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[Steelcan]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

What I meant in regards to ME is how no matter what you pick events play out the same.

In DA:O saving the anvil had tangible in game benefits, summoning golems to break darkspawn into little bits.  Your companions reacted to it and told you their thoughts.  You then had that choice tying into the choice of monarch for Orzammar for bonus boints in the epilogue.

Compare that to saving the Collector base, three lines of dialogue are changed, four if you do a certain side mission, and 10 arbitrary points.  The story is not affected in any meaningful way, either way Cerberus becomes super-powerful and indoctrinated.

That's fair and it's a perfectly valid criticism.  I was more addressing the idea that because you could compensate with multiplayer, the choices were effectively meaningless.

But if that's the case, then any alternative path that takes you to the same place is a meaningless choice, and I don't think people actually believe that (most of our conversations are small branches that return to the same place shortly afterward, and I don't think people would prefer that we just have a single dialogue choice or would consider it equivalent to only having a single dialogue choice)

Well MP affecting SP progression is a whole other can of worms, and it is one I hope the DA:I team stays far away from.

I don't think anyone is saying that each indicidual conversation needs to hae vast and far reaching consequences.  That's obviously not a possibility.

Overall I guess I'm just expressing my desire for  DA:I to stick to DA:O styled choices, ones that are meant to affect the current game in meaningful ways.  DA2 is best left forgotten in this context.  The Witcher (2) also had great choice and consequence.

I need to stop com paring DA to ME don't I.....

[masster blaster]

Steelcan wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

What I meant in regards to ME is how no matter what you pick events play out the same.

In DA:O saving the anvil had tangible in game benefits, summoning golems to break darkspawn into little bits.  Your companions reacted to it and told you their thoughts.  You then had that choice tying into the choice of monarch for Orzammar for bonus boints in the epilogue.

Compare that to saving the Collector base, three lines of dialogue are changed, four if you do a certain side mission, and 10 arbitrary points.  The story is not affected in any meaningful way, either way Cerberus becomes super-powerful and indoctrinated.

That's fair and it's a perfectly valid criticism.  I was more addressing the idea that because you could compensate with multiplayer, the choices were effectively meaningless.

But if that's the case, then any alternative path that takes you to the same place is a meaningless choice, and I don't think people actually believe that (most of our conversations are small branches that return to the same place shortly afterward, and I don't think people would prefer that we just have a single dialogue choice or would consider it equivalent to only having a single dialogue choice)

Well MP affecting SP progression is a whole other can of worms, and it is one I hope the DA:I team stays far away from.

I don't think anyone is saying that each indicidual conversation needs to hae vast and far reaching consequences.  That's obviously not a possibility.

Overall I guess I'm just expressing my desire for  DA:I to stick to DA:O styled choices, ones that are meant to affect the current game in meaningful ways.  DA2 is best left forgotten in this context.  The Witcher (2) also had great choice and consequence.

I need to stop com paring DA to ME don't I.....

It's a habit Steel XD yet so many people on here do and else where.

And yes they should stay away from mp affecting sp to say at least, though for ME it was reasonable to some degree. However Dragon Age: I can have a good mp without affecting the story in sp.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Il Divo wrote...

Any philosophical thought experiment makes that abundantly clear.

Ask someone if it's better to let five people die or to intentionally kill one person. Now insert a magic button which lets the person save everyone. Said thought experiment becomes bland and uninteresting. It's the same basic concept behind why the Redcliffe scenario sucks due to the mages solution or how the Virmire situation would seem pointless if the player could save Kaidan and Ashley. Or how moronic the "Master Li wins" ending to Jade Empire is.

That goes for any playthrough.

What if we don't know what the magic button does?

Because that's how the Redcliffe scenario worked.  The Warden doesn't know that saving everyone is possible, only that he can try.

And we should be allowed to try.  I complained about Virmire not because we couldn't save both, but because we couldn't try to save both.

So, I'd like the option to try to save everyone.  Then, once we have that option, the writers can decide on a case-by-case basis whether we'll be allowed to succeed.

[ElitePinecone]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
I was more addressing the idea that because you could compensate with multiplayer, the choices were effectively meaningless.

