42 réponses à ce sujet

[Archyyy]

Agree. There need to be choices that seriously **** things up. The reapers or the darkspawn win or you crew and friends die for example. Knowing that youll win anyways like with DA:O really takes away from the experience.

Modifié par Archyyy, 12 novembre 2012 - 12:21 .

[sully.nathan]

I support this. I think Witcher 2 does this right like when you meet Iorveth for the first time and call him a human killer he tells his other elves to arrow you to death. Or in the beginning if you attack Roche his assistant kills you with a crossbow.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

philippe willaume wrote...

MichaelStuart wrote...

I support choices that get you killed

+1

IIRC the devs think doing this is a waste of time because (the vast majority of) people will just reload.

And probably complain.

(If I'd slapped away the Joining Cup and gotten stabbed in DA:O? Reload, probably, but definitely not complain. That would have been awesome.)

[RosaAquafire]

I feel the opposite of this. There should never be one choice that's right and one choice that's wrong.

I think if you're just asking for choices that cause bad things to happen, well, there are. You quote siding with the werewolves over the elves? Well, Varathorn is the only vendor in DA:O that sells unlimited elfroot, which puts a hard cap on the amount of potions you can craft in the game. Bam, consequence for making a choice. I'm okay with this -- so long as everything is balanced and one choice doesn't lead to a good thing happening while another leads to a bad thing happening.

What happens when you put crap like this in a game is that people either feel cheated for getting duped -- consequences should be clearly laid out or it feels like you're getting a fast one pulled on you -- or they just reload their save to do it "right," which is silly and not helpful.

More consequences for choices, negative or otherwise? Yes. More "lose scenario" choices? No, opposite of good.

[SeptimusMagistos]

sully.nathan wrote...

I support this. I think Witcher 2 does this right like when you meet Iorveth for the first time and call him a human killer he tells his other elves to arrow you to death. Or in the beginning if you attack Roche his assistant kills you with a crossbow.

No. That's stupid. I had a feat that let me deflect projectiles and I could have taken any of those guys. Choices that force you to have an additional fight are fine. Choices that try to force consequences you can't resist aren't.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Obviously the consequences should make sense. Being able to deflect arrows would logically counter insta-death by arrows, I agree.

I can't think of many RPGs that cater to a variety of death scenarios, however. That's more the province of Adventure Games like King's Quest, where you pretty much learn by dying..

[Zkyire]

MichaelStuart wrote...

I support choices that get you killed

I like what they did with Suikoden V in that regard (get greedy for more personal power too early and you get screwed over and killed - game over).

But realistically.. what's the point? If your character dies, it's game over, meaning people will just reload the last save and not make that choice ever again.

[Iosev]

I like The Witcher 2, but I do not like the choices that result in your character's death. All it does is force me to reload the game, which pulls me out of the experience.

[KNIGHTMARE170]

I agree and disagree. I disagree in that, in Origins, you can make such craptastic choices that you could end up ruining the lives of entire races. I agree in that if you tell Sten to lob off Leliana's head and hang Howe's son, they are alive in the sequel anyway.

[AppealToReason]

Then people will flood BSN complaining about how the choice with an impact they made didn't turn out at face value like they thought it would and that shouldn't happen because they shouldn't be penalized for making decisions.

[Sable Rhapsody]

Zkyire wrote...
But realistically.. what's the point? If your character dies, it's game over, meaning people will just reload the last save and not make that choice ever again.

I'm all for the occasional silly non-standard game over (ie; Morinth in ME2) but I agree for the most part.  If a decision leads to insta-death, all you do is reload.  It practically enforces metagaming.

I AM ok with certain decisions being less optimal than others if there's reason behind it.  For example, in ME3 it's pretty apparent that the Reaper-constructed rachni queen is absolutely off her rocker and saving her is a terrible idea.  If you wanna do it anyway, that's your problem.  But it doesn't cause a game-over.  It just affects other things in the game negatively (in this case, EMS).  Going all the way back to BG2, siding with Bodhi's vampires should set off warning flags from Athkatla to the Spine of the World.  That kind of stuff is fine.

