268 réponses à ce sujet

[Zu Long]

No, really... pick 1. You can try opening the other doors, but only 1 will actually open and move things forward.

Just to be clear, what are you comparing this scenario to?

[Fast Jimmy]

To me, it isn't moot. The option to fail gives the choice weight. I dislike being a jerk, even in a game, and so will almost never choose the option to be a jerk...but the fact that I COULD have lends weight to my choice to be nice. By the same token, failing or non optimal outcomes are not rendered moot by an optimal one. Rather, they give the decision weight, even if most people make one choice over the others.

The Walking Dead had a mechanic where you can see how the choices you made were done by others. It's interesting to see the slants that occur.

However, choices that are drastically outweighed by others seem likel poor choices to me. If the game portrays an option as hugely inferior to another, it's not adding weight. It's just offering a choice to do something unappealing (as you said, just be a jerk). I'm not against the idea of Havjng such choices, but certainly not having it as one of two (or even three). The only way "he a stupid jerk" should be an option is if there are number of other choices that actually make the player think and consider doing something they wouldn't neccessarily think they would do.

Good writing makes us relate to characters. GREAT writing makes us relate to characters we normally would not find ourselves connecting with. An RPG can put us in the shoes of someone who has to make a tough choice and experience that choice as them to find ourselves doing something we would find completely out of character for our usually personality. That's the beauty of the medium - and resources wasted on shallow choices with no real equity between what is being offered is a shame, more than anything else.

[Fast Jimmy]

Just to be clear, what are you comparing this scenario to?

The often repeated phenomenon in games where options are given and, no matter what you pick, the same outcome occurs.

[Zu Long]

I bullied bandits into giving me all their money because their pant full in fear of me, and when they asked to go I said no I will arrest you. Logical outcome I expected they surrender. But I get not outcome I expect. It still don't make my choice invalid. It shows my character use violence only if forced.

What about the scenario suggested they would surrender if you arrested them? The penalty for banditry is rather harsh, and the dialogue suggests that you'll let them go if they give you their gold. When you try to arrest them after taking the gold, of course they fight. A logically foreseeable outcome. Logically foreseeable, and "what my character wanted to accomplish" are not always the same thing.

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

What about the scenario suggested they would surrender if you arrested them? The penalty for banditry is rather harsh, and the dialogue suggests that you'll let them go if they give you their gold. When you try to arrest them after taking the gold, of course they fight. A logically foreseeable outcome. Logically foreseeable, and "what my character wanted to accomplish" are not always the same thing.

For which reason I also don't object to them fighting when I tried to conscript them as my now-strapped-for-henchmen DN.

[Zu Long]

The often repeated phenomenon in games where options are given and, no matter what you pick, the same outcome occurs.

Ah. Not really a fan of those either, though in some cases, as 9Tails points out, while the outcome doesn't change, what people think of your character can be altered by how you react.

[Fast Jimmy]

Not unless there are hints that the Ghouls might do something like that. Otherwise a choice like that is just stupid.

Why is it stupid? The world doesn't telegraph it's intentions to you every second of the day. The ghouls in this instance aren't a weepy group of "oh woe is me" types, either. They try and recruit you to find them a back way into the city with the express purpose of killing everyone if you talk to them directly. So the game gives you hints that this may not be the smartest move, but if you try and white knight the situation, it will definitely bite you in the butt.

[Fast Jimmy]

Ah. Not really a fan of those either, though in some cases, as 9Tails points out, while the outcome doesn't change, what people think of your character can be altered by how you react.

It is a roleplaying tool, for sure. However, even with those, I'd like the options to be a little deeper then "obvious choice" and then "choice we're clearly not really going to let you do" and/or "evil for the LOLZ." If you are going to offer the choice, make it a choice worth making. Not "do I ask my boss for a raise or punch a co-worker in the face?"

[Zu Long]

The Walking Dead had a mechanic where you can see how the choices you made were done by others. It's interesting to see the slants that occur.

However, choices that are drastically outweighed by others seem likel poor choices to me. If the game portrays an option as hugely inferior to another, it's not adding weight. It's just offering a choice to do something unappealing (as you said, just be a jerk). I'm not against the idea of Havjng such choices, but certainly not having it as one of two (or even three). The only way "he a stupid jerk" should be an option is if there are number of other choices that actually make the player think and consider doing something they wouldn't neccessarily think they would do.