I think part of the problem there was that in ME3, the results of choices were rendered as abstract numbers rather than anything really concrete. The argument can be made that the choices were effectively meaningless, not just because you could compensate with multiplayer, but because the choices only contributed to a big pool of points that did basically nothing until the last five minutes - and even then, the Extended Cut had to be made because Galactic Readiness still didn't lead to very different endings.

If Priority Earth had been a much different level where we saw tangible consequences from previous decisions (and I'm going to use ME2's Suicide Mission as a template of how that sort of branching could look) I don't think there would've been the same complaints about choices being ignored. The lack of clarity or closure (or however the ME3 team put it afterwards) was definitely a significant factor, but I got the sense that people were equally as annoyed that even before the final decision, the game did basically nothing to acknowledge or reflect the choices that players had made over three games.

The design choice to use the War Assets and Galactic Readiness systems might've been a smart method to integrate multiplayer and give the player a sense of assembling a united army, but it was horrible for reflecting the results of decisions in any sort of personalised, meaningful way. I understand that trying to do something more complex might've been an absolute nightmare in terms of programming and testing (as it seems the Suicide Mission was), but it was a pretty disappointing letdown that the series finale didn't try something that ambitious, and instead used a system where an asari battleship was worth 6.2 Zaeeds, or whatever. 

[Il Divo]

iakus wrote...


And if the magic button adds greatly to the difficulty of the mission, and perhaps has its own consequences for obtaining, either immediately or in the future?

Personally, I don't think it would make a bit of difference. Yes, it's always possible to make the "you're metagaming" argument, but the reality is as a player, your goal is to seek out the best possible pathway, which creates a disconnect when you're choosing sub-optimal routes. Its the same basic concept behind how what makes Dark Souls appealing is that the player has no choice (at first) as to the difficulty of the game. You're forced to adapt.

The magic button having consequences sounds like a nice idea, but then we get examples like the dark ritual where it's not going to serve any purpose, except to serve as a cop-out to the ultimate sacrifice. Given how imports of the rachni and collector base turned out, I'm not holding much hope for Morrigan's OGB dooming the world.

[byeshoe]

x3 ........i really like tragic endings! I secretly hope for all games to have these. since I somehow run into tragic animes where everyone flippin dies and it breaks my heart. I like the pain. ......i want it in my games now e.e i'm kinda sadistic like that. it'll break my heart but i still want it XD

OP that is a very nice end story for the Inquisitor, if something like that is in the game..I'LL PICK IT over saving my Inquisitor's life :3 meerrbe though. I'll have to see..

[Wulfram]

No choice is meaningless if it reflects the PC's character. But that's only the most minimal level of meaning, and when the game places a lot of weight on a choice, it creates an expectation to have more than that. And ME3 ultimately didn't place much weight on what seemed like the biggest choices from the previous games, either in terms of war assets or plot significance.

Multiplayer contributed that by devaluing the currency of War Assets by effectively giving us our own War Asset printing press.

Modifié par Wulfram, 01 février 2014 - 11:09 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

What I meant in regards to ME is how no matter what you pick events play out the same.

In DA:O saving the anvil had tangible in game benefits, summoning golems to break darkspawn into little bits.  Your companions reacted to it and told you their thoughts.  You then had that choice tying into the choice of monarch for Orzammar for bonus boints in the epilogue.

Compare that to saving the Collector base, three lines of dialogue are changed, four if you do a certain side mission, and 10 arbitrary points.  The story is not affected in any meaningful way, either way Cerberus becomes super-powerful and indoctrinated.

That's fair and it's a perfectly valid criticism.  I was more addressing the idea that because you could compensate with multiplayer, the choices were effectively meaningless.

But if that's the case, then any alternative path that takes you to the same place is a meaningless choice, and I don't think people actually believe that (most of our conversations are small branches that return to the same place shortly afterward, and I don't think people would prefer that we just have a single dialogue choice or would consider it equivalent to only having a single dialogue choice)

Being able to earn more War Asset points through multiplayer, as a general concept, isn't bad. 

But it the very fact that every choice, not only in ME3, but the entire series, was boiled down to a static number and VERY little else when it came to last five hours of the game (not just the last ten minutes that gets criticized the most, but the last five hours, from the time you attack the final Cerebrus base until the "buy more DLC prompt") the only thing that changed based on hundreds of hours of game time across multiple titles was that War Assets number.

