Humbleness as applied to development..

[Haerski]

Lots of opinion in here. What i have learnt is that this kind of thing boils down to opinion mostly. So that is clear.

 

But can you may be have the best of both worlds at the same time, hypothetically. What about IWD2 story? Obviously a simple story as it is, but it was believable. It was also high fantasy at the same time. If you just made it more complex and grander, would you end up with something good? I dont fully understand what you BG fans see missing in IWD2 story so did I get it right? What would you change in it to make it a better story?

First thing from top of my mind is that in IWD you create every character from scratch and they appear in the story only as bunch of random adventures with no real backstory or history in the world. That gives the games it's own touch, which I can appreciate but is detrimental to the depth of the story. If we again draw comparison to Planescape: Torment, there you had party of which everyone was part of the world with their own backstories and maybe even some history with your main character (Amnesia, such a perfect excuse in video games) which was uncovered by conversing with them. People on street might remember you from previous encounter and meetings may have different outcomes depending on which characters you have in your party. When Planescape told story about it's main character, The Nameless One, in Icewind Dale your characters were more like random bystanders getting involved in events by chance.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Haerski

[Sheikh]

 

Lots of opinion in here. What i have learnt is that this kind of thing boils down to opinion mostly. So that is clear.

 

But can you may be have the best of both worlds at the same time, hypothetically. What about IWD2 story? Obviously a simple story as it is, but it was believable. It was also high fantasy at the same time. If you just made it more complex and grander, would you end up with something good? I dont fully understand what you BG fans see missing in IWD2 story so did I get it right? What would you change in it to make it a better story?

First thing from top of my mind is that in IWD you create every character from scratch and they appear in the story only as bunch of random adventures with no real backstory or history in the world. That gives the games it's own touch, which I can appreciate but is detrimental to the depth of the story. If we again draw comparison to Planescape: Torment, there you had party of which everyone was part of the world with their own backstories and maybe even some history with your main character (Amnesia, such a perfect excuse in video games) which was uncovered by conversing with them. People on street might remember you from previous encounter and meetings may have different outcomes depending on which characters you have in your party. When Planescape told story about it's main character, The Nameless One, in Icewind Dale your characters were more like random bystanders getting involved in events by chance.

 

Safe, I understand that very well.

 

Now again my opinion is that there are very few personalities in the real world that are meaningful to a great number of people. I mean lets take 200 figures from history. How often do you actually think of them? How much do you care about the personas of your favorite singers or writers or anyone? I dont really. My world view is not centered on people, but on things. So to me, my favorite singer is just another tool in "god's" (I dont actually believe in god) arsenal carrying out his little mission.

 

Thats why I feel IWD2 actually gives you more freedom in imagining what is the persona and background of one of the 6 (1? 2? 3? 4? 5?) tools in the arsenal of fate, god or nature in carrying out this mission. Because it has only sentimental meaning anyway. Its a flavor. Its important, but only to some extent.

 

So thats my view.

 

So my opinoin now is that it depends on the players personality whether they want more of an experience or a sandbox. Will be interesting to see what kind of bargain does PoE strike in the middle of this 50 shades of grey.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Sheikh

[Infinitron]

Taking too much control over the way the whole game functions could be detrimental. Just implement all the good ideas and let the player play them out. Use balance as a controlling mechanism at the most. Make questionable aspects of gameplay optional, dont cut them out. That would be my advice/idea of how to do it.

 

 

Uh, this sounds a lot more like "designing the game to be an experience" - and a lot more like what Todd Howard does - than what Josh Sawyer intends to do in this game.

 

OP seems to be a fan of ill-defined terms.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Infinitron

[Sheikh]

 

Taking too much control over the way the whole game functions could be detrimental. Just implement all the good ideas and let the player play them out. Use balance as a controlling mechanism at the most. Make questionable aspects of gameplay optional, dont cut them out. That would be my advice/idea of how to do it.

 

 

Uh, this sounds a lot more like "designing the game to be an experience" - and a lot more like what Todd Howard does - than what Josh Sawyer intends to do in this game.

 

OP is pretty incoherent.

 

Okay so the opposite of designing an experience in your opinion is what?

[Lephys]

I personally like A Song of Ice and Fire. But, I've got to admit, it's not even nearly my favorite story/series/world.

