I was one of those people who were confused about Estimated Military Strength(EMS, the third number) and Total Military Strength(TMS, the top number).

I thought I got the best ending because I had over 6000 TMS(with 0 hours of multiplayer). The common conception was that you need to have "something" over 5000 to see the best ending.

According to many furiously frustrated people, TMS is not the number that determines the ending. In fact, the number that matters is EMS and in order to get that number higher than 5000, you MUST play the multiplayer.

So I went back to check my number. I have played some multiplayer after I fnished the game so my numbers were 6000 TMS, 70 something percent of Galactic Readiness and 4945 EMS, which mean I did not get the best ending according to these people.

I'm not trying to make people angry or anything like that. I just want to clarify this issue because obviously a lot of people, including me, are confused about this.

I searched around and concluded this; you need to have over 5000 EMS to get the ending. I have not re-watched the Quick Look yet but I'm going to ASSUME Jeff got 6000 TMS NOT EMS.

From all these researches, I have reached one horrifyingly grim conclusion; you MUST play the multiplayer to get the "best" ending(even though it sounds like all endings look the same more or less).

That is my conclusion but I wanted to ask you guys to clarify this(and I really hope I'm wrong).

Is it possible to have EMS over 5000 without playing any of the multiplayer?

Or...., and I hope this is not true, was BioWare lying when they said you don't need to play the multiplayer to get the best ending?

Jeff said on the bombcast that he got 6000 without ever touching the multiplayer.

Ahhh mobile site, meant to add a bit onto the end of that. Basically I JUST listened to the podcast and he said EMS. Unless he just misspoke.

@EuanDewar: Please read my post carefully. I'm not sure if he meant his TMS was 6000 or EMS was 6000.

@EuanDewar said:

Ahhh mobile site, meant to add a bit onto the end of that. Basically I JUST listened to the podcast and he said EMS. Unless he just misspoke.

Gotcha. Maybe I should go back and check it for myself... But yeah this is very confusing for no good reason

Endings are the same no matter what. What you get at 5K is a minute-long narration from Buzz Aldrin with a few pics after the credits. Absolutely nothing worthwhile. Trust me. You can just youtube it.

@Enigma777: I understand that all endings are the same more or less. I'm trying to find out if it is actually possible to get the "best" ending without the multipayer

@EuanDewar: Okay, so I just watched the Quick Look and Jeff's numbers were 6901 TMS, 73 percent and 5037 EMS. Obviously this number is skewed because the readiness percentage is not 50 percent, which is the default number. But since EMS is barely over 5000, I'm going to assume his EMS is actually lower than 5000 if the readiness was 50 percent.

The best possible ending is being killed by Marauder Shields and not having to sit through the atrocious final 15 minutes of the game.

@EuanDewar: Okay, so I just watched the Quick Look and Jeff's numbers were 6901 TMS, 73 percent and 5037 EMS. Obviously this number is skewed because the readiness percentage is not 50 percent, which is the default number. But since EMS is barely over 5000, I'm going to assume his EMS is actually lower than 5000 if the readiness was 50 percent.

It doesn't matter, once you've beaten the game already, just watch the other endings on YouTube, regardless of playing through it again. I got the best Paragon ending possible, so I don't really care too much. The only thing that's added to the endings, though I think you have to do some renegade options near the end, is having Shepard wake up in the crumbles of whatever. It's not much.

@Enigma777 said:

Endings are the same no matter what. What you get at 5K is a minute-long narration from Buzz Aldrin with a few pics after the credits. Absolutely nothing worthwhile. Trust me. You can just youtube it.

I believe this post-credits scene happens regardless of the ending you get. I had less than 5000 EMS at the end of the game and still got that scene.

If what I've read about the endings is to be believed, 5000 EMS gets you...

@ahgunsillyo said:

@Enigma777 said:

Endings are the same no matter what. What you get at 5K is a minute-long narration from Buzz Aldrin with a few pics after the credits. Absolutely nothing worthwhile. Trust me. You can just youtube it.

