Choice and Consequence in this game feels....lacking. [Spoilers Galore]

[sparklecat]

I gather from my own experience and what I saw another person post that there's at least one point where personality reputations make a difference - if you go bury Wael's scroll without talking to the woman who sent you on the quest first.  I was told that what I claimed was ridiculous but I have an honest reputation so okay, while the other person was attacked.  And I agree, more like this would have been nice.  Quests where people flatly refuse to give them to me if I'm not deceitful, say; I shouldn't be offered a job smuggling stuff for a trading company when all evidence suggests I'd turn them in (yeah, there were other factors in this example, but the general point stands).

 

You're stopped from doing Eder's quest until you have high enough Defiance Bay reputation, which also was nice.

[cirdanx]

I mean... in BG you don't even get an ending besides a cinematic lol

To be fair, i never saw BG as it´s own game, considering it´s one big story arc that covers BG1+2+ToB. Then you get the ending. At last thats how i see it

 

I wouldn´t say lacking...a little bit anticlimatic maybe, but that ending makes me hope for a second game, and an expansion has allready been announced.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I gather from my own experience and what I saw another person post that there's at least one point where personality reputations make a difference - if you go bury Wael's scroll without talking to the woman who sent you on the quest first.  I was told that what I claimed was ridiculous but I have an honest reputation so okay, while the other person was attacked.  And I agree, more like this would have been nice.  Quests where people flatly refuse to give them to me if I'm not deceitful, say; I shouldn't be offered a job smuggling stuff for a trading company when all evidence suggests I'd turn them in (yeah, there were other factors in this example, but the general point stands).

 

In all fairness though, the implementation of the deceitful reputation irks me. Basically no matter how good I'm at lying, if I do it often enough, people will believe me to be a lying liar whose pants are, presumably, on fire. You can't ever be a successful manipulative bastard, at least not in the long term.

[chouia]

If the OP played the game a couple of times, and if people like to talk about the game, it means the game is not so bad! Great.

 

* I agree that there is no real terrible choices or endings. But it's credible. The game try to follow a more or less realistic path. Everything is more or less grey, everything can be a little bit different, but life continues.

* I agree that factions are not "incredible", and some points of the story could seem a little bit weak. But everything was still pretty nice, and it was never boring. I was afraid to play this kind of game again. Finally, I read everything, I was never bored, and I wanted to continue playing.

* I agree that choices doesn't make "big" or "really different" results. But there is always some little differences you can enjoy, for every quest, for every dialogue. I guess it's already a lot of work! (I'ts nice, isn't it? Even when the only difference depending on your reputation is a dialogue line.) Furthermore, when there is not a lot of difference, you can really chose to play the way you want it, not being influenced too much by the reward. And you are never too much frustrated with bad choices you made. Of course, it may be less immersive, less "powerfull", but it's pleasant to play too. (And it requires less work for the team...) Anyway, a lot of choices in the game are not easy to do, it's really a good point of the game.

 

I couldn't say it's the perfect game, of course. The game is probably not "universal", and it's not my most memorable gaming experience. But it's still very good.

About endings cards for example... it could have been more... it was nice... However, it's still a cheap way to resolve some quest? I got the feeling that big choices you made in game got impact only at the end, and never during the game. It's not really a problem, and I understand they cannot put every result in game, but it's a good example of the game's mechanics I think. Every choice/action get influence, but it's never "big". It's more easy to appreciate the game when you appreciate subtlety.

 

 

And yes, the game is gentle, the quest/reputation/choice system is not hardcore:

* You can experience pretty much everything with only one playthrough, nothing really closes doors. (Except maybe killing everyone, I didn't try it. And the dozen quests, of course... I accepted a dozen's quest just for some adventure, and it closed directly other factions last quests...)

* When you start a new quest, you know it's never a bad thing. Even if you are talking to "bad" people.

* Usually you can decide to chose "later".

* When you cannot find a "good" solution, usually you don't lose too much.

* ...

Edited April 15, 2015 by chouia

[sparklecat]

 

I gather from my own experience and what I saw another person post that there's at least one point where personality reputations make a difference - if you go bury Wael's scroll without talking to the woman who sent you on the quest first.  I was told that what I claimed was ridiculous but I have an honest reputation so okay, while the other person was attacked.  And I agree, more like this would have been nice.  Quests where people flatly refuse to give them to me if I'm not deceitful, say; I shouldn't be offered a job smuggling stuff for a trading company when all evidence suggests I'd turn them in (yeah, there were other factors in this example, but the general point stands).

