People keep talking about which is the best ending, but I've noticed something pretty much everybody has overlooked: the flower ending isn't as uncertain as one might think. If the potion really did put people into a coma, then researchers would have simply said, "Yeah, this puts people into comas." After all, the observed effects would be from the perspective of the researchers, and they wouldn't know if a comatose person was dreaming about how they were powerful and immortal or whatever. The coma is simply a story a man came up with in order to mislead, but didn't necessarily think things all the way through. That, or the game devs didn't think things all the way through, but either way, you can take this and run with it.
I agree that it was poorly written. I get that it was trying to be subversive because apparently having a satisfying ending with closure is a bad thing, but it makes little sense in the grand scheme of events. First, plenty of stuff isn't explained. The robed woman and her purpose are left vague and not at all illuminated, and the things that causes the unfortunate ending makes no sense. How the hell did no one investigate Lishari's murder? You mean to tell me these people were not willing to put resources into finding the murderer even though Lishari was one of the primary researchers and a follower of another prominent member of this faction? She was murdered in a populated place. If the leaders of the factions working together to stop the cleansing are fine with the player screwing around and doing side quest, why would they not have put time into finding out who was behind Lishari's death? Every event in the main quests has lead to you gaining knowledge on the cleansing and how to stop the entities responsible yet the characters involved all seem to be stupid when the plot needs them to be. I "understand" the ending completely. It just falls flat. Enderal is great overall though.
The game is an absolute joy to play. I thoroughly enjoyed being in the world. It's beauty is unparalleled. The game play is incredible. The atmosphere is breathtaking. It has lots of really interesting replay options - which comes to my point. I loved being in the game, but there's this inevitable, inescapable, locked in, nihilistic, negative ending that you helplessly approach as you move forward to the conclusion of the game. Knowing that your ultimately helpless to do anything about this wretched conclusion dampens the replay. Nothing you can do will change the awful outcome which has, as per the latest release, three options. 1. Bad guys suck the life force from the entire world and create a new bad guy. You die helpless and meaningless. 2. Bad guys suck the life force from the entire world and create a new bad guy. You watch helplessly from an a safe place as the tragedy unfolds. 3. Bad guys suck the life force from the entire world and create a new bad guy. You take this potion that puts you in this false reality where you have hope of winning, but your just in a coma and it's all happening in your head. I recognize that the creators are very talented, deep thinking individuals. Certainly better than the team that wrote the script for the vanilla Skyrim. But as puerile as the script for Skyrim is the Skyrim writers understand something that the Sureai team may have missed. Gamers want to win. It's not fun to lose. Losing sucks.
SPOILERS (though, really, no more spoilers than the above comments)
All of the endings are open to interpretation, but you've chosen the worst possible interpretation for all of them in your summary. 1. You don't die "meaningless" or "helpless", the high ones Explicitly Do Not get the "entire world", you stop the high one's plan before it can be fully completed, sacrificing yourself and much of Enderal for the chance that the rest of the world can be saved, including one character who's very important to you and who can carry forward all the knowledge you and everyone else gained. 2. Is in my opinion the darkest ending, you and your partner escape but you're probably going to wind up watching them die (though that again is open to interpretation, given that the black stone/veiled woman has meddled with both of them), but you have the best chance to communicate clearly next time and prevent this from happening again. 3. Is the most open to interpretation, There Is No Actual Answer for what that potion does. The game gives you two different authorities, who say opposite things, and one of whom we have good reason to distrust. Personally I don't think either is 100% correct, the character who warns you against taking it says that it will have an effect that Is Extremely Different than what you actually experience after taking it (assuming you drink it about as early as you can, before the events of the Starling city).
Personally, I like all of the endings. Your main goal fails spectacularly, and it's genuinely tragic, but there's still hope in all of them. The talk with the ancient power under the city lends a huge sense of perspective that, for me at least, takes the sting out of the endings. Sometimes progress doesn't happen at the speed that you feel it needs to happen at, and that's tragic, but that doesn't mean your actions haven't made a huge difference, it just means you may not be there to see it.
