That's cute rhetoric, but it doesn't offer any principled way to distinguish between a hard choice and, er, cr*p. Do you have one, or is this one of those subjective feeling deals?A choice between green cr*p, red cr*p, and blue cr*p isn't a "hard choice". It's just cr*p
Not that comparison specifically, but yes, I have been told "get over it" a number of times.
Typically by people who think if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes truth ("People didn't like the ending because it made them sad" and such)
I'm not telling you that this time. I kind of wish you knew the episode now. It's interesting... it's about how the Doctor moves from simple hologram to truly going past his programming and becoming a full fledged character.
But whatever..
You know how it is with gamer PTSD, it just strikes randomly. Or due to a sensitive point *cough*endings*cough* is brought up. I basically consider this thread a big-list of trigger reactions from unhappy gamers.
That's cute rhetoric, but it doesn't offer any principled way to distinguish between a hat DP choice and, er, cr*p. Do you have one, or is this one of those subjective feeling deals?
How do the devs offer hard choices without making you feel bad?
Straycat, this is what I'm talking about with people making the same statements over and over, forcing me to repeat myself over and over...
At any rate: short answer, it isn't easy. Longer answer below.
1) The most obvious one: by offering a wide variety of fates for the protagonists. Endings where Shepard dies. Endings where Shepard lives. Endings where Shepard lives but is crippled. And so on. Sacrifice should be voluntary on the part of the player. ANd the player should not be punished for declaining to ride that particular rail. Shep should be allowed to walk away without a big "Game Over" screen.
2) Make the sacrifice seem worth it. Simple survival is not enough of a "reward" if the cost is genocide, slavery and eugenics. I cannot stress this enough. So I underlined, italicized and bolded it. This gets overlooked SO MANY TIMES. I wonder if I should add it to my sign under Dalinar Kholin's quote.
3) Make it fit the story. Shepard can go from strength to strength, suffering only one major defeat (Thessia) and then, surprise! Here's the Catalyst going "You shall not pass!" Frankly the entire game feels on-rails And Shepard only gets off Earth at the start because of artificial stupidity. Shepard exists because they allowed it and ended because they demanded it. The entire ending scenario feels like the story is being wrenched away from the player. Well, much of the game was like this but the ending especially so. It's taking Shepard away from us and turning him/her into a sock puppet.
I'd cite DAO as a great example of sacrifice on the part of the player. But I know from previous iterations of this conversation that you consider the DR to be the "I Win" button. And then I respond with how I don't find it the best ending, and I prefer "Redeemer" You disagree because with the Dark Ritual everyone lives. And around and around we go...
I'm not telling you that this time. I kind of wish you knew the episode now. It's interesting... it's about how the Doctor moves from simple hologram to truly going past his programming and becoming a full fledged character.
But whatever..
I'm not blaming you for anything. Just explaining. There are a number of people (a few I have on ignore) who think anyone who doesn't kiss Bioware's...ring is some kind of troll. And won't let minor details like "facts" get in the way 
And while I have not seen Voyager in a good ling time, I am familiar with the episode 
I haven't thought about it, but to end with obscurity, which of the four endings?
Refuse = Immortality
Synthesis = mass murder (imo)
Control = turn yourself into starbrat?
Destroy maybe? Or Control if no one knows?
gonists. Endings where Shepard dies. Endings where Shepard lives. Endings where Shepard lives but is crippled. And so on. Sacrifice should be voluntary on the part of the player. ANd the player should not be punished for declaining to ride that particular rail. Shep should be allowed to walk away without a big "Game Over" screen.
2) Make the sacrifice seem worth it. Simple survival is not enough of a "reward" if the cost is genocide, slavery and eugenics. I cannot stress this enough. So I underlined, italicized and bolded it. This gets overlooked SO MANY TIMES. I wonder if I should add it to my sign under Dalinar Kholin's quote.
3) Make it fit the story.
It's not genocide if you don't believe it is (or at least, need to be convinced more). If it's really that bad to you, then it's obviously not the right choice. But that isn't universally accepted....nor do people who choose it do that because they're choosing genocide. It's the furthest thing from their minds. They're choosing something else. Liberation, for lack of a better word. Secondly, most of them wouldn't have the Geth anyways. So at best, it's "murder". Since EDI dies.
You sound like someone fully in the AI camp... yet you want to judge Destroy as if it's something you would consider. When you never would have in the first place.
I understand your misgivings with Synthesis. I think Control is the easiest route for you. 
It isn't Refuse either, since you're so adamantly opposed to death in these other endings. If you choose that, then you chose death on the highest scale ever achieved.
That's cute rhetoric, but it doesn't offer any principled way to distinguish between a hard choice and, er, cr*p. Do you have one, or is this one of those subjective feeling deals?