That's a real problem. It's not an issue with a game taking you to be same destination, its a problem with the game completely ignoring the fact that you could have taken dozens of different paths to get there.

DA:O does as well - no matter what, you will have a final showdown with the AD in Denerim - yet what allies you have with you, what opinion your companions have of you, how you handled side quests and Big Choices... this was all reflected in the end of the game, both in terms of gameplay items (like which support units show up or what your companions say to you if you take them with you/leave them behind) and in more "traditional" ending formats, like the epilogue scenes and the coronation/funeral scenes. 

DA2 suffered a similar problem as ME3, where no matter what you did the entire game, it boiled down to Mage/Templar. And even that choice boiled down to a small handful of dialogue changes and little else, with no epilogue or conclusion changed at all for any of it (Hawke fled or, conversely, Hawke was Viscount for a day... then fled).

I'm really hoping more focus (I don't want to say effort, because I would never want to imply that people didn't work exceptionally hard) is placed on the endings of DA:I and use them to really create a sense of holistic closure. DA:O alluded to and built up to the end game effectively: it had multiple stages of not only conflict, but resolution. Between gathering your forces, curing Eamon and then having a political showdown in Denerim with the Landsmeet, this juxtaposed nicely with the absolute chaos Denerim would become during the following Final Battle. ME3 had a false sense to this with the Cronos station, where basically little is accomplished there except finding out that the mystery machine you have been working to build this whole time needs the Citadel, the one asset you've had under allied control the whole time... which, by the way, now that you know that, is taken away from you. It is very much a "your Princess is in another castle" type of shell game. 

I could go on about what made ME3's endings feel unfinished and unfocused to me (or how DA:O did such things in a more psychologically satisfying manner) but that is a different set of posts. Point being - ME3's endings weren't bad due to tragedy. They were bad because the execution made many players (myself included) feel as if the journey DIDN'T matter any longer. Which is a bad place for your consumer to feel after they finish your product. 

EDIT: GAH, typo central. Cleaned up the post due to being unabel to see or edit half of it from being posted from my mobile phone.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 01 février 2014 - 01:51 .

[ElitePinecone]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
 Point being - ME3's endings weren't bad due to tragedy. 

That is obviously a subjective opinion - and not to make this an ME3 thread, because we've seen enough of those, but I was dissatisfied with the tragic aspects not because they necessarily existed, but because the way they were enforced was ridiculous. The mechanism by which the Crucible worked was nonsense. The random way in which it killed off characters or entire species in one of the endings had no explanation (let alone a plausible one) beyond some vague space magic. The necessity of physical sacrifice in two of the endings was never justified beyond the fact that the writers wanted that to happen. I don't have a problem with tragedy, but I *did* have an issue with the way in which the writers tried to rationalise it, in ME3's case. There were a dozen more appropriate ways they could've hammered that theme of sacrifice (even sacrifice of the main character) without resorting to the Crucible's nonsensical functions. 

DA:O gets a relatively freer pass in this sense, because it's a fantasy (no need to explain magical rituals), and because to a larger extent that theme of sacrifice was telegraphed a long, long time before we actually had to make the decision. The lore about killing Archdemons is very clear, and there's actually a really nice range of themes and choices that are given with the ending options. Far more choice, it has to be said, than we ever got in any of the Mass Effect games. There's tragedy there, but it's not as restrictive or random as ME3 - and in many cases the tone is bittersweet, rather than just horribly bitter. 

(e.g. I think Loghain dealing the killing blow is one of the most thematically satisfying endings Bioware's ever done - it's certainly sad, because of all the betrayal and regicide that preceded it, but with a huge dollop of redemption on top of that)

[Fast Jimmy]

ElitePinecone wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...
 Point being - ME3's endings weren't bad due to tragedy. 

That is obviously a subjective opinion - and not to make this an ME3 thread, because we've seen enough of those, but I was dissatisfied with the tragic aspects not because they necessarily existed, but because the way they were enforced was ridiculous. The mechanism by which the Crucible worked was nonsense. The random way in which it killed off characters or entire species in one of the endings had no explanation (let alone a plausible one) beyond some vague space magic. The necessity of physical sacrifice in two of the endings was never justified beyond the fact that the writers wanted that to happen. I don't have a problem with tragedy, but I *did* have an issue with the way in which the writers tried to rationalise it, in ME3's case. There were a dozen more appropriate ways they could've hammered that theme of sacrifice (even sacrifice of the main character) without resorting to the Crucible's nonsensical functions. 

