55 réponses à ce sujet

[sugasugaki]

First off, I applaud Bioware for trying to think outside of the box as far as creating a character-driven, story-within a story. It's bold, and had its shining moments.

That said, there was a critical issue with the story in this game, relative to other Bioware games: and that's the shallowness of making choices that impact the game.

No, this isn't another complaint about Leandra dying, and my not being able to save her. Nor is this a complaint that Hawke wasn't who I wanted him to be. But the "choices" you make in the game are superficial, and hurt the storytelling.

Since I mentioned Leandra, let's take the story with her for example. I like the fact that you can't change her fate. That's what drives the tragedy home--you interacted with her, and established a connection throughout the game and that was viscerally broken. It's one of the shining moments in this game (actually I think it was the highpoint of the game), because the gradual build-up pays off. But the stinker in this episode, however, are the events leading to finding her, namely the whole ordeal with Gascard Dupois. In the Prime Suspect quest, you're given the choice--do you trust Dupois' word, and that he's looking for the killer too? Or do you go by your gut and kill Dupuis thinking he's the murderer?

But... whether you kill Dupuis or let him go, you don't prevent Leandra's death. So the only choice with this ordeal is whether Dupois dies or not. Since a) there are no negative repurcussions to killing him and you haven't established an emotional connection with him, whether Dupois dies or not is completely trivial. The issue here isn't that you don't have a choice in saving Leandra, it's the triviality of the choice with Dupois. Why bother having it? There are ways to make the choice meaningful here even with Leandra dying no matter what. For example, by trusting Dupois, you get insight from Dupois of who the "O" in the letter is, which leads to a potential confrontation with Orsino in Act 3. But if the only consequence here is Dupois--a minor character with a brief appareance--dying, who cares?

There are countless other examples, like how you can save some blood mages, who turn on you in Act 3. You can be on the mage's side throughout the entire game, then just turn around and side with Meredith/Templars at the end. So what does it matter that you've sided with the mages for the first 99% of the game? It doesn't matter. Sure you have the power to save/kill some random mages, but those choices are trivial, because you haven't built a relationship or established an emotional connection with them. That's a storytelling flaw. Deaths are meaningful in a story when an emotional attachment is created with the player. It's why Leandra's death is such a shock, because the player had meaningful interactions with her. But when all the choices of whether somebody lives or dies are with trivial characters with whom you interact for a whopping two minutes, those choices themselves are trivial. Let's quickly look at how many meaningful choices you can make:

Bethany - Yes (grey warden, dies, or joins circle of mages)--but this is early on in the game, which reduces the emotional impact.
Orsino - Nope, dies either way
Leandra - Nope
Meredith - Nope
Anders - Nope, he goes ballistic either way
Hawke - Siding with mages/templars at the end doesn't change the game, only the end narration. Hence impact is minimal.
Arishok - Nope
Flemeth - Nope
Merrill - Nope, aside from having rage/rival romance for shooting her dumb obsession with the mirror down

I can list more, but you get the point--very few of the choices are substantial ones.

The other weak aspect of choice were the dialog trees. Actually, there weren't trees, they're pretty much all linear. Why have an angry, nice and humorous dialog choice if they all lead to the same thing? It actually hurts the story, because in some cases the dialog progression becomes absurd. For example, when you're looking for Anders the gray warden, you can openly making threats to Lirene in her store, yet she tells you where Anders is anyways? Why would she do that? In context of the situation, she doesn't convey a sense that she's scared for her life. So she's not telling you because she's fearful. So why would Lirene tell you where Anders is when you're making threats? It doesn't make sense, and in this case (as in many other instances), the "choice" hurts storytelling.

If you're not going to provide actual branching dialog, with real consequences, that's fine. A linear story can become a more focused story. It's why Final Fantasy VII was so popular in its time. But, that means Bioware should've just ditched the illusion of choice, and make the dialog completely linear, without any choices. Why? Because that allows for tighter, better written dialog that flows. That prevents goofy dialog progressions, like Lirene just giving up Ander's location to someone who would potentially kill the grey warden. Better off just having the dialog completely linear at that point, because the "choices" are actually hurting the storytelling. I like choices. But when the choices are so shallow, and so unbelievably forced to be linear, it's better to not have them at all.

The lack of choice also hurts replayability. Playing through the game again, I've been shocked at how little things change by picking all the "wrong" dialog choices. Why waste all the man hours of hiring voice actors to do various "branching" dialog, only to have the same result as a mostly linear storyline?

