In Mass Effect 3 for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, one of the primary ways to see the different endings to the game is by gaining a certain number of effective military strength.
One way to increase your military strength is by increasing your galactic readiness rating. The galactic readiness rating is only raised by playing the Galaxy at War multiplayer games (which require the Online Pass), or by playing a couple of the games for iPhone and iPad. These apps are called Infiltrator, and Data Pad.
Raising your galactic readiness rating simply lets you apply more of your military strength into effective military strength. Playing no multiplayer games leaves your readiness rating at 50%, meaning that a 5000 military strength score is reduced to 2500. If you play a lot of multiplayer games and increase your readiness rating to 100%, then you would get your full 5000 points of military strength.
Note that you shouldn’t need to worry about this rating if you don’t want to, since you can increase your military strength by collecting war assets in single player, however you’re going to need around 8000 military strength, since playing no online games will take your effective rating down 50%.
MENonstop July 3, 2012 at 4:18 pm
The argument about the ending is totallybogus!!
Alright some of you always die and some of you have seen the endings where shepard lives.
However you played is solo, multi,or both, doesn’t matter!!
Think about it this way if the technology to take gaming online from your console hadn’t been developed, everyone would just get the endings where you die no matter what.
Therefore my point is everyone has spent x amount of hours playing Mass effect from the first to the last just for your charachter to die because they got to the end and thought bollocks the Hero has to die.
But on the other hand has everyone not had fun playing it!!
Aj May 31, 2012 at 3:00 pm
So…..you cant get the good ending on single player without multiplayer?…..and the worse part is there isnt even a free 2 day trial of multiplayer just to make it better…..thats such bull. i get my games from gamefly so i can never play online with EA games anymore…its so stupid.
Vin June 14, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Same here. Such bs
SeanyBoy May 10, 2012 at 8:23 pm
I think its a pretty stupid idea to link single and multiplayer together, you cant have the full experience in single without playing multi? thats bull in my opinion, at least theres the iphone and ipad version
Taylor March 14, 2012 at 10:04 am
How do you link your progress on Infiltrator to ME3?
Arbiter March 13, 2012 at 11:58 am
It doesn’t really matter, one way or the other. We got three endings instead of the promised sixteen, and all three are shit.
TheDizle (site admin) March 13, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Not entirely correct.. 3 major endings, with a a lot of variances of them. With all of the variances, there are 16 different endings in all. http://gametipcenter.com/mass-effect-3-endings-list
Now, whether or not you consider these variances a different ending is another argument entirely.
me September 9, 2012 at 1:49 am
Sorry, but no, ‘variations’ don’t make for more endings, they make for variations. Thre are three endings: Destroy, Control or Synthesis. All of them suck for one reason or another. None of them leave a satisfying experience after 200-some hours of effort put into a character. The endings are riddled with BS that contradicts many of the plot lines in the games, and tying a major factor of the ending you get to buying yet another product from the company is just money grubbing.
andy March 10, 2012 at 4:08 pm
“And there should be more than enough to see all of the good endings.”
Entirely untrue. Not one person was able to get the good ending without playing multiplayer.
TheDizle (site admin) March 13, 2012 at 11:24 am
Not one person huh? lol.. funny statement. “Out of the entire world, no one was able to do this.. and I know it.”
DizleIS4CrackHEADS March 14, 2012 at 5:55 am
http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/5441/article/how-much-does-mass-effect-3-s-multiplayer-affect-your-single-player-ending/
*SPOILERS*
He is not far from the truth. I have completed the game, and when i saw the ending i was sure i had made the wrong choice. There is a red explosion that kills EVERYRHING therefore doing the reapsers job for them. After researching, i find that if i had done everything the same way i did, took the “renegade” (shoot the shit) option, shot the illusive man and the final Cylinder thing, but this time PLAYED MULTIPLAYER [taking my military strength up to the required ammount] The explosion would have been blue and sheppard would have twitched to life at the end…
If you make any mistakes along the way you get locked out of ALOT of millitary assets. therefor making it vertualy impossible to “perfect” with singleplayer alone (or no iphone/ipad :O……….)
One of the best games ive ever played (excluding the end; brace yourself for DLC, buy more or suffer a shitty end..)
KyrstReality March 25, 2012 at 4:10 am
Actually on my first runthrough i was able to get 6000 military strength and had never played mult. But that was a lot of scaning planets… anyhow, i was able to see the three ‘best’ endings because i brought it above 5000 (this isnt total mil strength mind you, just the effective.)
Random May 26, 2012 at 9:22 pm
Nope, total bullshit. That’s 12,000 War Assets, which is literally impossible
Cluster June 8, 2012 at 4:55 pm
It is bullshit. I scanned everything and did everything the Paragon way from ME1 to ME3 and was STILL hundreds of ‘points’ short(Had 7600+). Checking as to what i missed out on with assets, I missed maybe 600 points worth MAX. But many of those assets were mutually exclusive so if I had gotten some of those I would have lost some of those I already had, cancelling it out. The extra stuff that I really did miss out would have been at most 300 points(probably less) and that still wouldn’t be enough to get the best ending.
Thelonous June 20, 2012 at 3:40 am
Just finished the game first run through, no import and I got the good ending… Either everyone epicly fails, or I’m a bad ass
bummzblade September 18, 2012 at 10:15 am
getting the good ending is only possible by having 3100+ ems and going for the renegade option. if you pick control, synthesis or shooting at the kid, you die. i had 31something on my first play-through so it is possible. you need to be on the citadel all the time to keep gathering stuff to go collect and turn back in. also, as tedious as it is, scan every system.