73 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

My Hawke was investigating his options.

I could just as well ask you why you blindly follow along. Why did your Hawke agree to Varric's plan without first investigating whether it was feasible? Did you consider the possible consequences of promising to raise funds for Bartrand and then failing? I suspect you didn't, because it never occurred to you that you might fail. You know you're playing a game, and you know failure isn't at all likely. But your Hawke didn't know that. He should have considered the possibility of failure.

[brushyourteeth]

I actually didn't even speak to Bartrand again until I had all the money.

"You want to be partners? Where are you going to get the money?"
"I have it right here."
"Oh."

I'm just saying that no game is a complete sandbox. Each has a story to tell. Refusing to complete main quests just doesn't make any sense to me. Unless you play like my mother-in-law and run around Fable 2 for hours on end farting in public and giving presents to village children.

[hussey 92]

I think quest start even if you refuse to do them

[Sylvius the Mad]

brushyourteeth wrote...

I'm just saying that no game is a complete sandbox. Each has a story to tell. Refusing to complete main quests just doesn't make any sense to me.

I refuse to acknowledge the "main quest" designation.  From the PC's perspective, each quest stands alone.  Each quest is merely something he can do.  That any quest is a main quest is irrelevant.

In fact, I've previously asked for the ability to disable to quest categorisation in the journal.  I don't want to know which quests are main quests.  I don't think that's valuable information, and having it risks allowing metagame concerns to drive decision-making.

The quests should be written such that the player does not need to know which quests are plot-relevant.  Because it's the PC, not the player, who chooses which quests to complete, and the PC doesn't know there is a plot at all.  It's just his life.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Firky wrote...

Is that the quest with Hayder or whatever his name is? You can't progress without it? I don't recall that, but probably because I always did it.

It's right after you see her make her entrance in the Hanged Man. If you don't talk to her after the bar fight, you get no quest log about her. And if you try to progress the game to the Deep Roads, Bartrand will just say "Take care of any unfinished business" without any hint at all as to what you apparently need to do.

Also, quest failure as a mechanic ftw.

I wish we *could* fail more quests! Not railroad fail, but fail through actions or choices. It's getting like failure is becoming taboo in games -- much like an 'F' on a kid's report card was renamed from Fail to Further Education Needed or something. That'd mean more flags though. ;D

[Silfren]

brushyourteeth wrote...

I actually didn't even speak to Bartrand again until I had all the money.

"You want to be partners? Where are you going to get the money?"
"I have it right here."
"Oh."

I'm just saying that no game is a complete sandbox. Each has a story to tell. Refusing to complete main quests just doesn't make any sense to me. Unless you play like my mother-in-law and run around Fable 2 for hours on end farting in public and giving presents to village children.

I'm not sure what it is you're not understanding here.  The point being made is that the story could be better written to provide story-related reasons for Hawke to act as she does, rather than moving along a set path that requires meta-gaming from the player perspective.  

Some people meta-game and don't care about how logical or internally-consistent the story is, and that's fine for those players.  But what people are trying to explain to you is that some of us prefer to play out a STORY, one that is more fully realized from Hawke's perspective, rather than the player's.  The story should be written well enough that Hawke appears to be acting in accord with story-based reason and logic, and not have it so transparently obvious that she does them merely because the plot requires it.

[hussey 92]

In Origins you wernt required to battle for Redcliff. You had the option to leave and no one stopped you saying "arn't you forgeting something."
There was to much script in DA2 which you were required to follow.

[Face of Evil]

hussey 92 wrote...

In Origins you wernt required to battle for Redcliff. You had the option to leave and no one stopped you saying "arn't you forgeting something."

Uh … that's exactly what happened. Tomas, the fellow who guards the bridge, will in fact run up to you and say "Wait, where are you going?" Because if you leave, all the villagers are killed.

Modifié par Face of Evil, 25 mai 2012 - 02:24 .

[brushyourteeth]

Silfren wrote...

brushyourteeth wrote...

I actually didn't even speak to Bartrand again until I had all the money.

"You want to be partners? Where are you going to get the money?"
"I have it right here."
"Oh."

I'm just saying that no game is a complete sandbox. Each has a story to tell. Refusing to complete main quests just doesn't make any sense to me. Unless you play like my mother-in-law and run around Fable 2 for hours on end farting in public and giving presents to village children.

I'm not sure what it is you're not understanding here.  The point being made is that the story could be better written to provide story-related reasons for Hawke to act as she does, rather than moving along a set path that requires meta-gaming from the player perspective.  