DA:O gets a relatively freer pass in this sense, because it's a fantasy (no need to explain magical rituals), and because to a larger extent that theme of sacrifice was telegraphed a long, long time before we actually had to make the decision. The lore about killing Archdemons is very clear, and there's actually a really nice range of themes and choices that are given with the ending options. Far more choice, it has to be said, than we ever got in any of the Mass Effect games. There's tragedy there, but it's not as restrictive or random as ME3 - and in many cases the tone is bittersweet, rather than just horribly bitter. 

(e.g. I think Loghain dealing the killing blow is one of the most thematically satisfying endings Bioware's ever done - it's certainly sad, because of all the betrayal and regicide that preceded it, but with a huge dollop of redemption on top of that)

Agreed on almost all points. 

The continued statements by some of the ME3 writers even to this day that fans who didn't like the ending didn't "get it" doesn't help any of the wounds, either. 

Hindsight is 20/20 and people have been rehashing what would have made the ME3 endings better for years now. My point being is boiling everything, from squadmate survival, to side quest completion, to Major Plot Decisions down to a number and a number alone is a perfect way to do things badly.

[Ieldra]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

Any philosophical thought experiment makes that abundantly clear.

Ask someone if it's better to let five people die or to intentionally kill one person. Now insert a magic button which lets the person save everyone. Said thought experiment becomes bland and uninteresting. It's the same basic concept behind why the Redcliffe scenario sucks due to the mages solution or how the Virmire situation would seem pointless if the player could save Kaidan and Ashley. Or how moronic the "Master Li wins" ending to Jade Empire is.

That goes for any playthrough.

What if we don't know what the magic button does?

Because that's how the Redcliffe scenario worked.  The Warden doesn't know that saving everyone is possible, only that he can try.

And we should be allowed to try.  I complained about Virmire not because we couldn't save both, but because we couldn't try to save both.

So, I'd like the option to try to save everyone.  Then, once we have that option, the writers can decide on a case-by-case basis whether we'll be allowed to succeed.

Indeed. I think people mix up attempts and successes.

If you imagine your character is the kind who would try to save everyone at a high risk, then by all means the game should let you make the attempt.

However, the story becomes boring if there always is a way to succeed. As I said in my arguments against the way Bioware handled Paragon/Renegade choices in the ME games, if there is a high risk in one type of decisions that risk should occasionally manifest, or the world will lose credibility because if the pragmatic choices, those with an intrinsic moral downside do not occasionally have a better outcome, there will be no rationale at all for them.

[Iakus]

Il Divo wrote...

Personally, I don't think it would make a bit of difference. Yes, it's always possible to make the "you're metagaming" argument, but the reality is as a player, your goal is to seek out the best possible pathway, which creates a disconnect when you're choosing sub-optimal routes. Its the same basic concept behind how what makes Dark Souls appealing is that the player has no choice (at first) as to the difficulty of the game. You're forced to adapt.

The magic button having consequences sounds like a nice idea, but then we get examples like the dark ritual where it's not going to serve any purpose, except to serve as a cop-out to the ultimate sacrifice. Given how imports of the rachni and collector base turned out, I'm not holding much hope for Morrigan's OGB dooming the world.

But again it comes down to "What is the best possible outcome"?  That is going to be different from player to player.  By providing various ways of getting happy and not-so-happy outcomes (like DAO did) without making either an inherently superior option, it stands to reason that this will appeal to a wider audience.

I mean, the Dark Ritual is actually not my preferred ending for DAO.

[Il Divo]

iakus wrote...

But again it comes down to "What is the best possible outcome"?  That is going to be different from player to player.  By providing various ways of getting happy and not-so-happy outcomes (like DAO did) without making either an inherently superior option, it stands to reason that this will appeal to a wider audience.

Is it? I would argue that this depends on the choice you're framing. Kaidan vs. Ashley is an example where the player might have to decide what they value the most.

