works well. Living with the consequences to uphold an imaginary ideal of what Mass Effect could be is ridiculous, play it for what it is a narrative driven game with a primary canon.

A Tali-less playthru of ME3 is just plain terrible. If it were anyone else, other than Tali or Garrus, that died in that mission I'd say let it ride, but those 2 are just so damn important to that game.

ME3 is a lesser game with any main characters from ME2 being dead.

I'm not going to cast a vote on this one. I feel like keeping the sentiment of "letting the chips fall where they may" embodies a lot of what GB does more or less with out expecting runs to go as planned. So I want to hit the "stick with the current save" option. But then again... No one ever died on my run so I can't speak to how someone might feel who had their favorite character take a missile to the dome.

My first time through the mission I lost 3 (-ish) people. When I finished I searched for a guide, thankfully there already was one, redid the mission perfectly and deleted the other save. There was never a hint or a suggestion of letting it stand.

Alex should do what he wants.

Show would be better if Tali remained dead. Alex's experience would be better if he went back and keep Tali alive. I personally would like Tali to be alive.

I will stand by Alex's decision either way.

Edit: ps. abstaining from voting.

If she wasn't a party member it wouldn't be that bad. I'm certainly not opposed to them continuing on in this state, but it sure as hell won't be "interesting to see play out" like a lot of people in the comments seem to think it will.

All it does is remove a huge chunk of the game, since there's no party member replacement and all those great character moments and worldbuilding are just gone in a game that already has a small cast. Tali is replaced with another quarian in story relevant scenes, the same as Mordin and Wrex (with members of their respective species) if they didn't make it. Losing people in Mass Effect 2 doesn't result in anything new or interesting in ME3. This isn't a paragon vs. renegade situation, it's purely detrimental. A punishment sure, but not an interesting one.

I understand the desire to let the chips fall where they may because there's a lot of times where losing a beloved character can only strengthen the narrative and lead to even more interesting moments.

But they just truly did not make that game.

Mass Effect 1: "You have to choose whether to save Kaiden or Ashley in a tough decision that will harden you as a commander, and make you the savior the galaxy needs."

Mass Effect 2: "Someone died for no reason because we phrased something weird. Now pretend that everything about the Suicide Mission is sacrosanct and serious as cancer while you fight this big goofy Terminator who screams like a fax machine and feeds on human smoothies."

I love Mass Effect and its narrative, but there are times when there are big difficult The Walking Dead decisions that matter and when it's just the game fucking with you. Everyone I know reloaded that last save if they lost someone to the game's oblique and arbitrary failure states because it didn't feel earned - as evinced by the way you get no closure besides a quick shot of the ragdoll corpse later followed by five seconds of the end of "The Wrath of Khan" before credits roll - and all this was before Mass Effect 3 came along and we discovered that Tali's arc is one of the few bright spots in a game relatively bereft of good character moments, let alone worthwhile playable squad members.

On a personal note, Alex already lost his fish. I think he's mourned enough fallen allies.

This is my mindset as well. While I understand folks think it offers interesting possibilities, having Admiral Xen in place of Tali makes the whole Geth/Quarian arc not as interesting mainly because that character doesn't have 2 games worth of backstory and familiarity with the audience the way Tali did. She doesn't come with you in a squad like Tali does, Xen stays on the sidelines most of the time, and of course she's not on your ship where you can talk with her and have multiple character moments like Tali does. IIRC, you don't even get to have the option of settling peace with the Quarians/Geth and have that awesome moment on the cliff on Rannoch after battle with Xen; you have to pick a side. With Tali being there, it has more personal weight, especially if you love her as a character which I believe Alex does, and there's more content to chew on.

Also to be quite frank, I don't believe in the idea of "live with your consequences" if it negatively affects your feelings and perceptions going forward in the story; just because that was the way you played the game doesn't mean anyone else must do it that way. With how Alex was droning on about her death in that episode made me think that'll just cloud that Geth/Quarian arc negatively for him that won't make it enjoyable for him or us to watch. If it was Jack or Miranda or Jacob or Grunt that died...okay, I wouldn't have a problem with it because Bioware didn't craft major arcs around those characters the way they did with Garrus, Tali, and Liara in ME3. Also, those were characters that Alex didn't seem to have much emotional investment in like he did with the aforementioned three.

