[HEAVY SPOILERS] So was Joseph Seed right??

[Mason]

I just finished the story mode, I resisted. Now I'm super confused on what just happened. he was right???

[Dahak]

I think my biggest problem with the ending is how dumb it was. I mean Joseph Seed manages to re-kidnap ALL of the people you had worked with, somehow all by himself. Then he dumps some drugs and you fight him in a hurricane. Then you shoot your friends in the face and pick them up to save them. Because videogames. Then you finally shoot Seed in the face with a .50 BMG rifle. And arrest him. Then the world ends, all your friends die, and you are captured by Seed. Because SOMEHOW, this guy is so amazing in his utter insanity that he can not only insta-ninja all your friends at the same time by himself, but he also somehow doesn't get SHOT IN THE HEAD by one of the dozen people he has personally ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (or more likely all of them at once). And then, after the world ends and everyone dies, untrusting uber-prepper Dutch gets shot in the face by him while he is carrying you out of a radioactive firestorm because Dutch somehow forgot that Joseph is a psycho bastard. That is bad storytelling. That is like the ultimate deus ex machina and lazy as hell. They just go, and we decided to totally go this way because *shock ending*!

Let the game end with everyone dead and the world ending. That works. But don't make everyone act like idiots all of a sudden because you are trying to shoehorn in a *shock* ending. The whole end sequence felt so forced that it was irritating rather than intriguing or thought provoking. There are games that have done the 'bad' ending really well and FC5 is not one of them. It isn't about the ending being good or bad, it is about it making sense within the world of the story, and there is just no way that man walks out of that confrontation.

[SternLX]

Publicado originalmente por Dahak:

~snipped~
It isn't about the ending being good or bad, it is about it making sense within the world of the story, and there is just no way that man walks out of that confrontation.

In the real world, you'd be correct. The fustration is real because in previous FC's you have a "got away" ending option. 5 has no kill bad man happy ending when they could have done so and still shown the armageddon with you hunkering down in a bunker with the people you saved. All throughout the game they forshadow the coming armageddon via news radio reports.
Had I been in Drew's(the writter) shoes I would of wrote another ending. One where you get the choice of arresting or finally putting Joseph down. Choose Arresting, and you see what we got. Choosing to put one between his eye's, nukes still go off just as you climb in the truck to drive away with numnutz still screaming Joeseph was right and you end up in Dutches bunker eventually only not a prisoner and with the people you saved.

There is no sense of accomplishment at the end of this story, and that's what most people have a problem with.

[Syntax Error]

Publicado originalmente por Kiwi:

Publicado originalmente por Alpharius:

You don't need a victory in every story.

Many ppl seem to think that this is wrong; one *must* have a victory. And if there is no victory at the end.... well... then it's the story that's rather bs. At least it feels like that.

The whole "victory" thing is a strawman. Few, if any, people are saying the ending was bad because you don't get a clean victory. The ending is bad from a player perspective because it removes any player agency and makes the player irrelevant. You were just grinding time until the game decides "rocks fall, everyone dies". Furthermore, you're railroaded into this ending unlike previous "new" Far Cry games with multiple endings. In FC5, even if you pick the "walk away, song-murder your buddies" ending, it just bounces you back and forces you to replay the choice until you do what it wants so it can spring "lol surprise nukes!!" on you.

The themes it tries to explore have been done better in earlier games and the story mechanics are a clear step backwards.

[Kiwi]

Publicado originalmente por Syntax Error:

The ending is bad from a player perspective because it removes any player agency and makes the player irrelevant. You were just grinding time until the game decides "rocks fall, everyone dies". Furthermore, you're railroaded into this ending unlike previous "new" Far Cry games with multiple endings. In FC5, even if you pick the "walk away, song-murder your buddies" ending, it just bounces you back and forces you to replay the choice until you do what it wants so it can spring "lol surprise nukes!!" on you.

The themes it tries to explore have been done better in earlier games and the story mechanics are a clear step backwards.