Hello, I agree all of those ends seems to lead to the same result (fail of the initiate goal = stop the cleansing and survive with your companion) but you only can choose one of the possibility. Let me bring a bit of possible future after each of those ends ... 1. and 3. (destroy the beacon) You stop the current cycle but you die. Your companion is carying the hope of all the (surviding) humanity. This is probably the best end. You die for an ideal, a better world. people will build statues at your image, writing stories and singing melodies for centuries. You will become THE Prophet. 2. (escate to startcity) Seems a good idea to escape, but then it is becoming very interesting... The Black guardian confirmed to you that you are a projection, and that you cannot die ... But you have to wait for the emergence of a new life. This can take hundreds, thousands or milions of years. OMG you will become mad I am sure (like that Black Guardian). At the end you will try to elevate the humanity with good sense and strong words....You know what? you will become a God, and eventually the cycle will come back because people will start to interprete your words and create a new religion. Some will became fanatic or will use the religion to gain power, and in the name of the religion there will be war and destructions. Is this to the foault of the religion, or to your fault? No, it is the nature of humanity and the reason of the cycle and you will be very disapointed to not be able to convince all the humanity to ... just ... love ... and nothing else. And Calia??? If you have chooses her as companion it becomes more and more interesting if she has to live the eternity with you... Remember that her essence is containing something very powerfull. the black stone... She also is a reborn, remember? and possibily she cannot die duet to the stone inside her... With the ages, she won't be able to control it. And you will not be able anymore to calm here because with the time (we are speaking about thousands of years remember..) your love will disapear... Then, completely under the control of the stone, she will become your oposite... the black side of your Godness...the ... Devil! And so this new humanity will start to be exactly the same as the previous one. One day some human hero could eventually kill you ... even if you cannot die by age or starvation, you still can be killed... Ouch, finally I will end the game with option 1. :-)
Your player character can't starve to death, you are immortal, sorry about breaking that to you and maybe revealing something. But the reason the game ends the way it did is SureAI are working on a DLC to add more content so you get more to play with later. So the ending was just fine and made perfect sense.
As a mod it can be taken out or put back in and of course everyone's tastes will differ though you are correct your character is essentially not alive in the usual sense of the word which is why you find that body in the cave under a certain living temple say no more in case other's have not played to that point.
One thing that always got me though was if the cycle has repeated so many times were are all the other's, you only meet one, then again maybe I have it all wrong and he is actually the companion while the lady in the water could be your own counterpart from a previous cycle, there are of course two lady's in the water (mummy's) you can find and this may hint at more with one being deep beneath an ancient ruined temple near to a certain haunted fairy tale castle, I am sure you know were with a named Lich (in the chamber with the stargate like structure Except that in Enderal he is not a lich but some kind of ascended sorcerer or fleshless one) and the other you meet on your search for the word of the dead with Gajes whom we all assume is your own players counterpart from a previous cycle but what if instead he is the magical companion and the living mummy in the water is your counterpart?.
It has to be said though that until that DLC come's out Enderal did indeed end in a disappointing fashion, there might have been nothing left to see but it should really have allowed you to come back and explore the dead world which the reaping left lifeless - but only for a time, seemingly a short time as magical forced accelerate the evolution of new race's and they always inherit a world filled with the ruin's of those that had gone before, other races of man just like themselves - mostly or so it seem's.
Its called a cliffhanger, it leaves you in a state of suspension, waiting for something more. I know this is really not relevant, but;
The DLC is supposed to have you going down and visiting the world and seeing the after effects of cleansing. I am sure you will will be able to loot an pillage the world of its most valuable artifacts and take them to Star city for safe keeping. I know if it was me that is what I would do. As it is you that need these things to prove to the "new people", where ever they are going to come from, that that there were people before them and what happened to them. You have to wonder since the time between cleansing's only seems to be a few thousand to maybe 10 years, it simply not enough time for humans to re-evolve on the world, so where is it they come from? It seems the cleansing only effect humans, animals are not really that effected, although they do seem to get infected by the red madness. It wasn't stated, or was not well stated if it was, that the only the souls of humans where taken, so we can assume that most animals on the world have survived and will go one without humans for a while. but it was stated that all life was snuffed out. So that again begs the question, where are the new humans and animals going to come from? Is there in fact an isolated place on the world where the High-Ones power can not touch, a place where the Cleansing can't reach and a small group of isolated and disconnected group of humans survive to repopulate the world all over again.
We seem to see that the builders of Star City and the Pireans where taller than the present population of humans, but it also seems that there were standard size humans around at the time as well. Unless SureAI and Nicolas, simply forgot to scale the burned bodies. It does make one think its a bit like what is seen in Alien Covenant, all the burned bodies that are larger then humans. its a nice coincidence that SureAI happen to have something like that in the game before the movie came out. Maybe they were in fact partially basing the Pireans on the idea of the Engineers, they are of similar height after all. Or just pure coincidence. But the fact it has such a parallel vibe of tall ancient peoples lost to time, etc... I might add, we only see the burned bodies of humans, there are no animals that have been consumed in this way, so i think they survive for the most part.
