11 réponses à ce sujet

[aaronil]

I wanted to give Dragon Age 2 a second chance so I am playing thru it again. This time around I've confirmed my gut feeling that there are many scenes where the dialogue choices you make have no bearing on the scene's outcome. In other words, it don't matter what you say or do.
Point in case: Ser Varnell's refuge. No matter what dialogue options you choose, the same thing happens. Qunari are killed and a fight ensues. The same sort of thing happens a lot in the game, such as during the quest to find Hawke's mother, but the "plot railroad" was just so apparent in the Ser Varnell quest, that it's still fresh in my mind.
I realize now this is the #1 reason why I grew impatient with DA2: There is lots of dialogue which presents the (poor) illusion of choice without giving you any actual influence over the story. I sincerely hope the devs/writers provide meaningful dialogue options with real choices and ability to change a scene's outcome in the next iteration of DA.

[Wulfram]

"Meaningless" dialogue options are valuable and important. They contribute to the PC personality.

Of course you need a decent number of "meaningful" dialogue options too.

[aaronil]

I didn't get that as an option because I didn't click "angry" button enough? Makes no sense.
But what I really wanted to do was save the Qunari. And ideally to sneak in and take Varnell alive for interrogation. I get that a crpg can't do all of that all the time, but at least an option that saved the Qunari woulda been nice.

[Jonathan Seagull]

aaronil wrote...

I didn't get that as an option because I didn't click "angry" button enough? Makes no sense.

The logic is presumably that a Hawke who is generally more diplomatic or sarcastic does not come off aggressively enough to convince Varnell that you are genuinely anti-Qunari.  I have mixed feelings on this.  On the one hand, I think it's neat that different options open up for different personalities.  Having said that, in this case I feel that it should probably be available to everyone.  You could, after all, play a character who speaks very diplomatically but would still want to side against the Qunari.

So I think it's a good idea in theory, and I get the reasoning in this case, but I think I'd have preferred if that particular choice weren't tied to that mechanic.

[robertthebard]

Jonathan Seagull wrote...

aaronil wrote...

I didn't get that as an option because I didn't click "angry" button enough? Makes no sense.

The logic is presumably that a Hawke who is generally more diplomatic or sarcastic does not come off aggressively enough to convince Varnell that you are genuinely anti-Qunari.  I have mixed feelings on this.  On the one hand, I think it's neat that different options open up for different personalities.  Having said that, in this case I feel that it should probably be available to everyone.  You could, after all, play a character who speaks very diplomatically but would still want to side against the Qunari.

So I think it's a good idea in theory, and I get the reasoning in this case, but I think I'd have preferred if that particular choice weren't tied to that mechanic.

It's this, really, and it makes perfect sense.  If somebody is diplomatic all the time, then nobody is going to take any other response seriously.  A mousey person is mousey, no matter how forceful they try to come across.  This is conveyed in the dialog options, and it works all three ways.  If you rarely take the sarcasm route, it seems like it goes over the heads of the people you're talking to.

By this stage, however, even saving the Qunari isn't going to accomplish anything.  They have already been taken, damage done.  I'm currently running a more forceful Hawke, and I'm curious to see how that scene plays out.  Getting me to side with them by this stage is going to be a hard sell, however, since they've already tried to get me killed once.

[SiIencE]

There's alot of dialogues that 'don't make sense' and in case you haven't noticed nothing really matters it all ends the same only difference is with how many people.

[robertthebard]

SiIencE wrote...

There's alot of dialogues that 'don't make sense' and in case you haven't noticed nothing really matters it all ends the same only difference is with how many people.

Kind of like every game that actually has a final conflict for the end?  In my first two playthroughs, I had my whole party, except for Isabela because the second time I messed up with the relic on accident, where I did it on purpose the first time, and I did Templars the first time, and mages the second time.  So if I had chosen differently on one of my 20 or 30 playthroughs in Origins I could have gotten out of fighting the Archdemon?

[ImperialHeir]

Filament wrote...