I really got it. As I said: I can understand why ppl dislike the endings. It's just like me playing FC4 - I disliked the... well... I can't really find the words for what I didn't like about the game even if it was a normal Far Cry game. I just didn't like the Story. I am one of those persons that payed 50€ for a game that was 15 minutes long. But I won't say it was a bad game. From what I played it was a good Far Cry game I just didn't like it.
And here we are now with FC5 where ppl say stuff like: The game is bad because I didn't like the endings (not everyone says that. I realize that). But most of the times I read stuff like that they're simply saying: "The ending is bad! The ending is stupid!" There are just a few saying things like: "I didn't like the ending, because it made the PC irrelevant".
But I like this Idea:

Publicado originalmente por SternLX:

Had I been in Drew's(the writter) shoes I would of wrote another ending. One where you get the choice of arresting or finally putting Joseph down. Choose Arresting, and you see what we got. Choosing to put one between his eye's, nukes still go off just as you climb in the truck to drive away with numnutz still screaming Joeseph was right and you end up in Dutches bunker eventually only not a prisoner and with the people you saved.

I totally agree. They should have done something like that for those player.

[steembooda]

Publicado originalmente por Rhawkas:

Publicado originalmente por Kiwi:

Thank you.

Video games, particularly ones like this, are a kind of wish fulfillment for a lot of people since they let players be the hero and save the day, be the star of an action movie, and so on. You've been kicking the cult's ass back and forth across the county for most of the game and probably feel unstoppable. Then you beat the last boss and the writers go "Oh, you thought you won? Actually, you lose and nothing you did mattered." When the writers pull a bait-and-switch like this, it's understandable that people are upset.

In the end, I think the writers chose the wrong place to tell this kind of story. It could have been a fine book or movie, but I don't think an open-world, action hero FPS was a good choice.

Well said - exactly. I've read any number of short stories and novels, and even seen a few movies where the downer ending closes around you like the steel jaws of a trap and, y`know, thats fine in that kind of narrative (which you can kind of appreciate intellectually if its an especially clever version of the biter-bit ending). But like you say, this is an openworld, action shooter that was pitched to us, the player audience, as an immersive experience battling against religio-nutjobs to free Hope County from their lethal grip. Instead, all we get is a cynical Haw-haw-haw! ending - essentially, the FC5 flipped the players a massive extended middle finger. No victory for you! - and dont forget, kids, keep buying our ♥♥♥♥!

[J4n1]

Publicado originalmente por Kiwi:

And here we are now with FC5 where ppl say stuff like: The game is bad because I didn't like the endings (not everyone says that. I realize that). But most of the times I read stuff like that they're simply saying: "The ending is bad! The ending is stupid!" There are just a few saying things like: "I didn't like the ending, because it made the PC irrelevant".

Thing is, that the ending is bad, and the ending is stupid.
I have gone to great lengths to explain just how bad, and how stupid, the ending (and rest of the story for that matter) is.
Other's have gone to even greater lengths.
But not everyone is going to take time to write an essay about how the game betrays it's stated premise, or how gameplay and story are in constant conflict, or how the ending is completely disconnected from the rest of the game, and so on.
They'll just say the ending is bad, and the ending is stupid.

But on the flip side, there are also people who keep insisting that the ending is brilliant gem like no other, and that shakespeare could not have written it's like (slightly hyperbolic, yes).
Or that the game is great because bad guy wins for once, or that it's great because people are pissed off, or something.

[KidsLoveSatan]

Publicado originalmente por Kiwi:

The only thing that let one think the player isn't the hero is the fact, that the bombs were fired, but those weren't fired by Joseph.

That and you're handcuffed to a bed by a deranged nutjob with a messiah complex.

I'd be fine with the bombs dropping in the background as the player is beating Joseph to death with a shovel. The endings are pretty much don't play or end up at the mercy of a madman.

[Doc]

I think I'm just bitter at the ending because if their goal was to make it clear that violence wasn't the correct solution and it was your choice to apply it in the first place that was the problem, the peggies shouldn't have been employing violence against everyone in Hope County in the first place. Having Joseph ask when we'll learn that 'not every problem can be solved by a bullet' is all well and good, except he was using bullets first, and he's only bitter about it because we were better at using them.
Unless, of course, the answer to that conundrum is 'well, I'm God's prophet, suck it'.
My bitterness is about the inconsistency with which the supposed morals of the story were applied - they're only relevant to you, the player, either because you're the player and everyone else isn't real, or because he's a massive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hypocrite, and in the former case that's a jarring breaking of the fourth wall, while in the latter case that renders the ending profoundly ineffective insofar as we're declaring an infanticidal, eye-gouging, murder-a-parishioner-while-I'm-baptising-her-because-I'm-seeing-a-montage-in-my-head lunatic psycho nutjob an honest-to-capital-g-God Prophet who was right all along.