I am hoping that more questions will be answered in the DLC. All I know it going to be a very long wait up there in that city and Jespar or Calia are not going to be there with you forever. They are mortal, although its possible that Calia might live longer because of her unique nature, and Jespar was resurrected by the "Vailed Woman" and he might also be immortal, a gift of a long lived companion for the Flesh-less one. Or if they are mortal and in time will pass, it leaves you in the city alone for a very, very long time. It would be a very lonely existence to have to wait time out like that. It would almost be as bad as the one stuck in the great juggernaut, forever stuck in place watching the world go by, waiting for new people to somehow return to the world and then the job of trying to teach them of the mistakes of the past. Yes you can venture down to the surface from time to time, but again in time that would become very boring. Given the thousands of years it will take you would have seen almost everywhere and everything on world, in the end you could end up quite mad. I could keep going on this, but i think this covers some of my thoughts.
No it doesn't, not at all actually. Because you get to sit there and watch the other person you brought with you (if you decided to) die from starvation or at least old age. I loved the game, but have never played an RPG with a more disappointing, depressing ending that lacked any sense of game-style composition. I"ve played many RPGs, and this has the worst ending of them all.
The fact that this blatant spoiler has been allowed to stay up since 2017 is disgusting. I'm actually super pissed off that I came across this, get with the program moderation team.
YOU started reading this mod, YOU could have stopped when YOU realized what it was about, but instead YOU chose to continue. The nature of the mod is *obvious* in the title, it's your own fault for choosing to read it. Mod is awesome, love it, much better ending. YOU need to learn impulse control and not read things that are *obviously* going to contain spoilers.
I LOVE THE IDEA OF THIS MOD! I say I love the *idea* because I haven't reached the end yet so I dunno if I actually like it yet. But cool idea!
Okay so, I tried to clean this mod and maybe I just shouldn't but unless someone informs me it *shouldn't* be cleaned, I'm going to assume it was the right thing to do. Except, I'm getting an error that there is a NAVM record with a zero FormID and I can't save the cleaned file. I have no idea what to do with that information.
The exact error is:
[00:00] Error saving EnderalBetterEnding.esp.save.2019_09_16_18_41_47: Record [NAVI:00000000] must have a FormID. [00:00] Errors have occured. At least one file was not saved.
Does anyone know what I should/could do about this?
EDIT: I have also discovered that this mod causes missing floors in certain locations. I have looked at those locations in xEdit and I don't see what could be causing the problem but I wonder if the changes are necessary to this mod? For instance, The False Dog (tavern in the Ark undercity) is altered in this mod. Would it break this mod to revert those changes?
EDIT 2: I have also discovered a problem where certain chests (several throughout the world) contain a set of items: Mended Sword, Mended Bow, 100 FireArrows, a full set of Pyrean Armor.
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People keep talking about which is the best ending, but I've noticed something pretty much everybody has overlooked: the flower ending isn't as uncertain as one might think. If the potion really did put people into a coma, then researchers would have simply said, "Yeah, this puts people into comas." After all, the observed effects would be from the perspective of the researchers, and they wouldn't know if a comatose person was dreaming about how they were powerful and immortal or whatever. The coma is simply a story a man came up with in order to mislead, but didn't necessarily think things all the way through. That, or the game devs didn't think things all the way through, but either way, you can take this and run with it.
P.S:: Enderal SE version, maybe?
I agree that it was poorly written. I get that it was trying to be subversive because apparently having a satisfying ending with closure is a bad thing, but it makes little sense in the grand scheme of events. First, plenty of stuff isn't explained. The robed woman and her purpose are left vague and not at all illuminated, and the things that causes the unfortunate ending makes no sense. How the hell did no one investigate Lishari's murder? You mean to tell me these people were not willing to put resources into finding the murderer even though Lishari was one of the primary researchers and a follower of another prominent member of this faction? She was murdered in a populated place. If the leaders of the factions working together to stop the cleansing are fine with the player screwing around and doing side quest, why would they not have put time into finding out who was behind Lishari's death? Every event in the main quests has lead to you gaining knowledge on the cleansing and how to stop the entities responsible yet the characters involved all seem to be stupid when the plot needs them to be. I "understand" the ending completely. It just falls flat. Enderal is great overall though.
