244 réponses à ce sujet

[PsychoBlonde]

I always want to have a third option, but I'm happiest if it involves some crazy amount of work or doing some ridiculous stuff to pull off. (You must have godlike persuade/intimidate, you must do EVERY SINGLE SIDE QUEST in the area first IN A CERTAIN WAY), stuff like that.

What I'd like to see is more like this.

1. Side with Group/Person A. The situation is out of your control and group/person B attacks you. A bloody battle ensues.
2. Side with Group/Person B. The situation is out of your control and group/person B attacks you. A bloody battle ensues.
3. Side with neither, but try to get them to work out their differences without fulfilling the requirements for the "third way" solution. The FANATICAL ones on both sides try to get at each other, a bloody battle ensues, the fanatics are killed off, the non-fanatics are unhappy and, at best, an armed truce without real resolution results.
4. Side with neither, but try to get them to work out their differences AFTER fulfilling the requirements for the "third way" solution (by, say, empowering various non-fanatics on both sides to have more authority than the foaming-at-the-mouth crazies). The fanatics still want to go at it, but the non-fanatics manage to talk/force them down and reach a degree of common ground that is not perfect but looks as though it may head in a positive direction.
5. The Apathy option--a bloody battle ensues killing most everyone on both sides, you pick up the pieces.
6. Side with both and play them off each other--bloody battle ensues, you are left in control.

I'm happy enough if you don't have to do this in every situation, but in cases where there's a binary neither-one-is-really-good-but-you-must-pick-one choice (Like Bhelen vs. Harrowmont), I'd like it if you could just flat out tell them, "I don't care about your stupid politics, I just want my effing troops. So stop justifying yourself to me. I don't care what sort of pretenses you have to make so you can sleep at night. I just want this over with."

Edit:  I think option 4 is a better one for games where you don't have big glowing exclamation marks over everyone who can give you an effing quest, because you have to INDEPENDENTLY decide to talk to everyone and ferret out the side-quests (from people who may even be reluctant to give them to you) in order to make option 4 viable.  Whereas if you just breeze through without digging into the area, the people, and their relationships, you get one of the other options.

Modifié par PsychoBlonde, 11 novembre 2010 - 05:05 .

[Seagloom]

I want to see fewer "third options". I do not wish to see them removed entirely from the game. Basically, if it makes sense to include a third, fourth, fifth, or six option--go for it. However, I do want those options to have repercussions where applicable. Origins dropped the ball big time by allowing the Warden to jaunt off to the circle tower for an ultimate heroic solution, as even if the player cleared it earlier, the days long travel time meant there were no incidents in Redcliffe castle for an extended period. That felt like a cop out to me; especially after the earlier decision where one can leave Redcliffe to go to a nearby location, then return to find undead have demolished it. We are shown one instance where negligence on our part has serious consequences, and then another where we get off scot free. That is something I would prefer were avoided.



That aside, I do want fewer flawless solutions where everyone walks away happy. This is supposed to be dark fantasy. I want to see darkness. I want to be confronted with dilemmas that force me to stop and think for a few minutes. I like playing heroines at times. It gives me warm fuzzy feelings and briefly distracts me however briefly from the harsh realities of living in the real world. However, I have plenty of RPGs where I can play a hero. Let bad things happen to my character sometimes. Give me a choice between pyrrhic victories with an occasional unicorn and rainbows finish to keep the game from being too bleak.

[upsettingshorts]

As far as the third option goes - and I am talking about the convenient third options like Connor's - I think they should only be available if certain preconditions are already met. What I mean is, lets take the Connor example:



You would only be able to choose the third option if you had already cleared the Tower and already sided with the Mages. That way your character not only knows that everything is stable over there, and there are mages ready and willing to come to your aid. Throw in at least one un-missable NPC in Redcliff when you make the decision that can say, "But the Tower is in chaos, on my way here I passed a Templar who mentioned... etc" and it makes sense in context that you couldn't reasonably know what to expect at the Tower before having gone there. And without meeting those preconditions the option simply isn't available.