 

I don't think it's flat-out bad or anything. I think for what it is, it's pretty good and interesting. But, yeah, he definitely takes the "who says a good king is going to rule in a golden age?" thing a bit too far, overcompensating by making almost everyone in any position of power either a horrible person, or overwhelmed/outnumbered by horrible people. In his world, 90% of the people in the world are terrible people, and 10% are like... angels of justice.

 

There's some good character development here and there and such, but... there's just a bit too much "dark" in there. You can still have plenty of bad stuff happen all the time without it being caused by almost every single main character you have being an arse. Even all of the horrible characters don't really come out on top, as they are constantly screwed over by one another. So, you don't even have any semblance of stability from a tyrannical rule.

 

Annnnnywho...

[Ffordesoon]

I can't speak for Infinitron, but I'm not sure I understand what "designing an experience" means in this context. That's all video games are: designed experiences. Galaga is designed to be experienced. That's kind of where the whole "interactivity" bit comes into play.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Ffordesoon

[Infinitron]

Okay so the opposite of designing an experience in your opinion is what?

 

 

I don't know what "designing an experience" means. I can tell you that Josh Sawyer appears to subscribe to a "gamist" philosophy of design, which basically means that he doesn't put mechanics in a game unless they're well-balanced to offer meaningful choices to players. He doesn't just throw stuff in, even if it might make sense in terms of making the game world more realistic. I don't know if that's what you'd call an "experience", but it certainly sounds different from an Elder Scrolls game.

[Sheikh]

 

Okay so the opposite of designing an experience in your opinion is what?

 

 

I don't know what "designing an experience" means. I can tell you that Josh Sawyer appears to subscribe to a "gamist" philosophy of design, which basically means that he doesn't put mechanics in a game unless they're well-balanced to offer meaningful choices to players. He doesn't just throw stuff in, even if it might make sense in terms of making the game world more realistic. I don't know if that's what you'd call an "experience", but it certainly sounds different from an Elder Scrolls game.

 

Safe, I understand. Thats exactly what I dont like.

[J.E. Sawyer]

I'm not opposed to letting happy accidents blossom into features or elements of areas/quests, but I am opposed to ad hoc development unless it's the stated point of the project.  There are a lot of different ways to build things.  If you build without a plan, it's going to take a lot of time.  You may certainly wind up with more wild and cool results, but there's a very real cost to building that way.  I've seen designers burn themselves out (to the point where they quit the industry) to develop something with the scripting equivalent of spit and glue only to see it ultimately fail -- fail in achieving the vision they had and fail to produce an enjoyable experience for the player.

 

I've seen a few games that could have been better if they were a little less polished, but I've seen far, far more that could have benefited from cut features and cut content.  That comes down to two things: 1) planning in the first place 2) well-ordered triage and culling as the project comes to a close.  If you plan, the number of "casualties" is lower.  If the number of casualties is lower, the cuts are easier to make and have a much better impact on the quality of the game.

[Sheikh]

I'm not opposed to letting happy accidents blossom into features or elements of areas/quests, but I am opposed to ad hoc development unless it's the stated point of the project.  There are a lot of different ways to build things.  If you build without a plan, it's going to take a lot of time.  You may certainly wind up with more wild and cool results, but there's a very real cost to building that way.  I've seen designers burn themselves out (to the point where they quit the industry) to develop something with the scripting equivalent of spit and glue only to see it ultimately fail -- fail in achieving the vision they had and fail to produce an enjoyable experience for the player.

 

I've seen a few games that could have been better if they were a little less polished, but I've seen far, far more that could have benefited from cut features and cut content.  That comes down to two things: 1) planning in the first place 2) well-ordered triage and culling as the project comes to a close.  If you plan, the number of "casualties" is lower.  If the number of casualties is lower, the cuts are easier to make and have a much better impact on the quality of the game.

Cant think of any game that could have benefited from cut content off the top of my head. I dont think principally such a thing could exist, but I think if I thought carefully and hard enough I would find something. May be as a developer you have a sharper eye for this kind of thing than I do.

 

I mean planning what you are going to do is essential, thats clear. But why couldnt you plan to make "wild" developments and cool things? What I mean is, take something cool like the eth cube bug from D2 (I dont expect you to know what that is Josh, but Id be happily suprised if you did) and plan your game to include SOMETHING of the same sort. Not in the sense that you would have a similar feature, but a similarly crazy feature.

