338 réponses à ce sujet

[Cimeas]

 There is a colossal problem in Bioware games.   It is that the 'choice' between an objectively bad ending, and an objectively good one isn't a choice at all. 

Example: ME2

Remember Mass Effect 2?  Bioware wanted you to lose someone.  They wanted the ending to be 'bittersweet', rather than triumphant.  Even if you did all the loyalty missions, you might see Kelly die, or send the wrong person down the vents, or pick a wrong leader.   The reality though, was simple:  ANYONE who actually gave a **** about the franchise paused the game, opened their internet browser, and googled 'suicide mission guide', and got everyone out.    Perhaps they even spoiled some of the game in the process.

And so in the end, Bioware's attempt to add emotional salt to the game failed miserably, since any player who actually cared made damn sure they didn't lose a single person, and as such the ending was the triumph the developers wanted to avoid.

Example II:  NWN2

This isn't actually a Bioware game (it's by Obsidian) but it's got an especially ridiculous version of this problem. The game is about tough choices in a strange and cruel world, and as such has no default good ending, but of course, if you collect all three pieces of a mysterious mask that requires a method so obscure you would almost NEVER come across it without a guide, you get the perfect happy ending.  Once again, any sense of 'tough choices' destroyed.

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And so when I heard that instead of saving the town or the keep (or whatever it was), you can, "if you try really hard", save everyone, I rolled my eyes.   OF COURSE 95% of players (yes a made up statistic) will just google 'how to save everyone at keep dai" and follow the instructions- ruining your carefully constructed tragedy completely.

Once again, unless you are roleplaying a moron (which I'd wager most people are not), you are ALWAYS going to want to save everyone and pick the best options.  Even if people die, surely you'd rather they die at your hands than be killed by someone (or something) else.  

In essence, you cannot say "choose between something that sucks, and the good ending", and expect players to settle for the bad one.  It just doesn't work.

[Iakus]

Not everyone spoils themselves with strategy guides, you know.

Some people, if they screw up, simply not that and go "Next playthrough I'll try something else"

[caradoc2000]

And you couldn't save everyone in DA2, even with a guide.

[InfinitePaths]

Agreed OP!

[Knight of Dane]

And some of us just reload so we don't have to cry :')

[Sol Downer]

"Nobody should live because guides exist" is what I'm drawing from this. I don't care about the guides, so if the player spoils themselves then that's their problem. Why does it bother you?

[Blackrising]

And what's wrong with that?
I like happiness.

[DaringMoosejaw]

Ultimashade wrote...

"Nobody should live because guides exist" is what I'm drawing from this. I don't care about the guides, so if the player spoils themselves then that's their problem. Why does it bother you?

Exactly. I, for one, felt you had to put in enough effort into getting everyone to live (doing all the loyalty quests, picking the right leaders) that I felt awesome that all the time I put into it paid off. It didn't seem cheap to me at all. If anything, most of the mandatory character deaths don't have the meaning to me the writers were attempting to impart because it feels just like that - mandatory. Whoops, he's dead. Oh well, couldn't have done anything about it anyway.

[Challseus]

Cimeas wrote...

...ANYONE who actually gave a **** about the franchise paused the game, opened their internet browser, and googled 'suicide mission guide', and got everyone out. 

I give a **** about the franchise, and I never once went with a walkthrough. I made my decisions, and I lived by them.

*Shrugs*

[Angrywolves]

and what does this have to do with DAI ?
What happened in the other games, where it is written that someone must die, is largely irrelevant as far as DAI is concerned .
The OP posted this in the wrong forum.

[Navasha]

Well, that's largely you describing yourself I believe, not so much everyone else. I actually roleplayed my characters. My bloodmage playthrough chose options that specifically sounded like she was out for her own power. My casteless dwarf in DA:O hated anything to do with magic and in particular tried to aggravate people in conversations. Sure, my dalish rogue pretty much played the all-caring noble goal-oriented type.

Choices were made on how my specific character would have chosen, not based on some meta-gaming walkthrough guide. Why would people use those anyway?

There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play. Its the telling of a story and it doesn't make much sense if all your character regardless of their personality always choose the same way. One of the best moments in DA:O was when Leliana and Wynne turned on me. It was unexpected and thrilling.

[Maria Caliban]

Cimeas wrote...

 There is a colossal problem in Bioware games.   It is that the 'choice' between an objectively bad ending, and an objectively good one isn't a choice at all. 

Yes it is. *Sometimes* one choice is better than the others.

[DarkKnightHolmes]

Why do you care so much about other people's playthrough?

If you want some bittersweet game than play it that way in your playthrough and let those who want a happier game play it their way.

[Lord Issa]

I actually love this, because it lets the player decide what they want from their game. Want a perfect 'happy ever after'? Use a guide. Want a bittersweet game? Go in blind. Everyone happy.

[JCAP]

OP, you are missing a really important point:

Consulting guides is cheating, and if a person wants to cheat, IT'S HIS PROBLEM, not ours.

When they cheat, they are ruining their experiences, not anyone else. Why would you care about their experiences? Worse, why do you want to censor happy endings just because "most" people cheat? It's their problem. Not ours.


I like happy endings. I like the feeling that I done everything right. In Mass Effect 2, for example, I failed to save normandy crew. So I tried again, made every loyalty mission as soon as possible, only recruited after those... Didn't use any guide.

Modifié par JCAP, 31 août 2013 - 10:33 .

[DaringMoosejaw]

Filament wrote...

How dare you besmirch Mask of the Betrayer. I like that you get the best ending by recovering all the fragments of Akachi's soul. Get out of here.

Ah, Mask of the Betrayer. There was something otherworldly about that game's atmosphere I just loved. Can't really find it anywhere else. Storms of Zehir was an incredible disappointment compared to that.

[Captain Obvious]

I just don't want there to be this 100 % morally "good" decision and 100 % morally "bad" decision. The game should allow the players to decide which decision is morally good or bad for themselves.

[AllThatJazz]

What if you are roleplaying a character a who doesn't give a rat's arse about a village full of civilians? What if you are playing a character who is prepared to sacrifice soldiers for wounded non combatants? What if you are playing a character who wants to bust a gut to save as many as possible? I've played all three types, and in DA:O there were ways to accommodate all of them, which was a good thing. I didn't do the same thing every single time simply because I could, because that seems an odd thing to do from an RP perspective. Your OP suggests that you seem to find only grimdark binary 'either/or' options acceptable. I disagree.

[Maverick827]

As many options should be available as possible. The "perfect" options just can't obviously better. For instance, if during the Redcliff/Connor decision they stressed a little bit more that traveling to the Tower might take too long, then I think it would have been better. You can then just avoid the "perfect" options and not feel evil for doing so, because even though from a metagaming perspective you know that the "risk" of traveling to the Tower (or whatever the case may be) is just an artificial pretense, your character doesn't.

Modifié par Maverick827, 31 août 2013 - 10:44 .