I believe this post-credits scene happens regardless of the ending you get. I had less than 5000 EMS at the end of the game and still got that scene.

If what I've read about the endings is to be believed, 5000 EMS gets you...

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

A short scene that shows Shepard surviving at the end of the game if you choose the "Destroy" option at The Crucible.

What? Well that sounds even more worthless...

(the below only concerns the little special cutscene at the end, whether or not you consider it to be "best" ending is debatable)
 
Normally you need 5000 EMS.
But under certain conditions it is possible to do it with 4000 EMS.
 
What said conditions are differs from reports, it may be preserving the Collector base in ME2 or saving Anderson in ME3.
But so far these are conflicting, so it's hard to say exactly.
 
In order to get 4000 EMS (effective millitary strengh) with only singlplayer, means 50% readiness. Means 8000 TMS (total military strengh)
To get 8000 TMS one would need to do a completely perfect run from 1-3 doing every sidequest and DLC as well as, and this is important, performing some very specific actions in all games.
For example you need to kill Wrex in ME1. You need to betray the krogan in ME3. This way you get both full Krogan and full Salarian fleets, otherwise Wrex finds out, or Salarians don't send their First Fleet, their strongest.
Even then, even doing this perfect run it's still debatable if you will manage 8000 TMS. Current majority consensus is that it's still not quite doable. You get close but not quite.
 
Most people who stick to Paragon choices for example and have a completionist run with savegame imports end up from 7000-7500 TMS on the high end.
 
There are also some bugs that exist that allow people to see that little cutscene regardless.
For example some people get double the value of every asset, like getting 50 for people like Jacob/Miranda instead of 25 each.

I played some multiplayer but didn't realise you had to upload my character to single player so it didn't effect my ending. My green bar was full though. I don't see how the ending would be effected that much by it anyway, considering what the ending was.

I played some multiplayer but didn't realise you had to upload my character to single player so it didn't effect my ending. My green bar was full though. I don't see how the ending would be effected that much by it anyway, considering what the ending was.

Is the best ending just the stargazer stuff?

@ahgunsillyo said:

@Enigma777 said:

Endings are the same no matter what. What you get at 5K is a minute-long narration from Buzz Aldrin with a few pics after the credits. Absolutely nothing worthwhile. Trust me. You can just youtube it.

I believe this post-credits scene happens regardless of the ending you get. I had less than 5000 EMS at the end of the game and still got that scene.

If what I've read about the endings is to be believed, 5000 EMS gets you...

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

A short scene that shows Shepard surviving at the end of the game if you choose the "Destroy" option at The Crucible.

You always get that scene if you choose the destroy option.

@Tennmuerti said:

@benspyda said:

I played some multiplayer but didn't realise you had to upload my character to single player so it didn't effect my ending. My green bar was full though. I don't see how the ending would be effected that much by it anyway, considering what the ending was.

You don't need to upload your character. The upload (i assume you mean promotion) gives you a flat 100 resourse bonus and can only be done with a lvl 20 character. Multiplayer affects your readiness % at all times. By default it is at 50%. By winning MP matches you increase this %

Oh ok, that's why my readiness was at 82%. That clears it up.

@Hunkulese said:

@ahgunsillyo said:

@Enigma777 said:

Endings are the same no matter what. What you get at 5K is a minute-long narration from Buzz Aldrin with a few pics after the credits. Absolutely nothing worthwhile. Trust me. You can just youtube it.

I believe this post-credits scene happens regardless of the ending you get. I had less than 5000 EMS at the end of the game and still got that scene.

If what I've read about the endings is to be believed, 5000 EMS gets you...

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

A short scene that shows Shepard surviving at the end of the game if you choose the "Destroy" option at The Crucible.

You always get that scene if you choose the destroy option.

Hmm... somebody's lying then. That's alright, though. If that's the case, then you really don't need to play the multiplayer to get the "best" ending then, if that's the best ending.

@Hunkulese said:

@ahgunsillyo said:

@Enigma777 said:

Endings are the same no matter what. What you get at 5K is a minute-long narration from Buzz Aldrin with a few pics after the credits. Absolutely nothing worthwhile. Trust me. You can just youtube it.

