How forgiving is your cup of tea? (plot difficulty thread)

[Entropious]

Sorry, but I just had to chose "Sierra", since it's been such a long time since a game was created where you actually sometimes encountered unintended and unforseeable consequences.

[kenup]

We never really know the consequences of our choices until after we make them. So don't spoil us! Make us choose with incomplete information. Make the game like life... except that we can always try again!

This doesn't have to be universal. If you manage to gather enough information before hand and/or your character's stats permit it(among other stuff), you should be able to make good and accurate deductions about what your choices mean, before they come into fruition. And some, might be clear cut either way. Some choices might affect the later chapters, and some might take effect in the next few minutes. And choices should have consequences. But hand holding, Bethesda style, is quite bad.

[timobkg]

It's true!

Nothing gives me more pleasure than reloading my saved games from 2-3 hours ago XD

Not sure if you're being sarcastic. If you're not, I envy your free time.

 

When Plansecape and Fallout were released, I had tons of time to play. Now, I'm lucky if I get an hour or two a night. Losing 2-3 nights of progress would be maddening.

[timobkg]

Sorry, but I just had to chose "Sierra", since it's been such a long time since a game was created where you actually sometimes encountered unintended and unforseeable consequences.

Have you played The Witcher? Because there I encountered unintended and unforseeable consequences. What I didn't encounter is any case of "Oh, you didn't do this one seemingly unrelated thing at the beginning? Too bad, restart from the beginning." I'm happy with the former, and would be happy if I never again encountered the latter.

[Haawkings]

LoL at the Sierra choice! I guess I would go for something between Hard-V. Hard and old school. But I wouldn't mind if they put in the Sierra one as a joke! I always hated that bethesda is hand holding the players. "Oops you can't kill *important* NPCs", or "Oh you shouldn't do that, now go take that other just as easy route".

 

Well it sucks when you figure out later that you can't complete your mainquest because you raided the whole village earlier on :s Kinda spoils the game... yeah.

 

It sucks more when my actions don't have consequences. Same for nuking someone and them being simply sleeping. It's not like the narrative won't give you hints. And Guides will be out there if you can't make it out that much

 

It happens, you try chat with an npc and he moves just as you are about to click him, so you end up stealing some random stuff instead and before you know it the whole town is off to kill you. **** happens, if you wipe out a city, it would be cool too see it gets some consequences too it indeed, but instead of breaking the game, perhaps they send bountyhunters on you or they send soldiers too help rebuild the fallen city. How much more fun it would be to be evil then :D

[kenup]

LoL at the Sierra choice! I guess I would go for something between Hard-V. Hard and old school. But I wouldn't mind if they put in the Sierra one as a joke! I always hated that bethesda is hand holding the players. "Oops you can't kill *important* NPCs", or "Oh you shouldn't do that, now go take that other just as easy route".

 

Well it sucks when you figure out later that you can't complete your mainquest because you raided the whole village earlier on :s Kinda spoils the game... yeah.

 

It sucks more when my actions don't have consequences. Same for nuking someone and them being simply sleeping. It's not like the narrative won't give you hints. And Guides will be out there if you can't make it out that much

 

It happens, you try chat with an npc and he moves just as you are about to click him, so you end up stealing some random stuff instead and before you know it the whole town is off to kill you. **** happens, if you wipe out a city, it would be cool too see it gets some consequences too it indeed, but instead of breaking the game, perhaps they send bountyhunters on you or they send soldiers too help rebuild the fallen city. How much more fun it would be to be evil then :D

If you wanted to talk to an NPC and instead "accidentally" steal something, thus inciting an entire town of bethesda NPOs attack you, load your save FFS! Wiping out a city should have its consequences, whatever those are. Not to mention destroying an entire city, assuming the city residents are mostly innocent and the town plays a big role in the plot, the story should take a complete different path than the one say, the savior of the town would take. If it is a mistake, again: load your game, no reason to continue with it.

[Sarathen]

I genuinely chuckled at 'Sierra'. I love old adventures games...but that doesn't change the fact that there are sometimes some bizarre and nonsensical game overs.

 

That said, I'm not quite sure how to answer this. I'm a tremendous fan of different endings, with the endings being anywhere from slightly changed to dramatically different. They make me happy. And I don't mind the presence of stupid/foolish actions that can make the game unwinnable. I just like to have at least a hint. Comments from an NPC, item description, previous quest information I should have paid attention to.

 

On the other end, I have issues with http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LostForever when it leads to an unwinnable situation. Make my character's life a little harder, give me some of my beloved consequences...but don't throw me to a game over screen four hours after I dropped the Dryer Lint of Inconsquence when my bag was full.