I'm not going to stop the series either way, but if Alex feels like he won't enjoy Mass Effect 3 as much without Tali there and/or it'll keep bumming him out, then by all means let him save scum or change the save file. I'm watching the series mainly to see Alex's reactions to the story and I'll be fine either way he wants to go.

Ha

I haven’t been watching Mass Alex since I already played this one and don’t have...180 hours(?) to sit and watch.

That said, no save scumming or retconning. Stick with your world...always.

EDIT: Tough choices and tough breaks makes a story more interesting. I think that if he’s actually upset about losing Tali, it shows his investment and he should use that to propel himself further into the fiction. Removing the death cheapens the impact and ultimately renders a genuine reaction moot, which seems like a huge missed opportunity.

He can do as he pleases, but I’m personally of the mindset that a game is ultimately more rewarding if it evokes feelings like regret in the player...via a narrative, not, you know, buyer’s remorse...

Although it sucks that he won't be able to "fully resolve" the situation between the Geth and Quarians, I think that will make that moment more impactful for him in a way that will hurt but be memorable.

I assume most people who played ME2 way back when just reloaded the save until they saved everyone so that they can carry the "good save" over to ME3. And I think Bioware assumed the same when they wrote ME3.

@nutter: This is all well and good in theory, but the way ME3 handles the deaths of these characters is just kind of shitty and lame and does nothing to enhance the experience. It doesn't even really feel like some kind of consequence, unless you mean that your punishment is just getting a lesser experience.

I love ME3 for the most part, but the way they handled all of the consequences to your actions regarding character's deaths stunk.

The main thing that is making me say keep the save is it would be interesting to see a different story from mine with Tali being dead. I never replayed ME3 and Alex’s current save lines up very closely with mine, except for Tali being dead. Seeing her absent in ME3 would at least be interesting from an academic perspective, even though she would be missed.

That said, Tali is great and she should be alive. I love the suicide mission, but by its design you can go back in and retry / look at a wiki and see what you need to do. Yeah, if you don’t upgrade the ship and fail a couple locality missions things can get more hairy. But generally speaking, people are going to leave that mission with most of their squad and replay the mission until everybody is alive.

If this was anybody else, I would say leave it. But Garrus and Tali are good people who should be in all three games. I understand the argument for keeping her dead though.

Getting the worst ending is the true mass effect ending. Sheppard dies the world is fucked no ME3. We all win. Him or Her jumping at the Normandy and falling down into the abyss is one off the best things about that game.

It seems wild that people would want to not see Tali in ME3. I doubt Alex would play through this series again, why would you want to have a inferior experience of that game? If he saved her it could be interesting to hear his thoughts throughout ME3 of how things would have played out if he had some rando showing up instead of Tali.

Another thing I thought of is I’ve heard different interpretations of the fire team / support squad. The first time I did it I picked Thane, because I thought he could create a diversion. A friend of mine picked Grunt because he read it as “I need a guy who can kill as many people as possible”. Alex read it as experience in general. Probably half of people’s deaths were probably based on misreading this in some way. Like some people probably thought “We need somebody people can trust” or “Well somebody who’s not Miranda”, but it turns out Miranda is one of the few choices that work, because she has experience leading people. Apparently the only choices that work are Miranda, Jacob, and Garrus, which is not a lot of people.

I still love the suicide mission, but this point is it’s biggest problem. Not only that, I’ve heard probably 5 different issues or interpretations of this kind of vague choice. Meanwhile the other choice, pick a tech expert, is so straight forward it almost always leads to the death of Tali or Legion, which flippin’ sucks!

I have no problem with Alex bringing her back, whatever makes for a more enjoyable experience.

Reading this thread, a lot of folks suffered losses during the suicide mission, huh? This isn’t some bullshit brag, but I didn’t lose anyone. I think I would have preferred some loss, for dramatic purpose.

It’d be cool to see some Telltale-style breakdown of how that mission went, from Bioware.

@clagnaught: I'd agree with that 100%. As I mentioned in my above post, I interpreted the instruction as someone who had a combination of combat experience and leadership ability. The issue is that of the three people who the game accepts as OK for the criteria, only Garrus is someone I would say fits them 100%.