I believe this post-credits scene happens regardless of the ending you get. I had less than 5000 EMS at the end of the game and still got that scene.

If what I've read about the endings is to be believed, 5000 EMS gets you...

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

A short scene that shows Shepard surviving at the end of the game if you choose the "Destroy" option at The Crucible.

You always get that scene if you choose the destroy option.

No, you don't. I didn't get that scene and my EMS was less than 5000. It might have been less than 4000 as well. I can't quite remember.

@nohthink said:

I was one of those people who were confused about Estimated Military Strength(EMS, the third number) and Total Military Strength(TMS, the top number).

I thought I got the best ending because I had over 6000 TMS(with 0 hours of multiplayer). The common conception was that you need to have "something" over 5000 to see the best ending.

According to many furiously frustrated people, TMS is not the number that determines the ending. In fact, the number that matters is EMS and in order to get that number higher than 5000, you MUST play the multiplayer.

So I went back to check my number. I have played some multiplayer after I fnished the game so my numbers were 6000 TMS, 70 something percent of Galactic Readiness and 4945 EMS, which mean I did not get the best ending according to these people.

I'm not trying to make people angry or anything like that. I just want to clarify this issue because obviously a lot of people, including me, are confused about this.

I searched around and concluded this; you need to have over 5000 EMS to get the ending. I have not re-watched the Quick Look yet but I'm going to ASSUME Jeff got 6000 TMS NOT EMS.

From all these researches, I have reached one horrifyingly grim conclusion; you MUST play the multiplayer to get the "best" ending(even though it sounds like all endings look the same more or less).

That is my conclusion but I wanted to ask you guys to clarify this(and I really hope I'm wrong).

Is it possible to have EMS over 5000 without playing any of the multiplayer?

Or...., and I hope this is not true, was BioWare lying when they said you don't need to play the multiplayer to get the best ending?

@nohthink: Now you don't I was over 7000 before I even hit Santuary. I want to say was even over 7000 before Thesia.

This entire thread proves why the system is poorly designed and implemented. Nothing about it is properly explained and the numbers/percentages/bars are confusing and do not do a good job of reflecting what will happen when you end the game.

Look at ME2 for example. The goal is clear: survive the suicide mission. The side missions you're given provide you tangible results for ensuring the survival of the suicide mission

In ME3 you're given two arbitrary numbers, a percentage, and a bar. The Bar fills up halfway through the game, so what are the numbers for? and why are they still going up if my bar is full? Do the numbers have a cap? It's all so muddled.

Going into the end of the game there's literally no way to know I'm prepared. It all just ends up confusing the player.

@Hunkulese said:

You always get that scene if you choose the destroy option.

I've gone back with 7,000 EMS and TMS and picking control still didn't get me that scene. Bug perhaps?

I've just been using the iOS apps to improve my percentage. I'm around 80ish now. May try the multiplayer down the track.

@CaptainCharisma said:

@Hunkulese said:

You always get that scene if you choose the destroy option.

I've gone back with 7,000 EMS and TMS and picking control still didn't get me that scene. Bug perhaps?

Shepard can only survive the destroy option. In the other two, his/her body is completely destroyed.

@nohthink: Now you don't I was over 7000 before I even hit Santuary. I want to say was even over 7000 before Thesia.

You can only something like 8K TMS with perfect saves and ME3 stuff, so if you don't play multiplayer you don't still get the 5000 requirement to save Shepard, so yeah, Bioware lied, but it is a 10 second cutscene and then they could argue that he/she lived in the other endings but they only teased that with the best one.

@Tennmuerti said:

You can avoid shooting Anderson?

What said conditions are differs from reports, it may be preserving the Collector base in ME2 or saving Anderson in ME3.
But so far these are conflicting, so it's hard to say exactly.

@EuanDewar said:

Jeff said on the bombcast that he got 6000 without ever touching the multiplayer.