Again, I'm not opposed to whether a game is linear or has choices. But if it's supposed to have choices as a key element of game design, they need to be substantial. Ironically, this game had the potential to have more substantial choices than any other Bioware RPG. Because unlike previous games, it was supposed to cover a longer period of time. So one of the greatest potential strengths of storytelling--branching character progression through time--was completely missed. I felt like previous Bioware games had more compelling choices, be it DAO, Baldur's Gate II (still remember Anomen flunking his knighthood quest and his being bitter about it for the rest of the game).

For future games I'd prefer the traditional branching dialog of older Bioware games. Or if you're wanting a more focused story, just making it completely linear. DAII straddled this inconsistent line of shallow choices, and it hurt the overall game. There's a lot to like about DAII (balance is infinitely better than the mage-fest of DAO for one), but it's not as memorable of an RPG as past Bioware games.

Modifié par sugasugaki, 04 mai 2011 - 09:00 .

[Paeyne]

I have played through enough times to see that there are effects in small ways that depend on the choices you make. You are right that many of those choices are superficial. There are a few dialog choices like the one that may result in the destruction of the Dalish that I would argue are impact-full but those are very few and far between.

One of my biggest complaints last month was this but I have gotten to the point where I just shrug and accept DA2 for what it is. The illusion of choice that DA:O had is about as thin as the Kirkwall veil in DA2.

[SirGladiator]

I don't really like the fact that most of your family will die no matter what you do. Its bad, but at least if its like in DAO it all happens early, and it really isn't relevant to the main story. The problem here is that your family is almost the only thing actually worth caring about in this game, since the whole mage/templar thing is just a battle of bad vs worse, and you end up not really being able to impact that much anyway. So protecting your family over the course of the game is the most meaningful thing you can actually do. By having most of your family members definitely dead, and all of them possibly dead, that really limits how enjoyable the game can be. For me, after act 1 I already lost most of my ability to care about what was going on, because I've lost my siblings (Bethany captured by the Circle and Im not allowed to rescue her for some reason), I didn't care that much about the mother honestly but to the extent that I did she seemed to be safe, no attention needed there, there just wasn't any reason to care what was happening. Then they just randomly killed her too, and that was horrible, but it was also so stupid, because they could've taken that opportunity to make me care instead, given me a real opportunity to save her, something to get me interested again. Instead they just reconfirmed that Ive got no reason to even still be playing, because what I'm doing just means nothing. I'm glad I eventually decided to play out the rest of the game anyway, because the 3rd act at least had the good part of letting me save Bethany, finally rescue her from the templars, and have a feel good ending knowing that I at least accomplished that one thing, I saved Bethany. I didn't save the mages (maybe I saved some of them, who knows, but clearly a lot of them didn't get saved), I certainly didn't save the templars, I didn't do anything for the dwarves or the elves for that matter, but I did accomplish that one thing that was important, so for that I was happy to have finished the game. But it sure would've been a lot more fun if I could've done more to protect all my family, saved the brother at the beginning, rescued Bethany during act 2, protected the mother later in act 2, and protected them all during act 3. That would've given the game a lot more meaningful choices, which would've made everybody a lot happier, even if they didnt particularly care about the family, because at least it would've been 'something' that they could impact in a meaningful way. Hopefully DA3 will get back to the DAO standard of tons of cool and meaningful choices, and if they could stop killing most/all our family members without giving us any control in the matter, that'd be great, thanks .

[AngryFrozenWater]

In ME1, ME2, DA:O and DA2 BW promised that decisions would have impact. Yet, none of those titles delivered that, except that in all those games you can choose whether certain characters become party members or not. Most of all other choices are cosmetic and have no impact at all.

DA:O had some choices involving some allies. In the final showdown they would come to your aid, but were pretty useless. You could do without them. This is probably because players that make a different choice shouldn't have an advantage or disadvantage. I noticed that Zevran and Nathaniel end up in DA2's fight as well. Again... In that chaos they were hardly noticeable.

And in all those games the main story pretty much stays the same. In DA:O you'll notice some changes at the very end, but by that time the game is already over. Only the hope that your choices would impact DA2 made me play the game again to have different Wardens to be imported in DA2.

For some reason BW keeps investing in those cosmetic changes. And those don't do much. Like the OP noted in most cases choices doesn't really matter. I still get the same quest or result anyway.