 

Now if you are actually planning to have a fair amount of crazy features in your game, planning around cutting out some of them at the end of the day is also sound.

 

May be the harder part is getting your inspiration working to come up with them.

 

I am always suprised by how they managed to make the code of D2 messy in just the right way to produce those bugs.

 

If that isnt the point of the project of Eternity, thats fine. But the key word with these kind of things is innovation. I hope Eternity still innovates in some cool ways.

[Lephys]

Cant think of any game that could have benefited from cut content off the top of my head.

Assassin's Creed III's crafting system. Not the whole thing, but, a lot of it could've been cut out. There was an awful long list of various items to craft with really hardly any significant difference in the outcome (trade price, etc.). It was a heck of a lot of variety for variety's sake. Sure, if they could've spent more time on it and made the variety significant, that would've been great. But, considering they were finished with the game when they were finished (deadlines are deadlines), it would've been better to have simply cut most of that out and focused on the simpler basics of the system than to have spent whatever time they did on SO many items that don't really do anything or make much sense from an economical standpoint (a lot of the items cost a GREAT deal more resources than others to craft, but sold for a pittance and weren't usable for anything other than to sell.)

[Sheikh]

 

Cant think of any game that could have benefited from cut content off the top of my head.

Assassin's Creed III's crafting system. Not the whole thing, but, a lot of it could've been cut out. There was an awful long list of various items to craft with really hardly any significant difference in the outcome (trade price, etc.). It was a heck of a lot of variety for variety's sake. Sure, if they could've spent more time on it and made the variety significant, that would've been great. But, considering they were finished with the game when they were finished (deadlines are deadlines), it would've been better to have simply cut most of that out and focused on the simpler basics of the system than to have spent whatever time they did on SO many items that don't really do anything or make much sense from an economical standpoint (a lot of the items cost a GREAT deal more resources than others to craft, but sold for a pittance and weren't usable for anything other than to sell.)

 

But the better and simpler solution would have been to alter the prices or availability of those crafting items/materials to make them a relevant alternative. See you dont need to cut it out.

 

Either that or I dont know what Im talking about cause I have never played it. Thats just what I can tell from what you wrote.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Sheikh

[Lephys]

But the better and simpler solution would have been to alter the prices or availability of those crafting items/materials to make them a relevant alternative. See you dont need to cut it out.

 

Either that or I dont know what Im talking about cause I have never played it. Thats just what I can tell from what you wrote.

Ehhh, sort of. Again, they obviously did not have time to do this, and there wasn't anything else in the game to support any of this significance. You would've just had like 100 different things that were all slightly different in cost/sale price. Thus, again, it's a cost-benefit thing. With the system they had, it really would've been quickest and most beneficial to simply have cut (or at least cut-down) the amount of stuff they were trying to force into that crafting/trade system, and just focus on the quality and implementation of the system itself.

 

If you ever play it, you'll see what I mean. It's a pretty fun game, overall, and a decently interesting story (although, apparently Connor not only was a part of, but also pretty much single-handedly was responsible for almost every major occurrence/event in the entire Revolutionary War, )

[Sheikh]

 

But the better and simpler solution would have been to alter the prices or availability of those crafting items/materials to make them a relevant alternative. See you dont need to cut it out.

 

Either that or I dont know what Im talking about cause I have never played it. Thats just what I can tell from what you wrote.

Ehhh, sort of. Again, they obviously did not have time to do this, and there wasn't anything else in the game to support any of this significance. You would've just had like 100 different things that were all slightly different in cost/sale price. Thus, again, it's a cost-benefit thing. With the system they had, it really would've been quickest and most beneficial to simply have cut (or at least cut-down) the amount of stuff they were trying to force into that crafting/trade system, and just focus on the quality and implementation of the system itself.

 

If you ever play it, you'll see what I mean. It's a pretty fun game, overall, and a decently interesting story (although, apparently Connor not only was a part of, but also pretty much single-handedly was responsible for almost every major occurrence/event in the entire Revolutionary War, )

 

Okay safe. Now you are getting me interested in game development as such.

 

I have never developed games, but I understand the point both you and Josh make about direction of effort, I guess.

 

I think at the end of the day you have to know exactly what you are doing for optimal success at both completing successful development of a practically enjoyable game and making a good, innovative game.