The suicide mission is not, since every scenario works out better with the entire squad surviving. That goes for war assets, plot points, etc.

Previously, you were arguing that the presence of happy endings does not diminish the impact of the tragic endings. That's a different argument than if choices are made relatively on par so that there is not superior ending.  

I mean, the Dark Ritual is actually not my preferred ending for DAO.

That may be true, but it doesn't really alter my point. It doesn't make the Dark Ritual any less the best ending, depending on how events in Inquisition play out. As it stands, the Dark Ritual could have a positive impact for all we know and even if it's a negative consequence, Bioware's current track record with the save imports doesn't leave me confident that they will make the player pay for having their Warden survive. I'm seeing a Rachni scenario again.

Basically, if the dark ritual doesn't have sufficient negative consequences, what exactly is the down side to counter-balance ultimate sacrifice?

[Il Divo]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

Any philosophical thought experiment makes that abundantly clear.

Ask someone if it's better to let five people die or to intentionally kill one person. Now insert a magic button which lets the person save everyone. Said thought experiment becomes bland and uninteresting. It's the same basic concept behind why the Redcliffe scenario sucks due to the mages solution or how the Virmire situation would seem pointless if the player could save Kaidan and Ashley. Or how moronic the "Master Li wins" ending to Jade Empire is.

That goes for any playthrough.

What if we don't know what the magic button does?

Because that's how the Redcliffe scenario worked.  The Warden doesn't know that saving everyone is possible, only that he can try.

And we should be allowed to try.  I complained about Virmire not because we couldn't save both, but because we couldn't try to save both.

So, I'd like the option to try to save everyone.  Then, once we have that option, the writers can decide on a case-by-case basis whether we'll be allowed to succeed.

Hard to say with this. Hearing it, my first thought is of Jade Empire's neutral ending where the player has the ability to sacrifice himself to Master Li. I understand the desire to want to have maximum control over player actions (it is an RPG after all), but at the same time some choices are always going to be more appealing than others. Deciding between armies to gather will be higher on my list than whether or not my PC eats or drinks at any given moment. Similarly, your Virmire scenario would probably fall in the latter category (for me at least).

Granted, I'm not saying that every choice in a game must be some in-depth thought experiment on the nature of the world. But likewise, I don't think that every choice needs to give players a victory, whether that means the PC's fate, a companion's fate, or a species' fate.

[ElitePinecone]

Il Divo wrote...
It doesn't make the Dark Ritual any less the best ending, depending on how events in Inquisition play out.

This is completely subjective, though. The definition of "best" varies greatly based on what the player themselves thinks.

What about players who hate the idea of keeping an Archdemon's soul alive inside a baby?

What about players who wanted Loghain to atone for his betrayal by sacrificing himself to kill the Archdemon? 

Or players who felt that they should be the ones to take the killing blow, because they couldn't justify sending someone else to die, and didn't want to do the Dark Ritual? 

Even if you look at this from a meta-gaming perspective, retrospectively deciding that something is the best choice five years after the game launched, because of its consequences in DA:I, is absurd. 

[Il Divo]

ElitePinecone wrote...


What about players who hate the idea of keeping an Archdemon's soul alive inside a baby?

This is tied to the same basic concept as "what will the Dark Ritual do"? It's the question we're asking ourselves in the first place.

What about players who wanted Loghain to atone for his betrayal by sacrificing himself to kill the Archdemon? 

You have the option to kill him.

Or players who felt that they should be the ones to take the killing blow, because they couldn't justify sending someone else to die, and didn't want to do the Dark Ritual? 

 
Why do you not want to perform the Dark Ritual? I realize some people might not appreciate the metagame argument, but considering everyone also wants to be entertained as a player, it's relevant. If the dark ritual will amount to nothing of significance, it becomes no different than a player who purposely sacrifices a character on the suicide mission to create a faux-dark ending.

Even if you look at this from a meta-gaming perspective, retrospectively deciding that something is the best choice five years after the game launched, because of its consequences in DA:I, is absurd. 

 All the down sides of the dark ritual are tied to what the old God child can do. If the answer is something neutral or even positive, there goes all moral ambiguity to the scenario.

[ElitePinecone]

Il Divo wrote...