And what is worse is that BW keeps on lying that Hawke's choices have impact and "shape the world". The only thing that I've noticed is that is that by the end of Act I, II and III everyone can safely walk the streets during the day and night, because I have killed every enemy out there.

The main story of DA2 is fine, but it is just executed badly... It's not Hawke that makes the choices, it's the story that dictates them.

Instead of the linear story line DA2 could have something like this: If you side with mages then everything from their revolves around their viewpoint. Interaction with the templars would be designed to sabotage them. You would end up facing Meredith and her sword. Siding with the templars would work the other way around. In the end you face Orsino. A lot of the generic quests could have stayed the same. Dialog could focus on which side you are on and whether or not you are a (blood) mage.

Instead no matter what I do, the Chantry goes boom (and so does my favorite character the grand cleric - snif, no way to safe her - snif) and I fight the same enemies, no matter what side I've chosen.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 04 mai 2011 - 10:50 .

[Paeyne]

@SirGladiator

I agree that there is very little connectivity between the player and a lot of the events that happen. Kirkwall is actually the star of DA2. Not Hawke, his family or any of the companions. In many ways the game was one long prologue framing events for the next installment.

Personal note.. A few line breaks in your posts will chop up the wall of text and make your posts much easier to read.

[GenericPlayer2]

Excellent analysis. Thanks for putting into words what has been so frustrating with this game. All of the issues raised grate on my nerves, but some more than others. The biggest problem I have is that you can take the mage's side at every opportunity, you can undermine Meredith at every opportunity, and yet someone close to you is still kidnapped and you are still being accused of being a tool of the templars.

The issue with the dialogue wheel is frustrating too. Most of the times you get the same response regardless of which one you picked. Overall the storyline feels like one big illusion.

[soulrapist]

the most frustating of all choices are even if u kill anders in awaking he pop-up DA2 and it is impossible to truly have an impact in this game at least in ME-1 ME2 the choice u have made have an impact on how the universe see you some how and the objective is clear get those reapers down but DA2 i feel like a waste of money and time not only on da2 but on da:0 and awakening so ill stick to mass effect at least i have a choice that allowed me to against xenophobia or not but in DA2 its just whatever choice u do there is no point in doing it.

[Plaintiff]

I actually found a lot of choices to be extremely significant. You might not be able to alter the overall story to any great degree (nor do I think you should be able to), but you have plenty of opportunities throughout the game to help people or utterly ruin their lives. I felt awful when I got Keran booted from the Templars and it's possible to make Feynriel into a powerful abomination who goes on a killing rampage. You have the power of life and death over all your companions at one point or another.

The long-term consequences of your actions in Origins didn't really become clear until DA2. So until we see DA3, there's no way of knowing which choices, if any are actually significant.

[LobselVith8]

The Epilogues for Origins provided insight into how The Warden's choices changed the respective societies he encountered - Redcliffe, Orzammar, the Circle of Magi, the Dalish, and the leadership of Ferelden. You even had people in Dust Town discussing the changes King Bhelen was making happen with the acceptance of casteless recruits. In DA2, Hawke is reactive to virtually everything around him, and makes no changes for the impoverished people of Darktown or the destitute elves of the Alienage despite all his wealth and power. I would have liked to see Hawke's actions change Kirkwall in a significant way given how he spends seven years of his life in the city-state.

[IanPolaris]

LobselVith8 wrote...

The Epilogues for Origins provided insight into how The Warden's choices changed the respective societies he encountered - Redcliffe, Orzammar, the Circle of Magi, the Dalish, and the leadership of Ferelden. You even had people in Dust Town discussing the changes King Bhelen was making happen with the acceptance of casteless recruits. In DA2, Hawke is reactive to virtually everything around him, and makes no changes for the impoverished people of Darktown or the destitute elves of the Alienage despite all his wealth and power. I would have liked to see Hawke's actions change Kirkwall in a significant way given how he spends seven years of his life in the city-state.

Indeed let's consider the words of Evlina just before you have to fight her.  Sure she's an abomination at this point, but her words have an uncomfortable ring of truth to them when she accuses you of being "one of us" that's abandoned his (or her) people to live high on the hog in High Town feasting on sweetmeats while his (or her) fellow countryman starve....and does nothing about it.

Bitter and exaggerated but basically true.  What's worse, no matter how much I might want to as a player, I am not allowed to do anything that might change this fact even though Hawke should be able to.