Good writing makes us relate to characters. GREAT writing makes us relate to characters we normally would not find ourselves connecting with. An RPG can put us in the shoes of someone who has to make a tough choice and experience that choice as them to find ourselves doing something we would find completely out of character for our usually personality. That's the beauty of the medium - and resources wasted on shallow choices with no real equity between what is being offered is a shame, more than anything else.

What interested me about TWD was no matter how clear cut I thought a decision was, some people chose the other one.

Roleplaying for me is about making the choice and watching the result, with the understanding that I should have some idea what result I can expect to watch. I don't need the game to influence me--I want to influence the game. So if I can get that optimal outcome, however obvious the pitfalls, so much the better, IMO.

[cronshaw]

Its typical for most RPGs that give you a choice on how to resolve an issue will, in general, present the more "moral" choice as being more beneficiary for everyone (player included), while the "selfish" choice will result in misery for others. Essentially karma exists, "do good and good things happen," but what of the "path to hell laid with good intentions?"

 

One of my favorite quest lines from an RPG is the Tenpenny tower, where an elitist community of, mostly though not all, racists hold up in a luxury hotel and refuse to let Ghouls (mutated humans) into their community. After persuading/threatening the most bigoted members of the tower to leave, and convincing the rest that Ghouls really aren't all monsters, the tower lets the Ghouls in. A few days latter the Ghouls kill every single human in the tower at the behest of their leader.

 

You did the moral thing and the world is a worse place for it.

 

Now I know if every quest line was like this, a game would get awfully depressing really fast, but isn't one or two in a game at least break the monotony of everything going as the player wished? What about the rest of you, is having a few quest lines where cause and effect trump good intentions something you'd like in this game?

 

How is the world a worse place?

I killed Roy Phillips right after the ghouls clear out the tower

[Fast Jimmy]

How is the world a worse place?
I killed Roy Phillips right after the ghouls clear out the tower

Well, not everyone in TenPenny is exactly the scum of the earth. "People being slaughtered wholesale" is generally considered a "worse" kind of situation.

[9TailsFox]

What about the scenario suggested they would surrender if you arrested them? The penalty for banditry is rather harsh, and the dialogue suggests that you'll let them go if they give you their gold. When you try to arrest them after taking the gold, of course they fight. A logically foreseeable outcome. Logically foreseeable, and "what my character wanted to accomplish" are not always the same thing.

Logically foreseeable, and "what my character wanted to accomplish" are not always the same thing. Exactly what I saying and it is not bad think. Character intentions is what important. IMO intention > outcome.

[Medhia_Nox]

How can anything be hugely inferior in these games? 

Everyone can beat them no matter what choices you make - the rest is just how you got there.

 

Tennpenny is a great example - it literally doesn't matter (in the context of the game) what you choose.

[Tinxa]

I would definitely see something like that, that the "good" thing would lead to bad consequences but only if it is a logical consequence like Bhelen/Harrowmont.

 

I wouldn't want to see some crazy "You saved Elora's Halla and now through a series of weird coincidences the whole Dalish clan is dead" In your face player!!! thing

 

One example I liked was in GoT when Brienne and Jaime stumble upon a farmer who recognises them. Jaime wants to kill him but Brienne doesn't want to kill an innocent farmer who just happened to be there, so she lets him go. The next thing the farmer does is report them to enemy soldiers for money

[Fast Jimmy]

I would definitely see something like that, that the "good" thing would lead to bad consequences but only if it is a logical consequence like Bhelen/Harrowmont.

I wouldn't want to see some crazy "You saved Elora's Halla and now through a series of weird coincidences the whole Dalish clan is dead" In your face player!!! thing

One example I liked was in GoT when Brienne and Jaime stumble upon a farmer who recognises them. Jaime wants to kill him but Brienne doesn't want to kill an innocent farmer who just happened to be there, so she lets him go. The next thing the farmer does is report them to enemy soldiers for money

Yeah, Briene definitely should have owed Jaime a handjob for that sequence of events.

[PsychoBlonde]

I think the devs' hint about DA:I is that there may very well be two sets of consequences, if you will: the immediate one, which you should be able to determine or at least infer with reasonable forethought/observational skills, and potential long-term consequences down the road that you absolutely couldn't see coming.