The problem I have with the other two is that they are consistently characterized throughout the game as not really having good leadership qualities. Miranda is mentioned several times by various crew members and companions as someone they don't particularly like or trust, and therefore are unlikely to follow when the going gets tough. Jacob is mostly portrayed as a lifelong follower - competent in combat, sure, but not the kind of person to take charge in a pressure situation.

On the other side of the coin, I picked Zaeed, who I would argue actually fits the criteria pretty well. Sure, he can be a selfish, vengeful asshole, but he also (a) has decades of combat experience, including several instances of leading teams that were severely outnumbered or outgunned and (b) did manage to be a founder of one of the biggest mercenary companies in the galaxy, which you don't do unless you can get a lot of people working in the same direction.

The whole thing was very vague. I'd be interested in knowing what the writers actually intended to communicate there and the subsequent reasoning for why some crew members are OK for some jobs and not others.

If he changes the result of the Suicide Mission for Mass Alex 3 then what the fuck are we even doing here? I say that for everyone that plays Mass Effect. The only interesting thing about games with choices to me is dealing with the consequences of my actions, positive or negative. Otherwise why even include a choice at all?

Of course I think everyone should play how they want to, but for me, I have no interest in "rewriting history" unless it truly is the game's fault I made the wrong choice, and that isn't what happened here.

If Mass Effect 3 hadn't ruined the whole consequences thing by replacing all the companions with generic replacements but having the EXACT same story threads, then I would say live with the consequences. But as much as I actually really like number 3, that was the biggest gut punch of a failure on delivery for bioware and no one getting their personalized endings. So I would say go back and save Tali and make number 3 as best as you can. Plus I want to see Alex happy :)

@wrighteous86: Yeah, choice is exciting because of consequence. I couldn’t imagine feeling much playing a game if I keep save scumming when things don’t go my way.

I will confess to doing it once...maybe in a Dragon Age game? Maybe Mass Effect...I don’t recall. My justification was that the dialog choice, to me, in no way matched what my character said. I felt the choice was a poor representation of the resulting line read, so I reloaded to better match the reaction I was going for.

My biggest problem is that Mass Effect 3 is a FAR worse game without Tali and not having her storyline negatively impacts a lot of what is great about the entire series. Typically, I'm all for living with your consequences but seeing Alex's enjoyment of the series like the rest of us has been the joy of the series.

My least favorite part of mass Alex was that he did EVERYTHING, no consequences in the final mission except Tali, let her be dead!

I don't think you benefit from missing content, Tali died as part of his story line which can be considered an important event but does it improve his story? No.
I didn't play 3 but i think Garrus died when i played 2 and i'd have totally brought him back.

Tali's death felt random and cheap. A cutscene that isn't even related to the decisions you made leading up to it, a random shot from a blaster where she has been taking shots to the face and has been downed all over the game. Nothing was gained by her dying, no heroic sacrifice or tough decision caused her death. Her death meant nothing, except the fact that she's gone.

I wouldn't feel bad at all about retconning that stuff.

Shep Shep already came back from the dead. They can bring back Tali, or just stick with it. Im good either way. Its whatever experience Alex Wants.

@therealturk: Fully agree.

It really sucks what happened but I am very curious to see what ME3 is like without Tali.

I'm really not sure. I know if I was playing at home and not for a video feature like this, I would absolutely save scum it. I'm the kind of person who always undoes optional character deaths. I've played hour+ battles in Valkyria Chronicles and reloaded near the end when I lost a character because I JUST CAN'T LET THEM DIE NOOOO MY VIRTUAL FRIENDS.

I feel like Alex maybe should let this be, but I also wouldn't be upset if he didn't. We can just pretend Shep Shep miraculously awoke back in time and changed her choices saving Tali.

I think a better question is what do you guys think Alex will actually do. On one hand I can see them sticking to their guns on this as part of the series. On the other I can also see them revising the choice for the added content in ME3? I honestly don't know. Vinny has been trying to be very hands off when it comes to the story stuff (although he still reminds Alex about 50 times per combat encounter to use his abilities). Then again I can see this being a big enough deal where he might suggest a small retcon.

But the consequences are simply that it makes Mass Effect 3 a significantly worse game. There's no value in experiencing a worse game because the game itself doesn't know how to handle its own life or death system. There is no story resonance from any main character's deaths because they just jam in a make up character to suit that roll. That is the opposite of consequences, it is just basically the game saying "Screw you, none of these choices actually mattered because the same results are going to happen no matter what."