[PsychoBlonde]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

As far as the third option goes - and I am talking about the convenient third options like Connor's - I think they should only be available if certain preconditions are already met. What I mean is, lets take the Connor example:

You would only be able to choose the third option if you had already cleared the Tower and already sided with the Mages. That way your character not only knows that everything is stable over there, and there are mages ready and willing to come to your aid. Throw in at least one un-missable NPC in Redcliff when you make the decision that can say, "But the Tower is in chaos, on my way here I passed a Templar who mentioned... etc" and it makes sense in context that you couldn't reasonably know what to expect at the Tower before having gone there. And without meeting those preconditions the option simply isn't available.

I don't know about "already" but, yeah, I think there should have been some sort of consequence if the tower wasn't already clear (like, it took too long and Connor was reduced to a sickly halfwit after you free him from the demon, because he was just possessed too long.  I think it would have been extra-interesting if you could have encountered Connor in the Fade while you were stuck there in the tower.

[Wulfram]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

As far as the third option goes - and I am talking about the convenient third options like Connor's - I think they should only be available if certain preconditions are already met. What I mean is, lets take the Connor example:

You would only be able to choose the third option if you had already cleared the Tower and already sided with the Mages. That way your character not only knows that everything is stable over there, and there are mages ready and willing to come to your aid. Throw in at least one un-missable NPC in Redcliff when you make the decision that can say, "But the Tower is in chaos, on my way here I passed a Templar who mentioned... etc" and it makes sense in context that you couldn't reasonably know what to expect at the Tower before having gone there. And without meeting those preconditions the option simply isn't available.

That might be a good idea if there were good and bad consequences for whichever order you did the quests in, but alone it would just make most people do the tower first and punish those who didn't metagame.

[lv12medic]

Third options to me are fine if they include some unique consequence. Redcliffe was just bleh in regards to the Third Option playbook. Connor dies, Isolde dies, nothing. It is that nothing that just irks me. Something should have happend while you were gone. And I'm not talking about a GOTCHA! The whole village died and its your fault. There just had to be something that happens. Everyone in Redcliffe gets trapped in the fade by the demon so you show up and everyone is just staring blankly at the wall/sleeping. Ser Perth thinks he's Ser Pounce-a-lot. Something. Anything. Just not nothing... please.

Atleast with the cure the curse thing, Zathrian and the Lady of the Forest go all glowy sparkles and vanish for good.

Modifié par lv12medic, 11 novembre 2010 - 05:55 .

[Tinxa]

I usually like the third option but I would like it to be hidden (you'd have to find a special book with the third option or learn about it sowhere else and not have an NPC say "You can kill A or you can kill B and oh yes you can do the thing where you don't have to kill anyone") or have a drawback itself. In the Redcliffe situation it would be better if having mages help is only available if you went to the tower first or if you wasted time going to the tower Connor would kill some townpeople in the meantime. I liked the option to convince Zathrian to break the curse it made sense to have it when going off to the tower and back with no cosequences for Redcliffe felt silly. So I like a happy end third option where it makes sense.



Too much choices without the third option would become frustrating. I didn't like it in Awakening where my choices about the keep and where to post more soldiers always resulted in something bad happening.

[upsettingshorts]

Wulfram wrote...

That might be a good idea if there were good and bad consequences for whichever order you did the quests in, but alone it would just make most people do the tower first and punish those who didn't metagame.

I agree in general, that there should be some kind of bonus for the other path such as not doing the Circle Tower first (like maybe the Templars who were stationed at Redcliff can come and help you secure the Tower's cooperation and, once arriving, assist you in dealing with the problems there).

[darrylzero]

Maria Caliban wrote...

silentassassin264 wrote...