 

You should be able to see the long-term consequences coming as well, they should just be a *possible* consequence instead of a *definite* consequence.  If they are not predictable or logically related, they cannot be described as a "consequence", merely "something that happened later".

 

If you have a choice to save X person's life, then the immediate consequence should be absolutely obvious.  Person X survives or doesn't.  If you decide to save Person X's life and they say "yay, thank you so much!" and then fall off a cliff and break their neck, that's one kind of logic failure and usually pretty unsatisfactory.

 

Then you have the mid-term consequences.  Say you know that person X is a blood mage.  So, if you save his life, he goes on to kill some more people.  That's a logically sensible consequence--blood mages kill people to fuel their magic.  So it's reasonable to expect that if you leave a blood mage around, they could wind up killing some people.

 

Then you have even longer-term consequences.  Suppose you now know that person X is a blood mage because they're fighting to the death against a totalitarian oppressor.  So if you save his life, he'll kill some people and wind up saving an entire country.  Still a logical consequence.

 

But the thing is . . . the further out those consequences are, the more possibility they should have of changing.  It is ALSO a logical consequence if you saving the man's life convinces him to give up on blood magic.  It is ALSO a logical consequence that he could kill TONS of people and wind up accomplishing precisely squat because the people he was fighting were just too strong.  Those options are ALSO predictable based on your initial information (although certain details might skew your thinking about their likelihood one way or another).

 

The long-term consequences should never just come completely out of the blue or be completely unpredictable.  That does destroy player agency.  The consequences--good or bad or up to interpretation, must logically follow from the information you have--even if it's only tiny dribbles of inconclusive information.  The man falling off a cliff would be an example of a does-not-follow result.  Another one would be a mid-term consequence where he rushes into a burning building and saves a bunch of schoolchildren.  While that *could* happen, it has absolutely nothing to do with the *information* you were given.  It's just a random event, not a *consequence*.  It would equally be a random event if he fell asleep smoking and burned your castle down.  That's totally random.  There's nothing to suggest this as a possible outcome or to connect the events logically.

 

Logical connection of events what makes the difference between a *plot* and a bunch of random crap that happens.  If you're writing a story, the events should ALWAYS be logically connected--not because that's always how things work in real life, they don't--but because these are the only kinds of events that have *meaning* for human life.  The choices you make that DO determine the outcome instead of the senseless accidents.  Art distills this meaning from life and presents it in a concrete form.

 

That's not to say that the writer can't *intentionally* go about it in such a way as to *encourage* you to expect some outcome *other* than the actual one(s).  They can *skew* their presentation of the information all they like, but the seeds--even if they're hidden or masked--of the final outcome MUST be present in the initial information.  It's a sticky problem to do this, though, because it's very hard to tell what degree of skewing is enough to create a surprise without falling over the line into "nope, this is B.S."

[virtus753]

You should be able to see the long-term consequences coming as well, they should just be a *possible* consequence instead of a *definite* consequence.  If they are not predictable or logically related, they cannot be described as a "consequence", merely "something that happened later".

 

I agree with most of what you've said, especially the end bit about misdirection and skewing perceptions. That said, "predictable" and "logically related" are by no means perfect synonyms. If you don't have all the relevant information, you likely won't be able to foresee (or even suspect) all the outcomes. If we were omniscient, then yes, we would be able to make the connections beforehand. But neither players nor characters are. Unless you're meta-gaming, of course.

 

A consequence that you can't completely foresee/suspect does deprive the player of some agency, but not all -- the immediate consequences are still yours, and fundamentally it was your choice that led to the long-term outcome as well, even if you didn't know what would happen. (That's still agency, just not informed agency, and I wouldn't like it much either!) But it wouldn't be any less realistic, since unforeseen and unforeseeable consequences happen all the time in real life. And yes, I realize this is a game and not life, and that gaming is an escapist outlet where we get away from icky things like this. I don't want to get slapped upside the face by something I caused without knowing it, but it's not unrealistic, just unfun.