There is an option for aggressive personality Hawkes to side with Varnell and fight the qunari instead.

The problem being all my agressive Hawkes want to brutally murder Petrice under the cover of night. When the Qunari got a headshot on the B****, I had the mental image of my Hawkes high fiving him. Just like my Hawkes did when the useless Elthina got blown. 

[TJX2045]

robertthebard wrote...

SiIencE wrote...

There's alot of dialogues that 'don't make sense' and in case you haven't noticed nothing really matters it all ends the same only difference is with how many people.

Kind of like every game that actually has a final conflict for the end?  In my first two playthroughs, I had my whole party, except for Isabela because the second time I messed up with the relic on accident, where I did it on purpose the first time, and I did Templars the first time, and mages the second time.  So if I had chosen differently on one of my 20 or 30 playthroughs in Origins I could have gotten out of fighting the Archdemon?

To be honest, I think the game could've ended in different ways.

For instance, instead of Anders blowing up the Chantry if you romance him, have Merrill or Orsino or some other mage blow it up.  That would be interesting.  Or if you romanced Merrill, then Anders or the others blow it up, etc.

Maybe if you have high persuasion or Hawke is very diplomatic or has done something very good in the Grand Cleric's eyes and been very supportive of her, she could have left and gone into hiding to protect herself.

I mean, look at the Landsmeet scene in DAO.  That played out in so many different ways.  When I was replaying the game recently I actually got one outcome where more people sided with Loghain (which shocked the hell out of me and made me reload the game and be a bit more political).  
My canon playthrough got the good outcome originally in my very first playthrough years ago.  There are so many ways that it could play out.

Saying "Anders HAD to be the one to blow up the Chantry" is like saying "Anora HAD to be on the throne in all the consequences."  My Human Noble Warden Queen and my soon to be King Human Noble Warden makes that obviously not the case.

Modifié par TJX2045, 30 mai 2012 - 07:24 .

[Swordfishtrombone]

TJX2045 wrote...

To be honest, I think the game could've ended in different ways.

For instance, instead of Anders blowing up the Chantry if you romance him, have Merrill or Orsino or some other mage blow it up.  That would be interesting.  Or if you romanced Merrill, then Anders or the others blow it up, etc.

While I agree with you that there should have been multiple paths to the ending outcome, having anyone but Anders blow up the Chantry would have been... odd. After all, Anders' character is built up throughout the story to have a motive to do something so drastic. Why on EARTH would Merrill have blown up the Chantry? She mostly concerns herself with the recovery of lost dalish history, and her involvement with the chantry or circle mages is about as close to zero as you can imagine.

Orsino would have made just a tad more sense, though it too would have been an ill fit, unless the character was pretty thoroughly rewritten. Orsino clearly respects the grand cleric, and his problem is with Meredith's dragonian rule, not the existence of the circles themselves.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Swordfishtrombone wrote...

TJX2045 wrote...

To be honest, I think the game could've ended in different ways.

For instance, instead of Anders blowing up the Chantry if you romance him, have Merrill or Orsino or some other mage blow it up.  That would be interesting.  Or if you romanced Merrill, then Anders or the others blow it up, etc.

While I agree with you that there should have been multiple paths to the ending outcome, having anyone but Anders blow up the Chantry would have been... odd. After all, Anders' character is built up throughout the story to have a motive to do something so drastic. Why on EARTH would Merrill have blown up the Chantry? She mostly concerns herself with the recovery of lost dalish history, and her involvement with the chantry or circle mages is about as close to zero as you can imagine.

Orsino would have made just a tad more sense, though it too would have been an ill fit, unless the character was pretty thoroughly rewritten. Orsino clearly respects the grand cleric, and his problem is with Meredith's dragonian rule, not the existence of the circles themselves.

I don't see Orsino fitting as a mad bomber.

Then again I thought the whole "Lolz we're holding them off but I'm depressed so I'm gonna turn myself into a monster so you can stomp me" bit was lame so what do I know...