That's how many of us were expecting the ending to go. A Suicide mission redux, but with the combined military forces of the galaxy instead of just your companions. Entire fleets and armies being wiped out or sacrificed to achieve victory.Independent George wrote:Instead of just automatically having your two companions die on the final mission, it would be better if they took a page from ME1 and ME2 and assigned your companions to various side objectives in support of your final mission (instead of doing... whatever the heck they were doing in ME3). A certain number of deaths would be inevitable (you don't assault an eldritch abomination without casualties), but the manner of deaths & consequences would be tied to your decisions in-game.
Instead of just depending on the number of 'War Resources', they should be tied to the actual type of war resources available. Sending Krogan to jam a Reaper signal, or having Salarian STG to bottleneck a wave of heavies, are not wise uses of resources. The Rachni was a lost opportunity - there should have been a mechanic where the Rachni only appear if a Paragon Shepherd in ME1 saved the Queen, while killing her worked to deprive the Reapers of another resource.
Likewise, having Shepherd live or die, plus the ending slides, should be tied to those same decisions. If you want the best ending galaxy-wide, you have to be willing to send Garrus or Tali or Liara on an actual suicide mission to save the galaxy. If you prioritize protecting your friends ahead of the mission, there should be consequences there, too. Heck, make that an endgame conversation with your love interest - you have the option of assigning them to an extremely dangerous task which they are well suited for. You can coddle them, or put your trust in their skills and send them into danger. Make their survival dependent on which support resources you obtained in-game (sometimes depending on your decisions in the previous games), and make some of them mutually exclusive. You can still save them at the end, only at a cost to someone else.
Your choices would determine what forces you would have and how you could fight the final battle.
As it was, every thing you gained went into the big pile of war assets regardless of what it was. Add in multiplayer, it was possible to have your Shepard intentionally sabotage the war effort at every stage and still get the "best ending" by promoting N7 operatives.