 

For example Diablo 2 is not really just an ARPG. Its a semo-MMORPG (socialization) / trading simulator and loot simulator. Thats probably not what the devs were initially aiming at. But it doesnt hurt if you do know what you are aiming at. Diablo 2 just ended being way ahead of its time. That kind of innovation isnt necessary for a good game, but it doesnt hurt. But if you know what you are doing you can at least innovate in smaller aspects of the game than what a genre or semi-genre is. Smaller aspects would be gameplay, story, etc.

[Sensuki]

*snip* .. 

I am always surprised by how they managed to make the code of D2 messy in just the right way to produce those bugs.

 

If that isn't the point of the project of Eternity, that's fine. But the key word with these kind of things is innovation. I hope Eternity still innovates in some cool ways.

I think you're getting a couple of things mixed up. The Code in Diablo 2 isn't the way it is because of the way the game was managed or developed. That's just how it was written, and testing did not find those bugs. Josh is talking about Project Management.

 

Eternity does have some pretty crazy things - number one crazy feature is the stuff they did with the visuals in pre-production. Moving water, dynamic lighting and such in a 2D scene. I don't know if that was "planned" per-se. Someone probably did a bit of research, found a youtube video or something and said "hey, why don't we try this?".

 

If you compare Kickstarter Projects such as Eternity, Wasteland 2, Broken Age among others - Pillars of Eternity is easily the best managed project. That said we don't have the beta yet and we haven't seen much gameplay footage, but from what we can tell in the way the project is scheduled and managed, it is a lot better than both of the others.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Sensuki

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

I'm not opposed to letting happy accidents blossom into features or elements of areas/quests, but I am opposed to ad hoc development unless it's the stated point of the project.  There are a lot of different ways to build things.  If you build without a plan, it's going to take a lot of time.  You may certainly wind up with more wild and cool results, but there's a very real cost to building that way.  I've seen designers burn themselves out (to the point where they quit the industry) to develop something with the scripting equivalent of spit and glue only to see it ultimately fail -- fail in achieving the vision they had and fail to produce an enjoyable experience for the player.

 

I've seen a few games that could have been better if they were a little less polished, but I've seen far, far more that could have benefited from cut features and cut content.  That comes down to two things: 1) planning in the first place 2) well-ordered triage and culling as the project comes to a close.  If you plan, the number of "casualties" is lower.  If the number of casualties is lower, the cuts are easier to make and have a much better impact on the quality of the game.

Cant think of any game that could have benefited from cut content off the top of my head.

 

I could be mistaken, but I think Josh means features and content that were cut from the final game, not superfluous features and content.

[Sensuki]

Every single Diablo 3 in-game cutscene (OMFG stop interrupting my left clicking) - that's content.

[Bryy]

 

Cant think of any game that could have benefited from cut content off the top of my head. 

That's because it was cut.

 

Every game ever made has cut content.

[IndiraLightfoot]

And every good game even killed some darlings to get there.

[Bryy]

And every good game even killed some darlings to get there.

Exactly.

 

Cut content is not always good stuff. And even if it IS good stuff, it was cut for a REASON. Look at how they are handling the Extra Stretch Goals situation - it is going into the expansion. These things cost MONEY to make, and in this case, ONLY $4.5 million.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

I personally like A Song of Ice and Fire. But, I've got to admit, it's not even nearly my favorite story/series/world.

 

I don't think it's flat-out bad or anything. I think for what it is, it's pretty good and interesting. But, yeah, he definitely takes the "who says a good king is going to rule in a golden age?" thing a bit too far, overcompensating by making almost everyone in any position of power either a horrible person, or overwhelmed/outnumbered by horrible people. In his world, 90% of the people in the world are terrible people, and 10% are like... angels of justice.

 

There's some good character development here and there and such, but... there's just a bit too much "dark" in there. You can still have plenty of bad stuff happen all the time without it being caused by almost every single main character you have being an arse. Even all of the horrible characters don't really come out on top, as they are constantly screwed over by one another. So, you don't even have any semblance of stability from a tyrannical rule.

 

Annnnnywho...

 

Yeah. I've heard GRRM say that he likes writing 'grey' characters. And certainly SoIaF has quite a number of those, such as Jaime Lannister or Sandor Clegane or Stannis Baratheon. Characters who have their good qualities and their bad qualities, though the latter are often so bad they would automatically classify the character as a straight villain in almost any other series.