 

I should clarify what I'm hoping for and say that I'd like more long-term consequences that you can suspect in some vague way if you do your due diligence in pursuing all the information available at the time you make the initial choice. (If a player weren't the type to bother looking for more information, s/he's obviously free not to do so, but then the choice wouldn't be as informed as possible.) To continue my example from before, it's perfectly logical to think that losing 2 Inquisition agents would lower the effectiveness of the Inquisition or deprive it of potential resources for the future. But without further information you couldn't know when (if ever) that decision would come back to haunt you. There were so many cases in the previous two games where I thought "I'm going to regret that, won't I?" only for the other shoe never to drop. The times that it did seemed to me blatantly broadcast or easily foreseen as long as you weren't sleep-gaming.

 

In other words, I don't want it to be a choose-your-own-adventure thing where you're faced with a choice between entering Cave Left or Cave Right and no matter what you choose (well, what do you know?) TROLL. eaten. end of story. Because. That's both unfun and unrealistic. But I'd be up for something where you say in hindsight something like "Ooh, I should have seen that coming!" or "I had a bad feeling about that, but I couldn't pinpoint exactly what would happen." Much as you describe above. (I actually think we're agreeing more than disagreeing on most of this.)

[PsychoBlonde]

I agree with most of what you've said, especially the end bit about misdirection and skewing perceptions. That said, "predictable" and "logically related" are by no means perfect synonyms. If you don't have all the relevant information, you likely won't be able to foresee (or even suspect) all the outcomes. If we were omniscient, then yes, we would be able to make the connections beforehand. But neither players nor characters are. Unless you're meta-gaming, of course.

 

A consequence that you can't completely foresee/suspect does deprive the player of some agency, but not all -- the immediate consequences are still yours, and fundamentally it was your choice that led to the long-term outcome as well, even if you didn't know what would happen. (That's still agency, just not informed agency, and I wouldn't like it much either!) But it wouldn't be any less realistic, since unforeseen and unforeseeable consequences happen all the time in real life. And yes, I realize this is a game and not life, and that gaming is an escapist outlet where we get away from icky things like this. I don't want to get slapped upside the face by something I caused without knowing it, but it's not unrealistic, just unfun.

 

I should clarify what I'm hoping for and say that I'd like more long-term consequences that you can suspect in some vague way if you do your due diligence in pursuing all the information available at the time you make the initial choice. (If a player weren't the type to bother looking for more information, s/he's obviously free not to do so, but then the choice wouldn't be as informed as possible.) To continue my example from before, it's perfectly logical to think that losing 2 Inquisition agents would lower the effectiveness of the Inquisition or deprive it of potential resources for the future. But without further information you couldn't know when (if ever) that decision would come back to haunt you. There were so many cases in the previous two games where I thought "I'm going to regret that, won't I?" only for the other shoe never to drop. The times that it did seemed to me blatantly broadcast or easily foreseen as long as you weren't sleep-gaming.

 

In other words, I don't want it to be a choose-your-own-adventure thing where you're faced with a choice between entering Cave Left or Cave Right and no matter what you choose (well, what do you know?) TROLL. eaten. end of story. Because. That's both unfun and unrealistic. But I'd be up for something where you say in hindsight something like "Ooh, I should have seen that coming!" or "I had a bad feeling about that, but I couldn't pinpoint exactly what would happen." Much as you describe above. (I actually think we're agreeing more than disagreeing on most of this.)

 

Yep, I think we're mostly agreeing.  I especially like it when they hide some of the information in a clever way.  They don't have to walk all over you with big stompy telegraphing boots--usually this generates more eye-rolling than fun.  It's good when the precise details of how anything plays out is a surprise.  But at the same time they need to give you a Venn-diagram type of statistical field of "it will fall somewhere in this circle", like, "people could die" doesn't tell you who or when or how many or what that person was doing or what effect their particular death might have, etc.

 

One of my least favorite moments from DA2 involved the Magistrate's Orders quest because (depending on what you do) he might do the whole fist-shaking "you'll regret this!" . . . and then you never hear from him again.  That was a terrible example the OTHER way where something was telegraphed and nothing actually happened.  The Dark Ritual was rather a similar letdown.  Sounds all ominous.  I bet it turns out to be nothing much, maybe change the flavor of one or two conversations.