Some people meta-game and don't care about how logical or internally-consistent the story is, and that's fine for those players.  But what people are trying to explain to you is that some of us prefer to play out a STORY, one that is more fully realized from Hawke's perspective, rather than the player's.  The story should be written well enough that Hawke appears to be acting in accord with story-based reason and logic, and not have it so transparently obvious that she does them merely because the plot requires it.

Your point makes absolutely perfect sense, Silfren. And I don't only understand it, I agree with it.

That's not everyone's point though. There are a few people that seem to be asking for... I'm not sure what exactly. For there to be no ultimate goal for the PC to achieve? No set milestones before the events of endgame? I remain confused about why that's better and how that would work. I appreciate the sincere attempt at clarification though. Thank you.

[hussey 92]

Face of Evil wrote...

hussey 92 wrote...

In Origins you wernt required to battle for Redcliff. You had the option to leave and no one stopped you saying "arn't you forgeting something."

Uh … that's exactly what happened. Tomas, the fellow who guards the bridge, will in fact run up to you and say "Wait, where are you going?" Because if you leave, all the villagers are killed.

yes, but you can still leave. 

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

brushyourteeth wrote...

That's not everyone's point though. There are a few people that seem to be asking for... I'm not sure what exactly. For there to be no ultimate goal for the PC to achieve? No set milestones before the events of endgame? I remain confused about why that's better and how that would work. I appreciate the sincere attempt at clarification though. Thank you.

To be honest, that's what some of the comments are sounding like to me as well. Not that milestones shouldn't make sense and be known without going meta, but: "What if I don't like this plot?"

Maybe the argument's about the main arc of Act I not being compelling enough? DA:O gives you no choice about being a Warden, but DA2 lets you foo-foo around on the pretense of gathering gold even if, as a PC, you never wanted to follow up with Bartrand after he told you to shove it. There is no urgency to the task either, unlike in Baldur's Gate 2 where the funds are theoretically going to help save a friend's life before she's turned into a vegetable. The Deep Roads expedition is largely a commercial endeavour. Even if it's to buy back your old family house, it's not exactly a thrilling venture on the surface.

[Silfren]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

brushyourteeth wrote...

That's not everyone's point though. There are a few people that seem to be asking for... I'm not sure what exactly. For there to be no ultimate goal for the PC to achieve? No set milestones before the events of endgame? I remain confused about why that's better and how that would work. I appreciate the sincere attempt at clarification though. Thank you.

To be honest, that's what some of the comments are sounding like to me as well. Not that milestones shouldn't make sense and be known without going meta, but: "What if I don't like this plot?"

Maybe the argument's about the main arc of Act I not being compelling enough? DA:O gives you no choice about being a Warden, but DA2 lets you foo-foo around on the pretense of gathering gold even if, as a PC, you never wanted to follow up with Bartrand after he told you to shove it. There is no urgency to the task either, unlike in Baldur's Gate 2 where the funds are theoretically going to help save a friend's life before she's turned into a vegetable. The Deep Roads expedition is largely a commercial endeavour. Even if it's to buy back your old family house, it's not exactly a thrilling venture on the surface.

It's little things like...if Hawke is  going to run around gathering gold, why does she not consider the option of using it to set sail back to Ferelden now that the Blight is over?  It was her home, and 50 gold is arguably enough money to get started in some place new.  Or anything else.   The issue is that the plot railroads you, but without providing a plausible reason for it. 

The Warden is railroaded into setting out to stop the Blight, and the obvious meta-reason is that if she were to just prance off, the game would be over.  However, the seriousness of the Blight provides ample reason for the railroading.  In all the origins, the Warden's life has been disrupted to the point where there's no going back.  Either your family is dead or you've been exiled, or if you stay home you face incarceration or execution, or a slow death.  So it isn't as though you want to not go on the quest to end the Blight because you'd rather stay home with your familiy.  That is no longer an option.  Going further, if your character is of an honorable alignment, they'll want to stop the Blight because it's the right thing to do.  If of a more selfish-bent, the character will be interested in the fame, fortune, prestige and influence that comes from being a national hero.  In ALL alignments, the character is able to grasp the fact that if the Blight is NOT stopped, it will kill you as surely as it kills everyone else, so even if you were not interested in fighting to say the day, you have a vested interest in doing so just out of self-preservation.

In short, there are numerous story-based reasons to provide for why the Warden fulfills the quest to end the Blight, and numerous ways of arriving at that conclusion. 

The biggest failing of DA2 is that it railroads you via Hawke without providing any story-based rationale for it. 

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Which is a fine argument, Silfen, and I'm not saying I disagree with you, but it's not what the OP was intending I think.