 

What he doesn't seem to acknowledge, however, is his very obvious fondness for characters so morally black they make Sauron look like a girl scout. Honestly, it sometimes seems like a good portion of his characters are in a 'biggest ****' competition with one another. Queen Cersei, Joffrey Baratheon, Viserys Targaryen, Roose Bolton, Ramsay Snow, Gregor Clegane, Vargo Hoat, Amory Lorch, Walder Frey and most of his family, pretty much every Bloody Mummer, just about the entire society of Slaver's Bay, probably a number of others I'm forgetting...these are characters who are often so over-the-top in their atrociousness that it strains credibility. I sometimes wonder if GRRM walks around thinking up the most horrible things he can possibly imagine a character doing just so he can have his villains do it and make the reader hate them more.

 

Unlike some others in this thread, I enjoy SoIaF a lot, but I have to say this part of it eventually does get rather tiring. It almost seems a cheap trick when you have to have your villains perpetually being as repulsive as possible to make the audience root for the more sympathetic characters. Dany's character arc, in particular, seems almost designed to make her more barbaric behavior look better in comparison by having her enemies be as completely unsympathetic as possible. 

Edited April 27, 2014 by Death Machine Miyagi

[Sheikh]

 

And every good game even killed some darlings to get there.

Exactly.

 

Cut content is not always good stuff. And even if it IS good stuff, it was cut for a REASON. Look at how they are handling the Extra Stretch Goals situation - it is going into the expansion. These things cost MONEY to make, and in this case, ONLY $4.5 million.

 

Okay safe. My blind optimism perhaps has been dominating my thinking a little too much in here. And I stand by the fact that most of the cut content COULD technically/potentially have been made into worthy content. But I understand that there are many reasons for cutting content. And the money part is something I look past extremely easily, but it is sadly a big factor. Another big reason is the money is better spent elsewhere.

 

Then again if we start talking about money I think many big developers spend huge amounts of money polishing turds of various kinds. But that's another topic. Although that is the reason why I think it should be easy to look past the money issue for developers who don't and sadly not as true as I would have thought.

Yeah. I've heard GRRM say that he likes writing 'grey' characters. And certainly SoIaF has quite a number of those, such as Jaime Lannister or Sandor Clegane or Stannis Baratheon. Characters who have their good qualities and their bad qualities, though the latter are often so bad they would automatically classify the character as a straight villain in almost any other series.

 

What he doesn't seem to acknowledge, however, is his very obvious fondness for characters so morally black they make Sauron look like a girl scout. Honestly, it sometimes seems like a good portion of his characters are in a 'biggest ****' competition with one another. Queen Cersei, Joffrey Baratheon, Viserys Targaryen, Roose Bolton, Ramsay Snow, Gregor Clegane, Vargo Hoat, Amory Lorch, Walder Frey and most of his family, pretty much every Bloody Mummer, just about the entire society of Slaver's Bay, probably a number of others I'm forgetting...these are characters who are often so over-the-top in their atrociousness that it strains credibility. I sometimes wonder if GRRM walks around thinking up the most horrible things he can possibly imagine a character doing just so he can have his villains do it and make the reader hate them more.

 

Unlike some others in this thread, I enjoy SoIaF a lot, but I have to say this part of it eventually does get rather tiring. It almost seems a cheap trick when you have to have your villains perpetually being as repulsive as possible to make the audience root for the more sympathetic characters. Dany's character arc, in particular, seems almost designed to make her more barbaric behavior look better in comparison by having her enemies be as completely unsympathetic as possible. 

 

May be it is your opinion of them that what they do is atrocious? Sounds like that to me. Perhaps you have a way of seeing into Martin's mind that I do not possess, but whatever he does works for me. I think this boils down to taste. Advice I can give you is, if you dont like it dont read it.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Sheikh

[Death Machine Miyagi]

 

Yeah. I've heard GRRM say that he likes writing 'grey' characters. And certainly SoIaF has quite a number of those, such as Jaime Lannister or Sandor Clegane or Stannis Baratheon. Characters who have their good qualities and their bad qualities, though the latter are often so bad they would automatically classify the character as a straight villain in almost any other series.