As tmp noted, there is another thread but for the sake of reiterating my position. I do not like it when you have gray and gray morality and then have a deus ex machina make everything better option like Redcliffe. It removes all the grey from the choices and instead makes it, if you are a good heroic person, choose deus ex machina, if you are a heartless bastard pick one of those evil options. You can't really have grey choices if one of them is obviously right.

For Redcliffe, how would you feel if instead of Isidole or Conner dying, you could convince the demon to go into Jowan instead of Conner and then either kill him, imprison him, or let him go?

That would be pretty interesting, but in this particular case I think there is nothing wrong with going to the circle being an option.  I just think there should be costs associated with it, like hearing that Connor continued to be a problem while you were gone, killing more knights or villagers (maybe including Sir Perth if you wanted to put a human face to it).  If that were the case, I would probably choose the blood magic route most of the time, as I did in my first play through, but I could imagine a character who felt like it was much more appropriate to endanger/lose warriors than to kill a woman or child.  Or it might be interesting if you had to leave a party member behind to help as well or something, having to convince Morrigan to stay perhaps, leaving her unavailable for the tower. 

In the case of the elves, it's a little more troubling.  While I enjoy playing somewhat "grey" characters, if that even really means anything, I can't seem to play a character that would kill all the werewolves or elves.  But that quest does feel a little pat.  I am not sure what kinds of consequences there should be for killing Zathrian (a smaller or weaker elf force for the end of the game?), or if perhaps it should just be harder to figure out Zathrian is the real villain in that case, or what.  But it could use a little something to make it feel less like that was the route you were supposed to take.

Anyway, I guess I like the third option, when it's not a complete easy way out of the moral choice at hand.  Even the heroic or right choice should have consequences.

[Gill Kaiser]

I like it when there's a third option, but I like my third options to be difficult to achieve.

[PsychoBlonde]

Wulfram wrote...

That might be a good idea if there were good and bad consequences for whichever order you did the quests in, but alone it would just make most people do the tower first and punish those who didn't metagame.

Why are you assuming that people will only play through the game once?  This isn't a "punishment", it means you can have a cooler 2nd playthrough.  Or, a nasty 2nd playthrough, if that is your preference.

Why does not stumbling on your personal "optimal" option the first time through constitute a punishment?  This is like saying that if I don't walk up to you and hand you a million dollars, I'm somehow punishing you.

[nightcobra]

Gill Kaiser wrote...

I like it when there's a third option, but I like my third options to be difficult to achieve.

agreed, with difficult battles/persuasion checks and having some previous sidequests complete to have the option.
it's all good as long we have to work for it and that it is worth the trouble.

[CarlSpackler]

Sorry, havent read through the thread, I just read the OP. Figured I'd just say I generally agree with the OP. I like being heroic, I don't like "gotcha" moments in games. I'm all for haveing some difficult choices, and grey areas. I just don't want every scenario to be damned if you do... . And to the "difficult" choices - I would by no means enjoy: option A - result is dead little girl. option B - result is dead little boy. Sorry, real life is horrific enough, one of the reasons I like rpgs is you can be the hero and save the day.

[Ziggeh]

I think anything that compromises the drama is misplaced. I intensely dislike the idea of a super happy ending to any situation, but at the same time, I don't like being forced into one of two paths if I can see another way around it.

The "Connor problem" without the tower workaround is a powerful moral dilemma, with it it's just some things that happen. If you produce a third option that is "harder", people will choose it anyway, because gaming hard is easier to justify than moral hard. There needs to be a balance, a loss of some kind, to keep the decision a hard one. As an example, picking a companion to take their place would be a strong third option. It would be heroic for someone to make that sacrifice, easier to justify morally than the first two (unless you pick the dog, that wouldn't be on at all) but it would have long reaching game play consequences.

Modifié par ziggehunderslash, 11 novembre 2010 - 06:39 .