Sounds like he's said no to some queests but the game won't let him proceed until he does them anyway. Choice is nice and all, but if a game's going to railroad us into doing something then it should either not give us an option to refuse, find a solid reason for us to perform a task despite rejecting it, or have something happen whenever a quest is rejected thus treating 'no' as a legitimate answer with its own outcome.

Easier said than programmed though, I know.

[SuicidalBaby]

thats1evildude wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

My Hawke hadn't even agreed, at that point, to go on Bartrand's expedition.  I hadn't spoken to Bartrand again since meeting Varric.

Jesus ****ing Christ. I'm half-tempted to ask you exactly what your Hawke was up to in Act 1 since the motivation for going on the expedition is laid out at the start, but I know the answer will only confound and infuriate me. Why do you even play RPGs? You'd be much happier playing out your weird little fantasies with action figures. At least then you'd get absolute control over their dialogue and motivations.

I can make it real easy for you.

Arguing with Sylvius using what are now conventions of a RPG isn't really useful because he sees most of them as mistakes.

It's his signature. 
He also makes perfect sense.  Your blinders merely prevent you from percieving it.

[Silfren]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

Which is a fine argument, Silfen, and I'm not saying I disagree with you, but it's not what the OP was intending I think.

Sounds like he's said no to some queests but the game won't let him proceed until he does them anyway. Choice is nice and all, but if a game's going to railroad us into doing something then it should either not give us an option to refuse, find a solid reason for us to perform a task despite rejecting it, or have something happen whenever a quest is rejected thus treating 'no' as a legitimate answer with its own outcome.

Easier said than programmed though, I know.

I'm a little confused as to your purpose in suggesting I'm wrong about the OP's intention, because the point you went on to make is EXACTLY the same one I was making: DA2 should have been written so that the railroading made sense from a story perspective.  All those things ARE possible, and HAVE been done, they aren't any harder to program than any other facet of the game's mechanics.  There are right ways to implement "But Thou Must" and DA2 didn't employ them. 

It does NOT make sense to say no to a quest only to have the game regard your "no" as a "yes."  Seriously, the game totally goes the "No Means Yes," route.  If the plot required Hawke to do a quest, the story should have--and absolutely COULD HAVE--been written to accommodate it without all of Hawke's "no, I refuse to do this," being interpreted as "Sure, I'll get right on it."

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Yeah, at this point I think I've just confused myself. You'd think I'd have learned by now not to post to forums right after waking up. >.<

[Jonathan Seagull]

I absolutely agree that DA2 railroads you a little too often without proper justification.  The oft-cited Blackpowder Promise might be the worst, because I don't think it gives you any reason at all.  You just can't move on without finishing it, but you're never told why.  I think your companions will mention it if you talk to Bartrand, but no one ever says why I need to do it, possible financial incentives aside.

Now, just to clear up something:

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

Firky wrote...

Is that the quest with Hayder or whatever his name is? You can't progress without it? I don't recall that, but probably because I always did it.

It's right after you see her make her entrance in the Hanged Man. If you don't talk to her after the bar fight, you get no quest log about her. And if you try to progress the game to the Deep Roads, Bartrand will just say "Take care of any unfinished business" without any hint at all as to what you apparently need to do.

Are you sure you didn't have something else left to do as well?  Because you definitely do not need to do anything with Isabela to progress the main plot.  In fact in my third playthrough I never even spoke to her.  While you'll always see her if you enter the Hanged Man after a certain point in Act I, she is completely optional to the game, just like Fenris.

[robertthebard]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

My Hawke was investigating his options.

I could just as well ask you why you blindly follow along. Why did your Hawke agree to Varric's plan without first investigating whether it was feasible? Did you consider the possible consequences of promising to raise funds for Bartrand and then failing? I suspect you didn't, because it never occurred to you that you might fail. You know you're playing a game, and you know failure isn't at all likely. But your Hawke didn't know that. He should have considered the possibility of failure.

I agreed to Varric's plan because either I'm a mage, and I need coin/status to hide behind, or my sister is, and she needs that shield.  What about the life of an adventurer isn't risk?  Do you expect that the money you need to improve your lot in life is just going to walk up and say "here ya' go, here's all the money you need"?  You talk about metagaming, but keep calling everything quests.  Did it ever occur to you that people are trying to give you jobs?  There is no Welfare line in DA, you're going to have to work for your coin, and they don't have a McDonald's, and it's fairly obvious that you can't live in mom's basement and let her take care of everything for you.