 All the down sides of the dark ritual are tied to what the old God child can do. If the answer is something neutral or even positive, there goes all moral ambiguity to the scenario.

You only know that after the fact, though.

When confronted with the decision, neither the player nor the in-universe character "know" what the outcome will be.

As a player, I can object to the Dark Ritual out of caution, out of a preference for another option, or out of repulsion to the idea of impregnating someone so they can give birth to a baby with the soul of an Archdemon. If the Warden is female or gay, and can't/won't sleep with Morrigan themselves, I also find the idea of coaxing someone else to do so morally dubious. To my mind, all of those are valid reasons not to do the ritual, when I'm sitting there back in 2009. The objective merits of the decision as it plays out in 2014's Inquisition are completely irrelevant to the choice that was made when playing the game.

As an in-universe character, there are even more reasons to object to it. Most of them are headcanon-y, but I'm sure you can imagine a scenario where a Warden doesn't want to take the risk that the soul of their greatest enemy lives on in a human child. Perhaps that character is incredibly suspicious of Morrigan. Who knows?

What I mean is: when the consequences of the decision are opaque, describing it in hindsight as "better" or "worse" is misguided. This kind of decision was handled incredibly poorly with the rachni, but it doesn't mean we should start judging choices in one game by their outcomes one or two games later.

A choice made for reasons the player *thinks* are good is still valid - and, to them, "correct" - even if that choice has a negative consequence.

[CELL55]

 Personally, if there is going to be a tragedy, then I like it to be more along the lines of: -What are you willing to sacrifice? Save X at the cost of Y or visa-versa?rather than events all culminating in some inescapable tragedy that you can do nothing about.
The first solution allows the player to retain agency and roleplay. YMMV, but I think Witcher 2 did this really well: Do you save your lady friend or do you help your other friend save a kidnapped child? Do you let the evil king die for his crimes thus destabilizing his kingdom or do you let him live in spite of his crimes so that his country will be better prepared to resist an invasion?
In contrast, the second option removes player agency and choice (which I always felt was the whole point of a Bioware RPG) and forces you to roleplay an incompetent sad sack that is fundamentaly unable to solve a problem that your charismatic, asskicker of hours past might have solved in a wink.

The first option makes things bittersweet and lets me feel that my hard work was worthwhile even if all I did was improve things a little bit, the second tragic. I don't want to spend 60 or whatever hours playing a game only to be called a failure at the end. "Hey, thanks for all the hard work you did, but EVERYONE YOU HAVE EVER LOVED DIES." Yeah, no thanks. If Anders is going to screw everything over at the end regardless of what I do or some bratty kid is going to convince my character to commit suicide by rainbow, then I wish I were told upfront so that I wouldn't have to buy a game I'm going to eventually hate and then come to these forums to whine about it.

/rant

[Iakus]

[quote]Il Divo wrote...

Is it? I would argue that this depends on the choice you're framing. Kaidan vs. Ashley is an example where the player might have to decide what they value the most.

The suicide mission is not, since every scenario works out better with the entire squad surviving. That goes for war assets, plot points, etc.

Previously, you were arguing that the presence of happy endings does not diminish the impact of the tragic endings. That's a different argument than if choices are made relatively on par so that there is not superior ending.  [/quote]

And I think you'd be surprised at how many people allow characters on the Suicide mission to die because it makes for a good, tragic story for them.  Or even to let Ashley or Kaidan die on Virmire even if they are the LI becasue they want this particular Shepard to have a sad story.

And yet in the end, the Collector's are defeated.  Saren is defeated.  With a greater or less sense of bittersweet outcomes

As long as you can find a reason to justify a particular choice, does having the option to create a happy or tragic story for your character diminish the other?



[quote]
[quote]
I mean, the Dark Ritual is actually not my preferred ending for DAO.
[/quote]

That may be true, but it doesn't really alter my point. It doesn't make the Dark Ritual any less the best ending, depending on how events in Inquisition play out. As it stands, the Dark Ritual could have a positive impact for all we know and even if it's a negative consequence, Bioware's current track record with the save imports doesn't leave me confident that they will make the player pay for having their Warden survive. I'm seeing a Rachni scenario again.