[Ortaya Alevli]

I'm still wondering why it had to be Isolde, of all people, who was sacrificed for the blood ritual. Of course I was already looking for an excuse to see her dead, but that's another story. It's not like Isolde was the last person to survive. Surely there were other, you know, "less critical" people to gut around, no?

[Ziggeh]

Ortaya Alevli wrote...
Surely there were other, you know, "less critical" people to gut around, no?

"Go into town, bring us back some peasant. We'll bleed him dry instead."

[upsettingshorts]

Less critical options existed but they would also be more arbitrary.  Still, you'd think that'd be an option for less than noble characters.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 11 novembre 2010 - 07:03 .

[nightcobra]

ziggehunderslash wrote...

Ortaya Alevli wrote...
Surely there were other, you know, "less critical" people to gut around, no?

"Go into town, bring us back some peasant. We'll bleed him dry instead."

or even this

warden: (persuade) "wouldn't you rather take hold of my body?"

demon tries to possess you and it all comes down to a difficult one on one battle against the demon inside your mind. 

[Ortaya Alevli]

I admit, what I'm getting at is that the writers went out of their way to create a dramatic feeling.

And then cheapened it with an additional Paragon Shepard route.

That's my take on the issue anyways.

[nightcobra]

Ortaya Alevli wrote...

I admit, what I'm getting at is that the writers went out of their way to create a dramatic feeling.
And then cheapened it with an additional Paragon Shepard route.
That's my take on the issue anyways.

a way to correct that cheapness (at least, to me) would be to leave a few party members that would look after connor while you went to the circle. then while you travel to the tower and back, you take control of those party members in order to contain connor's wrath, much like how it was at denerim in the final battle

Modifié par nightcobra8928, 11 novembre 2010 - 07:09 .

[Ortaya Alevli]

nightcobra8928 wrote...

Ortaya Alevli wrote...

I admit, what I'm getting at is that the writers went out of their way to create a dramatic feeling.
And then cheapened it with an additional Paragon Shepard route.
That's my take on the issue anyways.

a way to correct that cheapness (at least, to me) would be to leave a few party members that would look after connor while you went to the circle. then while you travel to the tower and back, you take control of those party members in order to contain connor's wrath, much like how it was at denerim in the final battle

Sure, there are a ton of scenarios that could be applied to this particular instance to save it from the trash heap. So far I've read brilliant ideas on both this thread and Dave's.

Thing is, this is too convenient to be a simple oversight on the writers' part. I wonder what manner of message they expected to convey by including that insulting Tower option.

[PsychoBlonde]

ziggehunderslash wrote...

Ortaya Alevli wrote...
Surely there were other, you know, "less critical" people to gut around, no?

"Go into town, bring us back some peasant. We'll bleed him dry instead."

If they'd offered up VALENA for this option, this would have been GREAT, especially if you promised her dad you'd bring her back.  Actually, this would have been great if they'd let you go try to hustle ANY of the named NPC's from the town into it.

[nightcobra]

PsychoBlonde wrote...

ziggehunderslash wrote...

Ortaya Alevli wrote...
Surely there were other, you know, "less critical" people to gut around, no?

"Go into town, bring us back some peasant. We'll bleed him dry instead."

If they'd offered up VALENA for this option, this would have been GREAT, especially if you promised her dad you'd bring her back.  Actually, this would have been great if they'd let you go try to hustle ANY of the named NPC's from the town into it.

i'd offer the doomsayer in redcliffe to the sacrifice, he's hasn't anything to live for anyway.

[Crimson Invictus]

I can't say as I see the need for a third option in the vein of the discussion here. It simply adds an easy choice that requires no real thought, something which the mage tower provided in the case of Connor simply by virtue of visiting it first.

I can't say as I support the "difficult" persuasion options to facilitate such choices either. Investing four slots in the coercion tree is neither difficult nor undesirable in most Bio games, given that they invariably reward such investments with extra gold and options.

Modifié par Liana Nighthawk, 11 novembre 2010 - 07:23 .