[Pnumatic]

He was right and we shuld have followed him and let hom go in the beginning. He knows the will of god my dudes.

[xDosia]

Guys can I run last mission again or I need finishing all game again for that?

[steembooda]

Well, let`s not forget that the FC developers have run variations of the same nihilism ending since Far Cry 2, only this time they cranked it up to 11. So with this I`ve had enough - I may have played thru FC3 and 4 a coupla times (rather more than FC2)( which at least had some kind of bleakly postivie ending, in that the civilians escaped from the mercenaries), but this ending leaves such a bad taste in the mouth that I will not be going back to replay FC5. As for any future FC6? - hah, the developers can bite me.

[Kiwi]

Publicado originalmente por J4n1:

But on the flip side, there are also people who keep insisting that the ending is brilliant gem like no other, and that shakespeare could not have written it's like (slightly hyperbolic, yes).

just slightly xD
(there are ppl saying that?)
Sure. The story isn't a masterpiece of its kind. Hell no! But did anyone expected a masterpiece? Gosh it's a shooter. But yeah. I am one of those ppl that are glad to see a game that hasn't a happy ending. Because I see it as a story. It is not a masterpiece, but it is a story and I did not bought the game for it's story, but yeah, I like the game now even more because of it.

Publicado originalmente por KidsLoveSatan:

That and you're handcuffed to a bed by a deranged nutjob with a messiah complex.

Ok. That's a good point.
I get that there is a piece missing for the player to end the story (getting free one day and kicking the hell out of Joseph. I mean Rook had killed countless cultists why shouldn't he/she get free from a pair of handcuffs?)

Publicado originalmente por xDosia:

Guys can I run last mission again or I need finishing all game again for that?

you have to play it again :/

[KidsLoveSatan]

Publicado originalmente por Pnumatic:

He was right and we shuld have followed him and let hom go in the beginning. He knows the will of god my dudes.

Maybe God sent you there to stop him? While The Father appears to know about the collapse the cult is pretty much his own plan.

[Syntax Error]

Publicado originalmente por Doc:

I think I'm just bitter at the ending because if their goal was to make it clear that violence wasn't the correct solution and it was your choice to apply it in the first place that was the problem, the peggies shouldn't have been employing violence against everyone in Hope County in the first place. Having Joseph ask when we'll learn that 'not every problem can be solved by a bullet' is all well and good, except he was using bullets first, and he's only bitter about it because we were better at using them.

As I mentioned before, you have Joseph Seed whining about how every problem shouldn't be solved with a bullet and then Seed wins entirely because of a giant nuclear deus ex machina bullet. Between that and bullets being the only tool you're given (and working great up until the arbitrary ending), the game steps all over its supposed theme.

Besides which, FC4 already did the same theme and performed it a hundred times better where you're actually rewarded for not just blowing everyone away instead of losing no matter what.

[Doc]

Publicado originalmente por Syntax Error:

Besides which, FC4 already did the same theme and performed it a hundred times better where you're actually rewarded for not just blowing everyone away instead of losing no matter what.

I mean, it really felt a lot less like that, and a lot more like the writing team had finally gotten around to finishing Spec Ops: The Line, and thought 'god damn, what a tweeeeeeest!', since there, again, the only winning move was to never play the game in the first place.
At least in Far Cry 4, if you bothered to sit down with Pagan instead of shooting him between the eyes at his dinner table, you'd still get a satisfactory ending (particularly if you brought an RPG along, in case you felt the need to kill him in order to feel like you won).
Here, no such consideration, since even though you can nominally 'walk away', I suppose what it really amounts to is your conditioning having you re-kidnap all your buddies, dump them on John's island, and then...leave? So you can have the showdown all over again until you finally get around to arresting him? Since you clearly don't kill them, since they're right there again when you decide to go 'face him for the last time' again.