 

In all fairness though, the implementation of the deceitful reputation irks me. Basically no matter how good I'm at lying, if I do it often enough, people will believe me to be a lying liar whose pants are, presumably, on fire. You can't ever be a successful manipulative bastard, at least not in the long term.

 

 

Sure you can!  You just can't be known for it, too.

 

I was playing Honest, but perhaps the problem is that there need to be deceitful options that don't give the deceitful reputation?

 

[Raz415]

The truth is, when you kill Raedric and go back to Gilded Vale, not much changes. Poor Aufra still thinks that a Hollowborn will mean their deaths and I can't tell her otherwise. Things could have been done better in many parts of the game.

 

There are times when you realise that no matter what you say, you will get the exact same response. Maerwald will say "how little we know", no matter what you choose. Not very nice.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Raz415

[Sabin Stargem]

I thought Dispositions were to supposed to represent your character's personality and behavior, not their reputation.  Someone who is Clever & Deceitful very often should be good at fooling people who lack cleverness.

[Longknife]

If the OP played the game a couple of times, and if people like to talk about the game, it means the game is not so bad! Great.

 

* I agree that there is no real terrible choices or endings. But it's credible. The game try to follow a more or less realistic path. Everything is more or less grey, everything can be a little bit different, but life continues.

* I agree that factions are not "incredible", and some points of the story could seem a little bit weak. But everything was still pretty nice, and it was never boring. I was afraid to play this kind of game again. Finally, I read everything, I was never bored, and I wanted to continue playing.

* I agree that choices doesn't make "big" or "really different" results. But there is always some little differences you can enjoy, for every quest, for every dialogue. I guess it's already a lot of work! (I'ts nice, isn't it? Even when the only difference depending on your reputation is a dialogue line.) Furthermore, when there is not a lot of difference, you can really chose to play the way you want it, not being influenced too much by the reward. And you are never too much frustrated with bad choices you made. Of course, it may be less immersive, less "powerfull", but it's pleasant to play too. (And it requires less work for the team...) Anyway, a lot of choices in the game are not easy to do, it's really a good point of the game.

 

I couldn't say it's the perfect game, of course. The game is probably not "universal", and it's not my most memorable gaming experience. But it's still very good.

About endings cards for example... it could have been more... it was nice... However, it's still a cheap way to resolve some quest? I got the feeling that big choices you made in game got impact only at the end, and never during the game. It's not really a problem, and I understand they cannot put every result in game, but it's a good example of the game's mechanics I think. Every choice/action get influence, but it's never "big". It's more easy to appreciate the game when you appreciate subtlety.

 

 

And yes, the game is gentle, the quest/reputation/choice system is not hardcore:

* You can experience pretty much everything with only one playthrough, nothing really closes doors. (Except maybe killing everyone, I didn't try it. And the dozen quests, of course... I accepted a dozen's quest just for some adventure, and it closed directly other factions last quests...)

* When you start a new quest, you know it's never a bad thing. Even if you are talking to "bad" people.

* Usually you can decide to chose "later".

* When you cannot find a "good" solution, usually you don't lose too much.

* ...

 

 

What's sad is I think a lot of this could easily be remedied by simply doing some basic changes. For example:

 

 

1) Why are only the good parts of choices being highlighted? It's clear there's room for morally grey areas. Let's hear about all the abandoned babies and Wichts that would suffer if Hylea's plan is followed, or about how a Hollowborn vessel that's 2 years old would have all sorts of development problems under her plan. Let's hear about how Galawain's plan results in some people getting stronger while others become downright insane, incapable of coping with the multiple souls they now house and more prone to awakenings.

 

2) Factions could be made loads more interesting if they just got more content. Honestly Obsidian, if you're willing, just patch in 3-4 more quests per faction group and they'll feel more substantial. And double down on the unique perks they offer. Dunno if Obsidian would consider this a waste of time or not, but I for one would consider this an immense improvement.

 

3) The hardest to remedy is dialog reputations. There's just no way they can fix this overnight, nor do I expect them to make an effort.

[Nachel]

I'd qualify most of what you said, chouia, but I'm on the whole in pretty close agreement with you, so for all intents and purposes those sane enough not to read the very lengthy examination I posted under the spoiler tag can safely consider I simply repeated chouia's opinions in a long-winded, pretentious voice.
 
WARNING
Only proceed if you have the patience of a saint. I am not trying to dare you. The following examination of an earlier post by Longknife has been expressed closely and concisely enough elsewhere. It is long. It is boring. It was written by a moronic nobody (yours truly). Seriously.