What's not fine is arbitrarily deciding one choice should be punishing without a decent reason why.  I understand RL doesn't always make sense either, but this is a video game.  If we're to be making decisions about our characters and the world, we'll need at least some information.

Modifié par Sable Rhapsody, 12 novembre 2012 - 11:56 .

[esper]

Sable Rhapsody wrote...

Zkyire wrote...
But realistically.. what's the point? If your character dies, it's game over, meaning people will just reload the last save and not make that choice ever again.

I'm all for the occasional silly non-standard game over (ie; Morinth in ME2) but I agree for the most part.  If a decision leads to insta-death, all you do is reload.  It practically enforces metagaming.

I AM ok with certain decisions being less optimal than others if there's reason behind it.  For example, in ME3 it's pretty apparent that the Reaper-constructed rachni queen is absolutely off her rocker and saving her is a terrible idea.  If you wanna do it anyway, that's your problem.  But it doesn't cause a game-over.  It just affects other things in the game negatively (in this case, EMS).  Going all the way back to BG2, siding with Bodhi's vampires should set off warning flags from Athkatla to the Spine of the World.  That kind of stuff is fine.

What's not fine is arbitrarily deciding one choice should be punishing without a decent reason why.  I understand RL doesn't always make sense either, but this is a video game.  If we're to be making decisions about our characters and the world, we'll need at least some information.

Agree with much off what you said and there are other things to consider too.
On or two choices that lead to certain death like Morinth is all right, because really you were warned. But too many instant-death choices and it's just another kind of railroading. One often coupled with cut-scene depower because had it not been a cutscene you could have survived.

[Lotion Soronarr]

PsychoBlonde wrote...
And before you charge off claiming this isn't what you actually meant, it clearly is because Hawke "fails" (as in, fails to accomplish his/her nominal "goals") many times.  Leandra dies.  Bethany or Carver leave the family one way or another.  The Qunari delegates die.  Marethari dies.  Anders blows up the Chantry.  So clearly this kind of nominal failure (where you get an undesired outcome) is not what you're talking about.  You're talking about scattering moments throughout the story where things just randomly terminate and boot you out.

All the things you mention have something in common - they are not a product of player choice, they are unavoidable and they have no real impact on the storyline.

[Halberd96]

The Dwarven subplot in Dragon Age: Origins where you have to decide over supporting Bhelen or Harrowmont did this well.

Harrowmont was a better person with better principles but he was still the worst choice out of the two for Orzammar at least according to the epilogue.

I think they could have explained this better in game though. I felt that there wasn't enough exposition on what Bhelen and Harrowmont's goals were.

Then again I've only played 100% of DA:O once, I was so overwhelmed by the lore and world of Dragon Age in my first playthrough that I probably missed a lot. I didn't even read the codex in my first playthrough which I kind of regret now.

[Wulfram]

Not being ever able to make a choice in dialogue that will cause genuine problems is a bad thing. There should be occasions when you do need to watch your words, and shouldn't be able to get out of it by just slaughtering everything.

On the other hand, I dislike gotchas. The downsides should be at least be reasonably foreseeable as a risk, not as a certainty.

And if you're trying to set up an "evil but brilliant" vs "good but weak" choice, please try to actually show the evil guy as actually somewhat competent, rather than expecting us to just assume his competence from his transparent villainy.

[Gtdef]

Sounds extremely stupid to me (no offense, just my opinion). The point is that if the hero can overcome the odds, he will emerge victorious. If you want something more realistic, everytime you die, delete the saves and start a new game, because you died, it's over. Your decision to pick a fight, or the scripted trap that oneshots you if you dont put the runes in the right order resulted in your death. There you have it. Make your death gamechanging instead of asking of the developer to change the game if you made some bad decisions.

Also if you are playing on a low difficulty, a wrong choice that can turn into a fight is usually nothing. But a higher difficulty fight in some games can be extremely frustrating. For example starting mark of assassin early without good gear  and the wrong party, makes the wyvern fight IMPOSSIBLE and the altar quest undeadmage thing oneshots the whole party with the aoe spell. Personally I did it with anders, isabela, tallis and a rogue hawke. The wyvern was oneshotting the whole party and since everyone was melee, there was no way to kite it. So I just turned it down to casual after 10 tries and facerolled the fight. I dont thing that a rpg game needs anything else than that. I was effectively locked out of the game as long as I did that fight on nightmare mode.