The game is an absolute joy to play. I thoroughly enjoyed being in the world. It's beauty is unparalleled. The game play is incredible. The atmosphere is breathtaking. It has lots of really interesting replay options - which comes to my point. I loved being in the game, but there's this inevitable, inescapable, locked in, nihilistic, negative ending that you helplessly approach as you move forward to the conclusion of the game. Knowing that your ultimately helpless to do anything about this wretched conclusion dampens the replay. Nothing you can do will change the awful outcome which has, as per the latest release, three options.
1. Bad guys suck the life force from the entire world and create a new bad guy. You die helpless and meaningless.
2. Bad guys suck the life force from the entire world and create a new bad guy. You watch helplessly from an a safe place as the tragedy unfolds.
3. Bad guys suck the life force from the entire world and create a new bad guy. You take this potion that puts you in this false reality where you have hope of winning, but your just in a coma and it's all happening in your head.
I recognize that the creators are very talented, deep thinking individuals. Certainly better than the team that wrote the script for the vanilla Skyrim. But as puerile as the script for Skyrim is the Skyrim writers understand something that the Sureai team may have missed. Gamers want to win. It's not fun to lose. Losing sucks.
All of the endings are open to interpretation, but you've chosen the worst possible interpretation for all of them in your summary.
1. You don't die "meaningless" or "helpless", the high ones Explicitly Do Not get the "entire world", you stop the high one's plan before it can be fully completed, sacrificing yourself and much of Enderal for the chance that the rest of the world can be saved, including one character who's very important to you and who can carry forward all the knowledge you and everyone else gained.
2. Is in my opinion the darkest ending, you and your partner escape but you're probably going to wind up watching them die (though that again is open to interpretation, given that the black stone/veiled woman has meddled with both of them), but you have the best chance to communicate clearly next time and prevent this from happening again.
3. Is the most open to interpretation, There Is No Actual Answer for what that potion does. The game gives you two different authorities, who say opposite things, and one of whom we have good reason to distrust. Personally I don't think either is 100% correct, the character who warns you against taking it says that it will have an effect that Is Extremely Different than what you actually experience after taking it (assuming you drink it about as early as you can, before the events of the Starling city).
Personally, I like all of the endings. Your main goal fails spectacularly, and it's genuinely tragic, but there's still hope in all of them. The talk with the ancient power under the city lends a huge sense of perspective that, for me at least, takes the sting out of the endings. Sometimes progress doesn't happen at the speed that you feel it needs to happen at, and that's tragic, but that doesn't mean your actions haven't made a huge difference, it just means you may not be there to see it.
I agree all of those ends seems to lead to the same result (fail of the initiate goal = stop the cleansing and survive with your companion) but you only can choose one of the possibility. Let me bring a bit of possible future after each of those ends ...
1. and 3. (destroy the beacon) You stop the current cycle but you die. Your companion is carying the hope of all the (surviding) humanity. This is probably the best end. You die for an ideal, a better world. people will build statues at your image, writing stories and singing melodies for centuries. You will become THE Prophet.
2. (escate to startcity) Seems a good idea to escape, but then it is becoming very interesting... The Black guardian confirmed to you that you are a projection, and that you cannot die ... But you have to wait for the emergence of a new life. This can take hundreds, thousands or milions of years. OMG you will become mad I am sure (like that Black Guardian). At the end you will try to elevate the humanity with good sense and strong words....You know what? you will become a God, and eventually the cycle will come back because people will start to interprete your words and create a new religion. Some will became fanatic or will use the religion to gain power, and in the name of the religion there will be war and destructions. Is this to the foault of the religion, or to your fault? No, it is the nature of humanity and the reason of the cycle and you will be very disapointed to not be able to convince all the humanity to ... just ... love ... and nothing else.
And Calia??? If you have chooses her as companion it becomes more and more interesting if she has to live the eternity with you... Remember that her essence is containing something very powerfull. the black stone... She also is a reborn, remember? and possibily she cannot die duet to the stone inside her...
With the ages, she won't be able to control it. And you will not be able anymore to calm here because with the time (we are speaking about thousands of years remember..) your love will disapear... Then, completely under the control of the stone, she will become your oposite... the black side of your Godness...the ... Devil! And so this new humanity will start to be exactly the same as the previous one. One day some human hero could eventually kill you ... even if you cannot die by age or starvation, you still can be killed...
Ouch, finally I will end the game with option 1.