-Polaris

[Alamar2078]

Devil's Advocate: Unless the writer / developer plans not just one game but multiple games / expansions / DLCs at one time then they will not likely to be able to present you with lots of "world shattering" decisions.

While I'd love to blame a writer for that unfortunately they do not have enough control to sit everyone down and preplan the events for the next X games, which choices will carry through what games, etc.

On top of this if you want people to see almost all of the content in your game [without replaying this and prior games 10 times] then most of the choices will be somewhat illusionary. Yes you made an important choice but it doesn't have world shattering impacts on what you will or won't see in the next game.

*****************************************

Now I wish at least one series could truely follow-through on our expectations but I doubt that it can be expected to happen in a corporate setting. I.E. the bigger the company the less likely they will be able to get a game meeting [outlandish] expectations out the door.

[Alamar2078]

FYI: I would like to add that I wish ME2 incorporated more impact from prior game other than "random Emails" or such.

[thesuperdarkone]

Filament wrote...

sugasugaki wrote...

First off, I applaud Bioware for trying to think outside of the box as far as creating a character-driven, story-within a story. It's bold, and had its shining moments.

That said, there was a critical issue with the story in this game, relative to other Bioware games: and that's the shallowness of making choices that impact the game.

There are countless other examples, like how you can save some blood mages, who turn on you in Act 3. You can be on the mage's side throughout the entire game, then just turn around and side with Meredith/Templars at the end. So what does it matter that you've sided with the mages for the first 99% of the game? It doesn't matter. Sure you have the power to save/kill some random mages, but those choices are trivial, because you haven't built a relationship or established an emotional connection with them. That's a storytelling flaw. Deaths are meaningful in a story when an emotional attachment is created with the player. It's why Leandra's death is such a shock, because the player had meaningful interactions with her. But when all the choices of whether somebody lives or dies are with trivial characters with whom you interact for a whopping two minutes, those choices themselves are trivial. Let's quickly look at how many meaningful choices you can make:

Bethany - Yes (grey warden, dies, or joins circle of mages)--but this is early on in the game, which reduces the emotional impact.
Orsino - Nope, dies either way
Leandra - Nope
Meredith - Nope
Anders - Nope, he goes ballistic either way
Hawke - Siding with mages/templars at the end doesn't change the game, only the end narration. Hence impact is minimal.
Arishok - Nope
Flemeth - Nope
Merrill - Nope, aside from having rage/rival romance for shooting her dumb obsession with the mirror down

I can list more, but you get the point--very few of the choices are substantial ones.

You can choose whether Anders lives or dies. You can not recruit Isabela at all, or give her to the qunari or not. You can help Aveline rise through the ranks and court Donnic or not, and you can let her go back to Ferelden or convince her to stay. You can not recruit Fenris at all, or give him to Danarius or not (and decide how to deal with his sister). You can let Varric keep the idol shard or not (and decide how to deal with his brother), which doesn't seem to have much of an effect, but should be pretty important considering what it does to that house. You can change Merrill's attitude regarding the mirror and "decide" whether to kill her whole clan or not (at least, as much as you "decide" Bethany's fate). Sebastian's fate and attitude are tied to the choice you make regarding Anders.

You can let the Arishok go without killing him if you give up Isabela. You can side with Varnell and Petrice.

There are many other choices you make which may be inconsequential in terms of how events unfold, but they're not inconsequential to Hawke as a character. They define Hawke's personality. I'd consider that the core choice in a WRPG, considering that they all have varying degrees of main plot railroading. You still get to choose what kind of train you're riding down the railroad.

 

So my Hawke refusing to help Thrask find some blood mages then being forced to do it regardless of my prior opinions is great story telling?

[hoorayforicecream]

If you really want your choices to matter in a game, I suggest playing a dating sim.

[angj57]

The worst example for me was Merrill's story line. In Act 2 I didn't give her the artifact and she was angry, but since our friendship was maxed she eventually forgave me and conceeded that the mirror had turned her clan against her, etc etc. Then in Act 3 she had done a 180 and was back to working on the mirror and her side quest played out the exact same as if I'd given her the artifact and encouraged her to fix the mirror.

[sugasugaki]

Filament wrote...
You can choose whether Anders lives or dies. You can not recruit Isabela at all, or give her to the qunari or not. You can help Aveline rise through the ranks and court Donnic or not, and you can let her go back to Ferelden or convince her to stay.