Can your position be operationalized? How do the devs offer hard choices without making you feel bad?
I think a different question is, what makes a choice "hard"? That's part of the issue. For example, I think something like the DR choice in DA:O is an incredibly easy and obvious choice - to the extent the alternative is just stupid. But some thing there's some degree of "difficulty" with that choice.
I see now iakus uses the DR as an example of a good sacrifice choice - but I happen to think it's just an idiotic choice. So it gets us nowhere.
Straycat, this is what I'm talking about with people making the same statements over and over, forcing me to repeat myself over and over...
At any rate: short answer, it isn't easy. Longer answer below.
1) The most obvious one: by offering a wide variety of fates for the protagonists. Endings where Shepard dies. Endings where Shepard lives. Endings where Shepard lives but is crippled. And so on. Sacrifice should be voluntary on the part of the player. ANd the player should not be punished for declaining to ride that particular rail. Shep should be allowed to walk away without a big "Game Over" screen.
2) Make the sacrifice seem worth it. Simple survival is not enough of a "reward" if the cost is genocide, slavery and eugenics. I cannot stress this enough. So I underlined, italicized and bolded it. This gets overlooked SO MANY TIMES. I wonder if I should add it to my sign under Dalinar Kholin's quote.
3) Make it fit the story. Shepard can go from strength to strength, suffering only one major defeat (Thessia) and then, surprise! Here's the Catalyst going "You shall not pass!" Frankly the entire game feels on-rails And Shepard only gets off Earth at the start because of artificial stupidity. Shepard exists because they allowed it and ended because they demanded it. The entire ending scenario feels like the story is being wrenched away from the player. Well, much of the game was like this but the ending especially so. It's taking Shepard away from us and turning him/her into a sock puppet.
I'd cite DAO as a great example of sacrifice on the part of the player. But I know from previous iterations of this conversation that you consider the DR to be the "I Win" button. And then I respond with how I don't find it the best ending, and I prefer "Redeemer" You disagree because with the Dark Ritual everyone lives. And around and around we go...
I'm not blaming you for anything. Just explaining. There are a number of people (a few I have on ignore) who think anyone who doesn't kiss Bioware's...ring is some kind of troll. And won't let minor details like "facts" get in the way
And while I have not seen Voyager in a good ling time, I am familiar with the episode
Let's pretend we agree on all of this abstractly (lots of endings, make the sacrifice worth it, make it fit the story) - how do we get to it being a "hard" choice? Again, I go back to the DR. To me, that's simply not a choice that makes the sacrifice worth it. The US ostensibly kills the soul of the AD, and erases me from existence too, in a setting that might have an afterlife. So I choose between oblivion and... what, trusting Morrigan? The choice is stupid, because the sacrifice isn't worth it, and I don't even have a payoff that erasing the soul of the OG is the "right" or good outcome. Instead of trusting Morrigan, I just have to trust that Riordan and the Wardens know what the suffering **** the're doing despite all the evidence to the contrary.
The sacrifice is worth it especially to me, because I don't want to hear about the Warden again. They just can't handle it well.
But either way, it was also my first choice when I played. I guess I was going for the heroic thing, and it worked.. Sad, but it worked. Maybe the DR was better in the longrun. I don't know. But my experience at the time was rewarding.
It's not genocide if you don't believe it is (or at least, need to be convinced more). If it's really that bad to you, then it's obviously not the right choice. But that isn't universally accepted....nor do people who choose it do that because they're choosing genocide. It's the furthest thing from their minds. They're choosing something else. Liberation, for lack of a better word. Secondly, most of them wouldn't have the Geth anyways. So at best, it's "murder". Since EDI dies.
You sound like someone fully in the AI camp... yet you want to judge Destroy as if it's something you would consider. When you never would have in the first place.
I understand your misgivings with Synthesis. I think Control is the easiest route for you.
Let's pretend we agree on all of this abstractly (lots of endings, make the sacrifice worth it, make it fit the story) - how do we get to it being a "hard" choice? Again, I go back to the DR. To me, that's simply not a choice that makes the sacrifice worth it. The US ostensibly kills the soul of the AD, and erases me from existence too, in a setting that might have an afterlife. So I choose between oblivion and... what, trusting Morrigan? The choice is stupid, because the sacrifice isn't worth it, and I don't even have a payoff that erasing the soul of the OG is the "right" or good outcome. Instead of trusting Morrigan, I just have to trust that Riordan and the Wardens know what the suffering **** the're doing despite all the evidence to the contrary.
US - die like a hero and destroy the Archdemon.
DR - If Morrigan is wrong than maybe the Archdemon will be re-incarnated as your son (still tainted),
and even if not then you have The Calling to look forward to.