:-)
One thing that always got me though was if the cycle has repeated so many times were are all the other's, you only meet one, then again maybe I have it all wrong and he is actually the companion while the lady in the water could be your own counterpart from a previous cycle, there are of course two lady's in the water (mummy's) you can find and this may hint at more with one being deep beneath an ancient ruined temple near to a certain haunted fairy tale castle, I am sure you know were with a named Lich (in the chamber with the stargate like structure Except that in Enderal he is not a lich but some kind of ascended sorcerer or fleshless one) and the other you meet on your search for the word of the dead with Gajes whom we all assume is your own players counterpart from a previous cycle but what if instead he is the magical companion and the living mummy in the water is your counterpart?.
It has to be said though that until that DLC come's out Enderal did indeed end in a disappointing fashion, there might have been nothing left to see but it should really have allowed you to come back and explore the dead world which the reaping left lifeless - but only for a time, seemingly a short time as magical forced accelerate the evolution of new race's and they always inherit a world filled with the ruin's of those that had gone before, other races of man just like themselves - mostly or so it seem's.
The DLC is supposed to have you going down and visiting the world and seeing the after effects of cleansing. I am sure you will will be able to loot an pillage the world of its most valuable artifacts and take them to Star city for safe keeping. I know if it was me that is what I would do. As it is you that need these things to prove to the "new people", where ever they are going to come from, that that there were people before them and what happened to them. You have to wonder since the time between cleansing's only seems to be a few thousand to maybe 10 years, it simply not enough time for humans to re-evolve on the world, so where is it they come from? It seems the cleansing only effect humans, animals are not really that effected, although they do seem to get infected by the red madness. It wasn't stated, or was not well stated if it was, that the only the souls of humans where taken, so we can assume that most animals on the world have survived and will go one without humans for a while. but it was stated that all life was snuffed out. So that again begs the question, where are the new humans and animals going to come from? Is there in fact an isolated place on the world where the High-Ones power can not touch, a place where the Cleansing can't reach and a small group of isolated and disconnected group of humans survive to repopulate the world all over again.
We seem to see that the builders of Star City and the Pireans where taller than the present population of humans, but it also seems that there were standard size humans around at the time as well. Unless SureAI and Nicolas, simply forgot to scale the burned bodies. It does make one think its a bit like what is seen in Alien Covenant, all the burned bodies that are larger then humans. its a nice coincidence that SureAI happen to have something like that in the game before the movie came out. Maybe they were in fact partially basing the Pireans on the idea of the Engineers, they are of similar height after all. Or just pure coincidence. But the fact it has such a parallel vibe of tall ancient peoples lost to time, etc... I might add, we only see the burned bodies of humans, there are no animals that have been consumed in this way, so i think they survive for the most part.
I am hoping that more questions will be answered in the DLC. All I know it going to be a very long wait up there in that city and Jespar or Calia are not going to be there with you forever. They are mortal, although its possible that Calia might live longer because of her unique nature, and Jespar was resurrected by the "Vailed Woman" and he might also be immortal, a gift of a long lived companion for the Flesh-less one. Or if they are mortal and in time will pass, it leaves you in the city alone for a very, very long time. It would be a very lonely existence to have to wait time out like that. It would almost be as bad as the one stuck in the great juggernaut, forever stuck in place watching the world go by, waiting for new people to somehow return to the world and then the job of trying to teach them of the mistakes of the past. Yes you can venture down to the surface from time to time, but again in time that would become very boring. Given the thousands of years it will take you would have seen almost everywhere and everything on world, in the end you could end up quite mad. I could keep going on this, but i think this covers some of my thoughts.
Okay so, I tried to clean this mod and maybe I just shouldn't but unless someone informs me it *shouldn't* be cleaned, I'm going to assume it was the right thing to do. Except, I'm getting an error that there is a NAVM record with a zero FormID and I can't save the cleaned file. I have no idea what to do with that information.
The exact error is:
[00:00] Error saving EnderalBetterEnding.esp.save.2019_09_16_18_41_47: Record [NAVI:00000000] must have a FormID.
[00:00] Errors have occured. At least one file was not saved.
Does anyone know what I should/could do about this?
EDIT: I have also discovered that this mod causes missing floors in certain locations. I have looked at those locations in xEdit and I don't see what could be causing the problem but I wonder if the changes are necessary to this mod? For instance, The False Dog (tavern in the Ark undercity) is altered in this mod. Would it break this mod to revert those changes?
EDIT 2:
I have also discovered a problem where certain chests (several throughout the world) contain a set of items: Mended Sword, Mended Bow, 100 FireArrows, a full set of Pyrean Armor.