 

What he doesn't seem to acknowledge, however, is his very obvious fondness for characters so morally black they make Sauron look like a girl scout. Honestly, it sometimes seems like a good portion of his characters are in a 'biggest ****' competition with one another. Queen Cersei, Joffrey Baratheon, Viserys Targaryen, Roose Bolton, Ramsay Snow, Gregor Clegane, Vargo Hoat, Amory Lorch, Walder Frey and most of his family, pretty much every Bloody Mummer, just about the entire society of Slaver's Bay, probably a number of others I'm forgetting...these are characters who are often so over-the-top in their atrociousness that it strains credibility. I sometimes wonder if GRRM walks around thinking up the most horrible things he can possibly imagine a character doing just so he can have his villains do it and make the reader hate them more.

 

Unlike some others in this thread, I enjoy SoIaF a lot, but I have to say this part of it eventually does get rather tiring. It almost seems a cheap trick when you have to have your villains perpetually being as repulsive as possible to make the audience root for the more sympathetic characters. Dany's character arc, in particular, seems almost designed to make her more barbaric behavior look better in comparison by having her enemies be as completely unsympathetic as possible. 

 

May be it is your opinion of them that what they do is atrocious? Sounds like that to me. Perhaps you have a way of seeing into Martin's mind that I do not possess, but whatever he does works for me. I think this boils down to taste. Advice I can give you is, if you dont like it dont read it.

 

 

Oy. I actually said I do like it, which is why I do read it. Being annoyed by one or two aspects of a series you otherwise love doesn't mean you throw the whole thing out.

[Haerski]

Yeah. I've heard GRRM say that he likes writing 'grey' characters. And certainly SoIaF has quite a number of those, such as Jaime Lannister or Sandor Clegane or Stannis Baratheon. Characters who have their good qualities and their bad qualities, though the latter are often so bad they would automatically classify the character as a straight villain in almost any other series.

 

What he doesn't seem to acknowledge, however, is his very obvious fondness for characters so morally black they make Sauron look like a girl scout. Honestly, it sometimes seems like a good portion of his characters are in a 'biggest ****' competition with one another. Queen Cersei, Joffrey Baratheon, Viserys Targaryen, Roose Bolton, Ramsay Snow, Gregor Clegane, Vargo Hoat, Amory Lorch, Walder Frey and most of his family, pretty much every Bloody Mummer, just about the entire society of Slaver's Bay, probably a number of others I'm forgetting...these are characters who are often so over-the-top in their atrociousness that it strains credibility. I sometimes wonder if GRRM walks around thinking up the most horrible things he can possibly imagine a character doing just so he can have his villains do it and make the reader hate them more.

 

Unlike some others in this thread, I enjoy SoIaF a lot, but I have to say this part of it eventually does get rather tiring. It almost seems a cheap trick when you have to have your villains perpetually being as repulsive as possible to make the audience root for the more sympathetic characters. Dany's character arc, in particular, seems almost designed to make her more barbaric behavior look better in comparison by having her enemies be as completely unsympathetic as possible. 

 

I understand this viewpoint, but for me only real ***holes of the series are Joffrey and Ramsay. They are vile just for fun, while others usually have some reasons behind their deeds, be it greed, self-preservation, old grudges, lust for power, etc. Even Cersei gets some sympathy from me as she just happens to be bad combination of stupidity, pride, jealousy and paranoia, which in a way makes her not responsible for her actions. She's just lost in a game that's bigger than she can handle and aforementioned qualities make her incapable of realizing her true situation. I often feel bad for her even if her misfortunes are mostly her own fault.

[tajerio]

I understand this viewpoint, but for me only real ***holes of the series are Joffrey and Ramsay. They are vile just for fun, while others usually have some reasons behind their deeds, be it greed, self-preservation, old grudges, lust for power, etc. Even Cersei gets some sympathy from me as she just happens to be bad combination of stupidity, pride, jealousy and paranoia, which in a way makes her not responsible for her actions. She's just lost in a game that's bigger than she can handle and aforementioned qualities make her incapable of realizing her true situation. I often feel bad for her even if her misfortunes are mostly her own fault.

 

Thou art a more forgiving man than I, Gunga Din.

 

I can usually understand the motivations of characters who do bad things in fiction, but I almost never sympathize with or feel bad for them.