The point of playing a hero, an extraordinary character, is that you succeed. ME3 ending with the war effort thingy was actually perfect in that regard. You couldnt get enough allies, the earth burned because the device was damaged. Billions of people died due to your bad decisions. You destroyed the reapers, but at what cost.

Edit:
Since the topic is what it is, I have a suggestion. If the castle in DAI is going to be under attack at some point, make it so that if the hero made a lot of bad choices, the last battle to be extremely difficult, with vastly overwhelming enemies, perhaps even locked at a higher difficulty so you wont be able to turn it down to casual and overpower everything. Not a scripted death, but perhaps locking the game since you just wont be able to win.

Modifié par Gtdef, 12 novembre 2012 - 03:41 .

[philippe willaume]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

philippe willaume wrote...

MichaelStuart wrote...

I support choices that get you killed

+1

IIRC the devs think doing this is a waste of time because (the vast majority of) people will just reload.

And probably complain.

(If I'd slapped away the Joining Cup and gotten stabbed in DA:O? Reload, probably, but definitely not complain. That would have been awesome.)

yeap
i like the 4th option in ME3.
that being said as Esper and other have said, if it that choice is used to rall road you, you effectively have no-choice.
besides bad choice can be used to make you situation worse harder combat or more animosity with a faction.
it does not have to kill you out right.

phil

[TJPags]

Gtdef wrote...

Sounds extremely stupid to me (no offense, just my opinion). The point is that if the hero can overcome the odds, he will emerge victorious. If you want something more realistic, everytime you die, delete the saves and start a new game, because you died, it's over. Your decision to pick a fight, or the scripted trap that oneshots you if you dont put the runes in the right order resulted in your death. There you have it. Make your death gamechanging instead of asking of the developer to change the game if you made some bad decisions.

Also if you are playing on a low difficulty, a wrong choice that can turn into a fight is usually nothing. But a higher difficulty fight in some games can be extremely frustrating. For example starting mark of assassin early without good gear  and the wrong party, makes the wyvern fight IMPOSSIBLE and the altar quest undeadmage thing oneshots the whole party with the aoe spell. Personally I did it with anders, isabela, tallis and a rogue hawke. The wyvern was oneshotting the whole party and since everyone was melee, there was no way to kite it. So I just turned it down to casual after 10 tries and facerolled the fight. I dont thing that a rpg game needs anything else than that. I was effectively locked out of the game as long as I did that fight on nightmare mode.

The point of playing a hero, an extraordinary character, is that you succeed. ME3 ending with the war effort thingy was actually perfect in that regard. You couldnt get enough allies, the earth burned because the device was damaged. Billions of people died due to your bad decisions. You destroyed the reapers, but at what cost.

Edit:
Since the topic is what it is, I have a suggestion. If the castle in DAI is going to be under attack at some point, make it so that if the hero made a lot of bad choices, the last battle to be extremely difficult, with vastly overwhelming enemies, perhaps even locked at a higher difficulty so you wont be able to turn it down to casual and overpower everything. Not a scripted death, but perhaps locking the game since you just wont be able to win.

Its the bolded part that I, and I think most people in favor of it, want.

No, we're not talking instadeath wrong choice - as example, someone mentioned refusing the joining, getting knifed.  That's certainly not what I'M after.

I also don't think the Harrowmount/Bhelen issue satisfies me.  People base that on the epilogue slides, and so far as that goes, I can't disagree with it.  But epilogue slides don't impact the game while I'm actually playing it, and BW doesn't count epilogue slides - they are rumor and hearsay, and as we've seen, can be proven inaccurate, if not a downright lie.

What I want is to make a character who you can lose indispensible to a certain outcome . . . .example, if you don't recruit Ohgren - or maybe if you DO - it makes it impossible to obtain Dwarven support in DA:O.  Or maybe losing Morrigan completely cuts off the Dark Sacrifice option. 

I want something that has actual, serious effects for how the game proceeds, ends, etc.  Not just something that determines if I get a sword or gold as my reward.