 

There's a lot of selectivity involved in this sort of thing.  If I were to frame any *specific* advice given what I've seen of the TREND of games, it'd be:

 

a.) given the option, more subtle = better (because games are usually about as subtle as a punch in the nose)

b.) given the option, more information spread about more wildly = better (because they're usually one-note and stupidly linear with people explaining everything to you as if you're a 4-year-old)

c.) if you telegraph something it DANG WELL BETTER SHOW UP LATER AND IF IT ISN'T AS BIG A DEAL AS YOU MADE IT OUT TO BE, AT LEAST HANG A LAMPSHADE OVER THAT SUCKER

 

You can always make something into a bigger deal later.  You can't un-big it once you've talked it up.

[PsychoBlonde]

I also like it when you have aggregate choices, like: in order to successfully carry out all the missions at a particular choke point, you need 9 or more surviving Inquisition agents.  You have 6 missions at various times where you COULD lose agents.  You have to save at least 3 of them to have 9 remaining for the choke point.  So now you have a WIDE variety of options where you can select which agents live or die and which choke point objectives succeed/fail.  With the Dragon Age companions the way you are, you can even mess with the player by having different companions be more/less paranoid about saving agents, with some (like Cassandra) overrating the problem "you HAVE to save ALL of them no matter HOW horrible the situation is otherwise SUPER FAIL WHALE" and other (like the Iron Bull) being like "they knew what they were getting into when they signed on, don't stress over it".

 

Of course, scripting something that complicated ain't no picnic, but I love it when you get stuff like that where a lot of minute choices all have a big collective effect.

[Aimi]

I also like it when you have aggregate choices, like: in order to successfully carry out all the missions at a particular choke point, you need 9 or more surviving Inquisition agents.  You have 6 missions at various times where you COULD lose agents.  You have to save at least 3 of them to have 9 remaining for the choke point.  So now you have a WIDE variety of options where you can select which agents live or die and which choke point objectives succeed/fail.  With the Dragon Age companions the way you are, you can even mess with the player by having different companions be more/less paranoid about saving agents, with some (like Cassandra) overrating the problem "you HAVE to save ALL of them no matter HOW horrible the situation is otherwise SUPER FAIL WHALE" and other (like the Iron Bull) being like "they knew what they were getting into when they signed on, don't stress over it".
 
Of course, scripting something that complicated ain't no picnic, but I love it when you get stuff like that where a lot of minute choices all have a big collective effect.

That sounds very much like the Suicide Mission mechanics from ME2.

[ShinsFortress]

Well, that's nice. But are you saying that all choices should be like that?

 

Most of them, yes.  And those exceptions that do exists shouldn't make a mockery of the choices made, or punish good deeds.  When Bioware starts making games that mirror 'reality' a little too much, is when I stop even thinking about buying them.  Maybe the player customer base changes enough to make that a viable business model.  For me that would be a sad day.

[ShinsFortress]

That sounds very much like the Suicide Mission mechanics from ME2.

 

Yeah.  And it was one of the things in ME2 that was not disappointing....

[PsychoBlonde]

That sounds very much like the Suicide Mission mechanics from ME2.

 

Not really, because the Suicide Mission was more specific choices instead of aggregate--you could get different results depending on which specific people you sent to do different things, instead of based more around how *many* times you picked one side or another.

 

The Landsmeet was more of an aggregate choice because you could get a different result based on how MANY of the lords you ran down and got on your side--but it was a very short-term operation.  It wasn't like you spent a large portion of the game dealing with those lords and having tons of opportunities to ****** them off/get them on your side.  I would have liked it better if they had some lords with ties to the Circle, the Brecilian Forest, and Orzammar so what you did in those various locales would have an effect on the Landsmeet as well.  It's even better if your decisions affect multiple people, like, there are five that would lose their friggin minds if you defiled the sacred ashes but three of them would be bang on your side if you let Brother Genitivi release his information to the world.  Stuff like that.

 

Companion approval thus far is a variety of aggregate but thus far it's tended to be kind of one or two-dimensional with "single point of failure" moments that have simple threshholds.

 

I think the reason why I like more complex aggregate choices is because it introduces an element of uncertainty unless you really want to sit down and do all the math of "okay, this gives Lord X -15 favor, but I can counter that by doing this other thing except it gives Lords Y and Z -5 favor which means I may need to do this instead over here . . ."  You can't just say "I will pick all the nice options and everyone will be happy".  So, in a way, it kind of frees you up to say "screw it, I'm doing what I think is best and if some of those lords are huge jerks then I don't want them on my side anyway".

 

And then you go assassinate the ones who hate you.