Anders living or dying is a moot point, because the damage is already done. The game is about to end, so it doesn't make much of a difference at that point whether you let him die. Recruiting Isabella or not, the end result is still the same. Letting Arishok go does nothing for Act 3. Ditto for Aveline. None of your choices impact the outcome of the game. 

Great storytelling in the context of a non-linear RPG has choices that have consequences. You give up Isabella to Arishok, you're one party member short, that's it. In Baldur's Gate 2 for example (dunno why that one keeps coming to mind), you make decisions that your companions hate, they'll attack you and try to kill you.

There are many other choices you make which may be inconsequential in terms of how events unfold, but they're not inconsequential to Hawke as a character. They define Hawke's personality. 

Hawk doesn't have a personality in this game, and that's precisely the problem. You can play 99.9% of the game helping the mages, then at the very end side with Meredith. You can be a sociopathic, bigoted selfish bastard in one instance, and suddenly switch to a philanthropic paragon the next. Without any consequence. Compare that say with KOTOR or Fable, where over time your actions determine your disposition, of whether you're good or evil. In KOTOR, if you're selfish and evil the whole game, trying to be good at the very end doesn't change the fact that your disposition is evil. Ditto for Fallout 1/2 (a great example of games with choices).  In this game that doesn't exist. Hawke's "personality" exists in a vacuum, because his/her disposition isn't tempered/affected by events in the game.

Hence, as game that's supposed to center around character-driven storytelling, it falls short.

[soulrapist]

like flemet tell us right from the start the world will shaken before you and later precipice of change learn how to fly or something like that wich basicaly means whatever you choose it wont change nothing and on top of it she offer her simpaty for good reason.

[Pandaman102]

It's strange how people defend DA2's lack of choice by throwing up the "it's all personal choices" excuse despite the game advertising otherwise.

DA2 was advertised as a game where you decide how Hawke rises to power and your decisions would shape the adventure. It doesn't. Saying that you think it's okay that Hawke can't influence the story only further proves that point.

[thesuperdarkone]

You do realize the DAO had the same choices and consequences. For example, I could decide whether I wanted to have Morrigan leave or not. I could kill Zathrian and thus he wouldn't appear as an ally during the final battle and his first ends up making peace in the Hinterlands. DAO is naturally the superior game.

[Siduri]

sugasugaki wrote...

If you're not going to provide actual branching dialog, with real consequences, that's fine. A linear story can become a more focused story. It's why Final Fantasy VII was so popular in its time. But, that means Bioware should've just ditched the illusion of choice, and make the dialog completely linear, without any choices. Why? Because that allows for tighter, better written dialog that flows.

I disagree. I think the illusion of choice is valuable, even if it is largely an illusion, and that's for two reasons.

The first and main reason is that it allows role-playing. You're right that I couldn't save Leandra: but I got to decide what kind of daughter I was, what kind of relationship we had while she was alive. I got to build my character over the course of the story. When Leandra was taken, my kind/diplomatic Hawke lost her **** completely, and starting choosing all the red options in dialogue. She acquiesed to blood magic, which she never thought she'd do. It's true that choice doesn't have any lasting consequences--Leandra is dead whether or not you allow Du Puis to use blood magic to track her--but it shapes your character. That's invaluable to me. It's not a role playing game if you don't have the chance to determine who you are. By the end of the game, I knew exactly who my Hawke was...and she wasn't the same as yours or anybody else's Hawke. So in that sense, the dialogue choices do have very real and measurable consequences. They change the gaming experience for the player.

The second, and lesser, reason is that in DA2 there are two levels of "meaning" to choices. Some choices change the state of the game world, which is what I think you're talking about. Some choices only affect the relationships you have with people in the world. There are a lot of points at the game where you have to take a quest, but you can decide whether you take it willingly (diplomatic option) or grudingly (aggressive option), and your followers will react depending on which path you take. A lot of players seem to feel that these choices are "fake" because the larger game world ends up in the same state regardless. For instance, Ketojan always dies, so maybe you could say that every dialogue option I have in "Shepherding Wolves" is a fake choice. But those choices will affect my relationships with Anders, Merrill, Varric, Aveline, and Carver. That is real choice. Those are real consequences. Not every decision Hawke makes will decide the future of Kirkwall, but a ton of them have in-world consequence. I care about my in-game relationships. So I care about those choices.