[Ryzaki]

Only problem with that whole theory is that DAO laughs at the whole "you can hide behind coin and status." bit. All mages go to the circle. Rich or no.

[Face of Evil]

Ryzaki wrote...

Only problem with that whole theory is that DAO laughs at the whole "you can hide behind coin and status." bit. All mages go to the circle. Rich or no.

How so? As I recall, there was one sidequest where you bribe a templar to ignore the Mages' Collective. Had Isolde hired a more scrupulous assassin to tutor her son, then Connor could have avoided detection theoretically forever. (The whole "abomination" thing kinda nixed that.)

Modifié par Face of Evil, 26 mai 2012 - 05:48 .

[Ryzaki]

Face of Evil wrote...

How so? As I recall, there was one sidequest where you bribe a templar to ignore the Mages' Collective. Had Isolde hired a more scrupulous assassin to tutor her son, then Connor could have avoided detection theoretically forever. (The whole "abomination" thing kinda nixed that.)

One templar being brided to ignore the mage collective. Is just well one. That and corruption is everywhere. Not to mention Emile de Launcet. If someone far enough the chain figures out someone's a mage they're going to the circle. Doesn't matter if they're noble.

And yeah theoretically is the key. He could've become an abomination anyway, someone else could've found out and Connor could've ended up dead/in the circle regardless. There's a bunch of ifs in that sentence.

In the case of Bethany and Hawke. They had been throwing their magic around and several people already knew they were a mage. I'm surprised it takes Meredith so long to realize Hawke/Bethany's an apostate. Someone clearly wasn't doing their job. Then again...these are the same geniuses who know where an abomination is and do nothing so why am I surprised.

Modifié par Ryzaki, 26 mai 2012 - 05:54 .

[Face of Evil]

Ryzaki wrote...

One templar being brided to ignore the mage collective. Is just well one. That and corruption is everywhere. Not to mention Emile de Launcet. If someone far enough the chain figures out someone's a mage they're going to the circle. Doesn't matter if they're noble.

You need only find one unscrupulous templar high enough in the chain of command to dispel suspicion.

You pointed out Emile de Launcet, but what about Gascard? He was a blood mage and managed to get the templars off his back by pressuring Meredith. She even apologizes to him via letter. And in fact, Hawke dodges arrest by the templars when they come to haul away Bethany due to his/her connections.

[TEWR]

Ryzaki wrote...

Only problem with that whole theory is that DAO laughs at the whole "you can hide behind coin and status." bit. All mages go to the circle. Rich or no.

I don't know how valid this is. Eamon was bound by his honor, ethics, morality, and whatever else and would've sent Connor to the Circle.

That doesn't mean a rich mage can't stay out of the Circle. That just means a rich mage who is the son of a guy bound by his honor and whatnot can't stay out of the Circle.

Now sure, all mages should receive training at the Circles. But that doesn't mean rich mages can't stay out of the Circle. Leandra wouldn't have proposed the idea of the estate and the money if it wasn't possible at all.

That means that sometime in history, it's probably happened before.

Now sure, the Templars don't actually notice Hawke's magehood, but that's another issue. That's just bad game design.

Ryzaki wrote...

One templar being brided to ignore the mage collective. Is just well one.

It was a Knight-Commander.

[LobselVith8]

Gascard hid his magical heritage; Hawke didn't. That Is the central issue. Hawke and Carver can even discuss his apostate status right in front of a templar.

[Ryzaki]

Face of Evil wrote...

Ryzaki wrote...

One templar being brided to ignore the mage collective. Is just well one. That and corruption is everywhere. Not to mention Emile de Launcet. If someone far enough the chain figures out someone's a mage they're going to the circle. Doesn't matter if they're noble.

You need only find one unscrupulous templar high enough in the chain of command to dispel suspicion.

You pointed out Emile de Launcet, but what about Gascard? He was a blood mage and managed to get the templars off his back by pressuring Meredith. She even apologizes to him via letter. And in fact, Hawke dodges arrest by the templars when they come to haul away Bethany due to his/her connections.

Point.

I have no idea how he managed to get Meredith of all people off his back. (And actually Hawke doesn't dodge arrest because of connections at all in my game. Only reason they're not arrested is because Bethany went along peacefully).

Also what the poster above me said.

@Eternal: Leandra doesn't exactly seem the sharpest knife in the rack to me willingly going to Kirkwall of all places with an apostate child. Especially once she realized there was no wealth to shield them. It's boggling that Hawke/Bethany don't get hauled off to the circle as soon as she blasts magic infront of those guards.

Modifié par Ryzaki, 26 mai 2012 - 07:30 .