There are other considerations as well, the choice is not as clear cut as you make it.
The sacrifice is worth it especially to me, because I don't want to hear about the Warden again. They just can't handle it well.
But either way, it was also my first choice when I played. I guess I was going for the heroic thing, and it worked.. Sad, but it worked. Maybe the DR was better in the longrun. I don't know. But my experience at the time was rewarding.
When I think of a sacrifice ending that works, Fire Emblem: Awakening actually comes to mind. Grima is pretty clearly shown to be pure evil, the cause of at least one apocalypse, and an irredeemable force of death and destruction. If we don't kill it dead, we'll be dead by the next time it can threaten the world, so unlike the DR there's no fall-back plan. And killing Grima fixes the problem: no more evil dragon overgod. The US ending lacks all of these things, to me.
That's a difference for me since I think that Shepard obviously survives in high-EMS Destroy.
I suppose the high EMS makes the debris less heavy and the explosions less violent...
Ignoring the multiple synthetic implant failures Shepard supposedly suffered from.
Where'd that come from? I didn't think we were talking about Shepard dying here; I thought the topic was choices that made your Shepard feel suicidal.(Standard disclaimer for this subtopic applies: from what I can see we actually got what you're asking for; what we disagree about is presentation, not substance.)
But as long as we're doing this, what does "not be punished" mean, exactly? It sounds like you're saying that sacrifice shouldn't ever produce better results than non-sacrifice. It's something the player can do if he thinks sacrifice would be cool, but there should always be a way out of it?
It cam from Shepard's (almost) inevitable death being one of the biggest complaints about the ending (standard disclaimer: It is not for me personally) ANd one of the major reasons for Destroy being so popular is because at it's highest value, it's the only ending that hints at Shepard's survival. I'd be willing to bet that if the other endings had a similar scene, Destroy wouldn't be nearly as popular as it is.
"Not be punished" means no "SO BE IT" and a long game over screen for refusing to sacrifice yourself. The outcome should be different, with different gains and losses than choosing not to sacrifice. Whether those gains and losses are better or worse should be up to the player.
Why isn't it enough, and what would be enough of a reward? This is the meat of your position, and it's not really clear how it works.
What would be enough of a reward? Life and liberty. Freedom for the galaxy to choose its own path going forward. Freedom to be who and what they are.
Seriously, this is a galaxy-spanning war where billions of people have died, whole colonies destroyed, Even the homeworlds of the COuncil races have been stomped on. And that's not enough? We have to frak with people's DNA too? Wipe out all synthetics everywhere in the galaxy? Hail out new mecha-Cthulhu overlords? Is showing the cleanup on planets where billions of people died not "dark and edgy" enough?
Sure. Didn't I, like, just agree with you on this part? Again, even though I don't think the trilogy handled choice well, this isn't something you fix at the very end. Hopefully, ME:A will give us morally awful choices all the way through the game.
Great "Witcher in Spaaaaaaaace!!!"
US - die like a hero and destroy the Archdemon.
DR - If Morrigan is wrong than maybe the Archdemon will be re-incarnated as your son, and then you have The Calling to look forward to.
There are other considerations as well, the choice is not as clear cut as you make it.
Well, the Calling or hundreds of years of life like a certain Grey Warden mage. But let's say Morrigan is wrong, and she's super wrong: the AD doesn't just get a human meatsuit that you can kill really easily, it goes back to being a super dragon. Well, you killed it once before. Basically single-handedly, and it doesn't get to have a darkspawn army around it this time.
And, again, I have no reason to think that destroying the AD is the "good" ending, apart from the fact that the Wardens think it is the good ending. There are so many cosmological things in play that we know absolutely nothing about, and as I say, I'm asked to trust an organization that proved to be staffed by people who are actively lying to different levels of their own rank and far too stupid to live.
But my point isn't that it's clear cut. My point is that to me it's clear cut, and the choice is easy. So I come back to the original question - what makes a good "hard" choice? I think the answer is very subjective, and not something we can come up with abstract principles for so easily.
I also have an aversion to sex rites done with witches. So that could be another reason I avoided it
I mean, it usually goes bad. Like Mordred. Or that Beowulf 3D flick.
I think a different question is, what makes a choice "hard"? That's part of the issue. For example, I think something like the DR choice in DA:O is an incredibly easy and obvious choice - to the extent the alternative is just stupid. But some thing there's some degree of "difficulty" with that choice.
I see now iakus uses the DR as an example of a good sacrifice choice - but I happen to think it's just an idiotic choice. So it gets us nowhere.
I have gone with all four endings in DAO. I personally find Redeemer the best, but I see no outcome that is demonstrably superior to the others. It simply depends on what kind of Warden you are playing.