Basically, if the dark ritual doesn't have sufficient negative consequences, what exactly is the down side to counter-balance ultimate sacrifice? [/quote] [/quote]

But that's just it, I don't think the Dark Ritual is the "best ending"  even with it's current lack of negative consequences.

I believe that until the question of it's consequences is resolved, the Dark Ritual is an "uncertain" ending, neither happy nor tragic.  You think it will work out for the best.  And thus it is the "best" ending.  I don't see it that way, and prefer redeeming Loghain.  And others prefer to let the Warden die a hero.  Or letting Alistair die a hero is the best outcome.  No one is wrong, and that is the point.  I think striking that balance should continue to be the goal for Dragon Age endings. 

[In Exile]

Il Divo wrote...

Any philosophical thought experiment makes that abundantly clear.

Ask someone if it's better to let five people die or to intentionally kill one person. Now insert a magic button which lets the person save everyone. Said thought experiment becomes bland and uninteresting. It's the same basic concept behind why the Redcliffe scenario sucks due to the mages solution or how the Virmire situation would seem pointless if the player could save Kaidan and Ashley. Or how moronic the "Master Li wins" ending to Jade Empire is.

But the point of thought experiments (like "letting die" vs. "intentionally killing" in the trolley problem) are not there to actually challenge people's morals but to investigate certain ideas we have about what is moral and what is not. It's a contrived scenario to get across a particular conflict in human moral reasoning and moral theories. 

If the game is reduced to trolley problems, then the game's morals just become algoritmith. 

And what's worse is when consequences are tied to this, and the developers basically have to endorse a particualr kind of morality. Which, I get, people ask for 100% of the time, but then it just become silly in two sides arguing about what's more "realistic" to validate their own moral position. 

[In Exile]

ElitePinecone wrote...
DA:O gets a relatively freer pass in this sense, because it's a fantasy (no need to explain magical rituals), and because to a larger extent that theme of sacrifice was telegraphed a long, long time before we actually had to make the decision. The lore about killing Archdemons is very clear, and there's actually a really nice range of themes and choices that are given with the ending options. Far more choice, it has to be said, than we ever got in any of the Mass Effect games. There's tragedy there, but it's not as restrictive or random as ME3 - and in many cases the tone is bittersweet, rather than just horribly bitter. 

There were conversations with e.g. Wynne in DA:O that got across the "GW" is about sacrifice theme. The Joining itself was all about sacrifice - your ritual to become a GW is to poison yourself, shorten your own lifespan (at best) and immediately die (at worst). 

It was also a kind of logical sacrifice, because it explained a problem that the game had the entire way through: just what exactly is the point of a Grey Warden? In DA:O the treaties are never that important - with the sole exception of Orzammar, there was no difference between being or not being a GW for gathering the army. 

The idea that the GWs have to die to kill the archdemon works. It's still a huge gotcha moment - but it's also well handled by Riordan and not something you find out right when you fight the archdemon. 

[In Exile]

ElitePinecone wrote...
As an in-universe character, there are even more reasons to object to it. Most of them are headcanon-y, but I'm sure you can imagine a scenario where a Warden doesn't want to take the risk that the soul of their greatest enemy lives on in a human child. Perhaps that character is incredibly suspicious of Morrigan. Who knows?

I just don't understand the in-universe objections. What exactly is Morrigain going to do? Create another archdemon that leads an army of darkspawn to attack the world in 10 years? So? The only way this danger comes about is (a) if you kill the archdemon once; and ( if the OGB is as powerful as the archdemon. Having already killed one of these super powerful alleged gods, what is the significance of another skull to add to the pile that the Warden's built so far throughout the game? 

It seems to me that any character who is willing to take on the archdemon with three GWs, i.e., three people that have to live to fight the archdemon or Ferelden is destroyed, is not going to be afraid to risk roling the dice here. 

[Il Divo]

iakus wrote...

And I think you'd be surprised at how many people allow characters on the Suicide mission to die because it makes for a good, tragic story for them.  Or even to let Ashley or Kaidan die on Virmire even if they are the LI becasue they want this particular Shepard to have a sad story.

And you might be surprised at how many people think the story becomes melodramatic. If all that mattered was the in character perspective, we wouldn't be able to ask for Shepard to survive, because that would be a metagame argument. Obviously the metagame perspective is important since players seek to enjoy the experience.