Having Tali out just hurts the story because it makes considerably less sense when she's gone. Another example would be someone like Mordin. Imagine the final scene with that character if it was just his damn former assistance or something? There's no consequence or overall narrative resonance there, it's just a weird scene where you choose to either help or murder a stranger. Joker literally calls the character "Not-Mordin".

It mostly just makes me wonder how much of Mass Effect 3 Vinny remembers. While I'm sure he could just read the comments and see how divisive this situation is, his decision will probably hinge on how integral he thinks Tali is to the Mass Effect 3 experience.

At this point I'm seventy-percent certain they're not changing anything. This is the game, this is the reason they're playing the game, and I'd expect this is a fairly massive divergence from the way Vinny experienced the game. If only for curiosity's sake, they're going to ride this space opera out to its brutal, ragged end.

Then, after the dust has cleared, they'll watch alternative timelines on Youtube.

@inevpatoria: Yah thats a good point because I most certainly don't remember almost anything from ME3, and without Googling a plot synopsis I have no idea how integral Tali is to the plot. To be honest, I never really liked Tali all that much as a character so maybe thats part of it? It's not that I disliked her but there were other team members I enjoyed more and spent more time with like Liara.

I get the sense that Alex will only play through these games once, and for that reason I think all of the characters need to be there. I think the suicide mission's potential results are ballsy and awesome and really unexpected, but Mass Effect 3 was never going to be able to pick up all of those pieces and tell a good story with half or even one of its beloved cast missing. That game's story is at its best when everyone is there. Tali plays an especially important role in significant parts of ME3 and she's one of only a few party members to be in all three games. Even more significantly, you cannot get the best outcome in at least one scenario if she's dead.

If you're only going to play through ME3 once, she needs to be there.

EDIT One other reason I think he should use a save editor - the whole "who survives and who doesn't" thing is kind of a dice roll. You can greatly increase your chances by purchasing every ship upgrade available, having full paragon or full renegade, having everyone's loyalty, and sending certain people on certain tasks during the suicide mission and still lose someone. This is bullshit - if I follow a guide and do everything perfectly, I can still lose someone. In Alex's case, sending Tali through the vents is actually one of the most highly recommended courses of action because she survives the vast majority of the time, but he did that and she died anyway. This doesn't usually happen, but it can, and it sucks.

And I want to reiterate that Mass Effect 3's story, characters, and writing all hold up and tie together the best when everyone is present and accounted for. I played through 2 and 3 earlier this year and did damn near everything I possibly could in all three games and I don't think 3 would have been anywhere near as good if anyone had been missing, especially someone as important to the story as Tali. And especially since one of the major set pieces in Mass Effect 3 heavily involves Tali and the rest of the Quarians.

Yeah, I'm absolutely going to root for Alex editing his save or going through the suicide mission again or anything to get Tali back for the third run.

Keep it, that's why we're here. After looking over the choice tables post-episode, I realized that the only truly difficult choice is the one that's completely up to intuition, and that's sending a current party member to escort the Normandy's staff to the drop zone. Everything else offers multiple correct answers, and if you played the game at a reasonable pace they were all pretty dang obvious. I remember being disappointed that I got everything right the first try since I'd played the game just a few months before Mass Effect 3 came out and heard so much buzz about all the Consequence and Stakes in the Suicide Mission. It's still thrilling, but I honestly think it should've been way harder to get out of that thing clean.

Like Vinny, on my Renegade playthrough I made intentionally bad decisions to kill certain characters just to emphasize the reckless, impulsive Shep I'd played that go around, but unfortunately I found Mass Effect 3 so dull and fan servicey in a Metal Gear Solid 4 kind of way that I was checked out of most of my Paragon playthrough (other than the excellent Vanguard combat) so I never got around to importing my Renegade save. Thusly, I really have no stake in this argument other than I'd rather see how at least one scenario plays out "differently", even if it "doesn't" really. Narratively I don't think Mass Effect 3 is all that worth caring about regardless of my feelings on the ending, so I'm not bothered by wether any one thread is bad or worse since it's just varying shades of black.

Alex should play the series in the spirit in which it was intended, if only as a journalistic duty to show what that game apparently plays out certain arcs without characters it planned to be there. But what do I know, when I play games I keep a single save file just like Abby. The playthrough is the playthrough, damnit!