Let's pretend we agree on all of this abstractly (lots of endings, make the sacrifice worth it, make it fit the story) - how do we get to it being a "hard" choice? Again, I go back to the DR. To me, that's simply not a choice that makes the sacrifice worth it. The US ostensibly kills the soul of the AD, and erases me from existence too, in a setting that might have an afterlife. So I choose between oblivion and... what, trusting Morrigan? The choice is stupid, because the sacrifice isn't worth it, and I don't even have a payoff that erasing the soul of the OG is the "right" or good outcome. Instead of trusting Morrigan, I just have to trust that Riordan and the Wardens know what the suffering **** the're doing despite all the evidence to the contrary.
In the case of the DR, you are trusting that Morrigan is correct that the Old God will not be tainted, not to mention the idea that unleashing a Tevinter Old God onto Thedas is a good idea at all.
TO me the DR is just kicking the can down the road, creating a crisis for the next generation to solve. But that's just me.
I also have an aversion to sex rites done with witches. So that could be another reason I avoided it
I mean, it usually goes bad. Like Mordred. Or that Beowulf 3D flick.
That's just the old religious based bias against magic: "Suffer not a witch to live" or whatever.
Well, Control doesn't exactly preserve Shepard's life; the Sheplyst isn't really Shepard. That's a difference for me since I think that Shepard obviously survives in high-EMS Destroy. Not sure about Iakus.
Shepard survives HIGHEST EMs Destroy.
And potentially bleeds out because everyone but the LI has given Shepard up for dead. Shepard is alsoso horribly disfigured by the explosion Bioware won't even show his/her face. Shepard is found years/decades later by some technician working on the Citadel because Shepard was in a previously unexplored section of the Citadel and nobody thought to look there before.
That's just the old religious based bias against magic: "suffer not a witch to live" or whatever.
Well, I am religious... if you didn't gather that from our last conversation.
I have no interest in killing her though.
Shepard survives HIGHEST EMs Destroy.
And potentially bleeds out because everyone but the LI has given Shepard up for dead. Shepard is alsoso horribly disfigured by the explosion Bioware won't even show his/her face. Shepard is found years/decades later by some technician working on the Citadel because Shepard was in a previously unexplored section of the Citadel and nobody thought to look there before.
Like I pointed in another thread. No one wants to see some drawn out rescue scene. All you need is an image usually to convey an idea.
If you disagree, go take it up with Earnest Hemingway
https://en.wikipedia.../Iceberg_Theory
Well, I am religious... if you didn't gather that from our last conversation.
I *was* religious...
In the case of the DR, you are trusting that Morrigan is correct that the Old God will not be tainted, not to mention the idea that unleashing a Tevinter Old God onto Thedas is a good idea at all.
TO me the DR is just kicking the can down the road, creating a crisis for the next generation to solve. But that's just me.
Not to me. To me, the DR is better assuming Morrigan is totally wrong, the OG will be tainted, and an OG is an evil being of pure malevolence, assuming the thing even exists at all. I'm kicking the can down the road for me to solve - because it's evil and tainted, that problem will come up in the next first 20 years of life, assuming I can't just figure out whatever immortality draught Avernus is drinking from here.
But again, this isn't my point. My question, again, is what makes the choice hard? To me, the DR is laughably easy. Hell, what makes it a good sacrifice? I think the US ending is stupidly throwing away your life for nothing, in the desperate hope there's some else competent enough to avert the next apocalypse.
I *was* religious...
You sounded informed. 
Like I pointed in another thread. No one wants to see some drawn out rescue scene. All you need is an image usually to convey an idea.
If you disagree, go take it up with Earnest Hemingway
Yeah, well, you know that Hemingway joke?
"Why did the chicken cross the road?"
Hemingway: "To die. In the rain."
Not to me. To me, the DR is better assuming Morrigan is totally wrong, the OG will be tainted, and an OG is an evil being of pure malevolence, assuming the thing even exists at all. I'm kicking the can down the road for me to solve - because it's evil and tainted, that problem will come up in the next first 20 years of life, assuming I can't just figure out whatever immortality draught Avernus is drinking from here.
But again, this isn't my point. My question, again, is what makes the choice hard? To me, the DR is laughably easy. Hell, what makes it a good sacrifice? I think the US ending is stupidly throwing away your life for nothing, in the desperate hope there's some else competent enough to avert the next apocalypse.
What makes it a hard choice is you have an opportunity to end this Old God/Archdemon's evil once and for all. TO completely remove its threat from Thedas, not just for now, but for all time. The trick is, it will cost a life. Your own or the other Grey Warden's. Or, you can kick the can, trust Morrigan, and hope things turn out okay later on.
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