But that's just it, I don't think the Dark Ritual is the "best ending"  even with it's current lack of negative consequences.

I believe that until the question of it's consequences is resolved, the Dark Ritual is an "uncertain" ending, neither happy nor tragic. 

Key point being until. Once DA:I hits, in absence of negative consequences, it will likely become the default best result ending for the characters.

 You think it will work out for the best.  And thus it is the "best" ending.  I don't see it that way, and prefer redeeming Loghain.  And others prefer to let the Warden die a hero.  Or letting Alistair die a hero is the best outcome.  No one is wrong, and that is the point.  I think striking that balance should continue to be the goal for Dragon Age endings. 

I think it is "best" in the sense that it has no negatives attached, unlike the other endings. This is similar to your "earn your happy ending" argument. How is Alistair sacrificing himself equivalent when the player has a method to let Alistair live as a hero, with potentially no down side? I ask again, if DA:I mishandles the OGB, what negatives do you have to justify sacrificing either the Warden or Alistair?

That's where I think your argument is flawed.  Your point seems to be that because you have a different ending you prefer than I do, that Bioware handled DA:O's endings correctly. My point is that it doesn't matter which ending any of us find most enjoyable, Bioware wrote DA:O's ending in a context where there is a clear solution which will negate any and all negative possibilities, assuming DA:I mishandles the OGB. In that sense, I'm equating DA:O's endings to ME2's suicide mission, where the player has the ability to prevent any and all negative consequences.

Modifié par Il Divo, 01 février 2014 - 04:26 .

[Mark of the Dragon]

I like bittersweet endings if they are done well. In fact they are my favorite. If everything ending all happy go lucky, especially in more mature stories like Bioware games I would feel amiss.

Honestly I think the characters fate is the easiest thing to change without effecting the story so much that Bioware could not compensate for it in future games. I have always felt like if you are going to have a game about choices then the ending should at least offer a bittersweet and a happier ending based on the choices you make and so fourth. Changing the heros fate (though this doesnt have to mean he dies) is any easy way to add distinction the the endings, especially for the DA universe were you have a new protagonist every game.

I do agree with Allan though about how you achieve those different endings. Looking at ME2 and the suicide mission, I hated how that was planned out. Just because I played the whole game should not have meant everyone magically survived. It should have been more about the on the spot decisions I made during the mission, To put it simply I am an OCD gamer. I have to do EVERYTHING in these games. If doing all the missions, or everything possible, was the requirement to unlock the happy ending in a future title I would be pretty upset, especially since I prefer bittersweet endings.

This is the main reason I still back having the final choice you make in the game having the biggest impact on the ending. This way you can get an ending you want and still play the game the way you see fit. So basically that last choice should make a template for how the game will end with the big themes set while choices you made earlier in the game will impact that template in some way.

[ElitePinecone]

In Exile wrote...

It seems to me that any character who is willing to take on the archdemon with three GWs, i.e., three people that have to live to fight the archdemon or Ferelden is destroyed, is not going to be afraid to risk roling the dice here. 

That might speak to a disconnect between how bad the game says Blights are, and how bad the one we actually experience is. 
I mean, the fact that we're steamrolling over everything as the Warden, who is predestined to triumph by virtue of this being a story, doesn't mean that next time an Archdemon rises Thedas won't be wiped out for good. Blights are almost always apocalyptic - and the history of Thedas says every single one is immensely destructive. It seems monstrously irresponsible to say that there are three Wardens left, so the next Blight will be a walk in the park.

Having seen Ferelden devastated and thousands of people die trying to contain one Archdemon, if there was even the slightest chance that the Dark Ritual could lead to another one rising, I just wouldn't want to take that risk. Trying to get into the mindset of a particular kind of risk-averse Warden, then: I'd be terrified of another Blight, or of an old god manifesting as a human rather than a dragon. Sacrificing one life to end this old god soul for good doesn't seem like too high a price.

(In a sense, I don't think this kind of Warden in that situation would even be thinking rationally. The first and only instinct - I think - would be to kill the Archdemon for good and damn the consequences, no matter the possible gains from doing the Dark Ritual. Being ultra-cautious, in the middle of a Blight, is hardly a strange thing.)