He was wrong. He was either talking about total military strength or he was just misremembering. Even later he was questioning if he had really seen the "good end" people are talking about.

@Hunkulese said:

@ahgunsillyo said:

@Enigma777 said:

Endings are the same no matter what. What you get at 5K is a minute-long narration from Buzz Aldrin with a few pics after the credits. Absolutely nothing worthwhile. Trust me. You can just youtube it.

I believe this post-credits scene happens regardless of the ending you get. I had less than 5000 EMS at the end of the game and still got that scene.

If what I've read about the endings is to be believed, 5000 EMS gets you...

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

A short scene that shows Shepard surviving at the end of the game if you choose the "Destroy" option at The Crucible.

You always get that scene if you choose the destroy option.

Wait... what? Okay, I think we all need to take a step back and figure out what we're really talking about here, because I'm pretty certain this isn't true.

And if anyone here *really* got all the required effective military points required without playing multiplayer, I need to figure out what went wrong in my save, because I did literally every side quest in the first and second games, all that were possible to do in the third game, and united every race except 100% the Salarians (they were pissed off about my curing the genophage, but I had the backing of STG and afterwards part of the Salarian fleet because I saved their councilor) and still ended up short of even 4000 EMS.

After playing yesterday with over 5,000 EMS, I am certain the TMS is the number that needs to be over 5,000. I chose the destroy ending, and I didn't get Shepard's last breath.

This whole EMS and TMS system is one of the biggest cluster fucks I have ever seen in a game and I would want Bioware to fix it or patch it out before they ever did anything else to the game. I think I might have enjoyed the multiplayer a little more if I did not feel like I was being forced to play it a few times a day so I could keep my rating at or near 100%. I know that Bioware claimed that multiplayer was not required for the best ending, but that was a complete lie or they just never played their own game.

It also does not help that at no time do they ever really explain how the system works and you are just left with a big number at the bottom of the screen and hope it is big enough so that everyone doesn't die at end.

If they patched it so at a minimum the readiness rating did not degrade over time I would probably go back and play through this again on impossible

My final TMS was 6901 because I forced myself to keep playing multiplayer on a daily basis. I picked the destroy ending and did get Shepard's last breath.

From the quick look, Jeff's total military strength was 6901 post-game, which would have put him at 3450 effective military strength without playing any of the multiplayer. He did have just over 5000 with a higher galactic readiness because of multiplayer.

Around 4000 EMS is enough for the best ending, assuming you

In order to get 5000 ems without multiplayer is to do a new game plus.

@Valkyr How did they lie?

I had the gauge filled up about halfway through the game without any mutliplayer. So... I don't know. You don't need multiplayer, but I can't speak to someone who has made lots of poor choices. Surely you can't get the best ending if you haven't also tried to do the best.

@kristov_romanov said:

@Valkyr How did they lie?

They said that you didn't need to play multiplayer (or the iOS game) to get the best ending. This is untrue. You need 4000 EMS to get the best ending, but at 50% in your total galactic readiness, that would mean you need 8000 TMS, which is not possible, even with absolutely peak conditions from ME1 and ME2.

@The_Nubster: Unless Bioware believes the best ending is not the ending the requires the most EMS to get.

Personally, I think that Bioware believes that the "synthesis" ending is the best ending. You need to get over a certain amount of EMS to get that as an option, but not so much that you need multiplayer.

For reference, my finale TMS was just under 7000, and with 2 hours worth of multiplayer I was over 5000. I think the final number was somewhere around 5200 with a galactic readiness of about 74-75% total. I didn't need it for my ending choice.

The "destroy" ending with the extra scene, while perfect for a renegade or partly renegade Shepard, makes little sense for a pure paragon Shepard, considering that the choice involves the genocide of a race that you just saved not 10 hours of gameplay before.

Either way, it makes no damn sense in the end. The endings are 90% the same. I just did two of them and then watched other variations on youtube since I didn't have a low enough EMS to get the really horrible endings. They really are not all that different. I also watched my husband do two as well. Again, not very different besides very minor changes.