 

 

ABSTRACT

     The general design philosophy at work throughout the whole game – inclusiveness; making the player feel like their decisions are valid; making sure that any choice, if not optimal, is at least always viable; having the game anticipate what the player might want to do and roll with it – has shaped the quest design in Pillars of Eternity (PoE) and accounts, I think, for Longknife's impressions. Just like PoE's combat does not have hard counters, PoE's choices and consequences do not have hard conditions to entry. Most of the time, variable checks – sex, class, attributes, skills, background, reputations, item counts, known talents... – are not used to create exclusive branching paths, let alone exclusive quests. They are used to create bypasses or incidental comments that provide positive, reassuring feedback on character creation and expression. And they are used in the final stage of quest completion to choose an outcome or reward believed to fit the player's character concept and the context. In the case of dialogue reputation, that outcome typically focuses on the psychological development of both the PC and the person they are speaking to.
     Just as the game painstakingly makes sure to validate character builds, so does the game commit to making sure that quest and dialogue choices feel valid to the player by ensuring that quest completion is rewarded (if not rewarding) in any of the following ways (preferably in combination): an opportunity to roleplay, material compensation, answers/information, influencing an NPC's life, causing a change in the setting that scales to the stakes and effort, NPCs recognizing the PC's achievements. How fitting that consequence is, is always up for debate, but one must recognize that the designers tried their hardest to always include one where there should logically be one and to make it matter to at least someone in the context.
     Notwithstanding these positive points, too big of a focus on inclusiveness and reactivity has arguably proven detrimental to other aspects of quest design. It has all but eliminated exclusivity, as the care taken to accommodate every build and showcase that care has led to the neglect of gated/ specialized/ variable-specific content; and it has drawn attention away from the game's own dynamism and proactivity. I think this is where Longknife's concerns mainly stem from. It feels like the designers have taken everything into account and prepared for anything, but did not cater to you specifically.

EXAMINATION
 

1) Community reputations do nothing for you beyond making some merchant prices cheaper or help to end a quest one step faster. The only time you'll encounter choice and consequence is the three factions all have a merchant offering different things. That's it.

     More could have been done with them, no argument. The only valid arguments I can see would be about, first, how much more given the production constraints, and, second, how much content-gating players are willing to put up with, both of which are entirely different matters.

     That said, given that community reputation is a measure of how much a particular group (dis)likes the PC, what do you want party reputation to do that it doesn't? What would be acceptable for a group who doesn't like your party to do? Not help you? They already don't. Not offer you jobs? They already don't. Tell you they don't like you if you go and talk to them? They already do. Try to kill you? They already do. Go out of their way to try and thwart your every move? They don't (though sending assassins ought to do it), and I'd argue that's a good thing. You can become a serious inconvenience to them, but certainly not the defining factor of their every action. Now, what would be acceptable for a group who does like you to do? I'd say what the designers already have them do covers everything I can think of. They treat you decently, they are even so kind as to show you some favoritism and some of them provide employment. I certainly don't expect them to run up to me every time I show up in town to give me various knick-knacks, offer to name their first "normalborn" after me or erect a statue in my honour (I wouldn't be above it, though).

     Something that muddies the issue here is how the community reputation system is hijacked by the factions in Defiance Bay. Ingratiating yourself with any faction in order to be sponsored into the animancy hearings (which automatically nets you positive reputation with that faction on the way) is interpreted by the other factions as an active and exclusive affiliation. From that point on, community reputation with the three major organizations in Defiance Bay is a reputation system that seems to work as a de facto faction system. Choosing one faction over the others does have consequences beyond merchants, prices and faster quests. It unlocks a short quest chain for your faction while blocking a similar chain for every other faction; it influences what the faction representatives will say about your interventions at the hearing; it unlocks a unique way to appeal to the Duc; and all of these elements impact the ending slides about factions and the fate of animancy in Dyrwood. But is it by virtue of the reputation system, by virtue of the faction rivalry, or because of the interaction of both?

     All in all, I'd say the community reputation system is sound and referenced more than you give it credit for, but I agree with you that not enough is made out of it. The game world is more than reactive enough to it (something that should not be dismissed, considering the care that has been taken to translate that Champion/Terror/Whatever status into ambient dialogue and incidental dialogue remarks – seriously, just compare what strangers, not only quest givers, have to say before you've done anything and what they have to say once you've accomplished something) but only very rarely in a dynamic way.

     I think that's what your criticisms boil down to, Longknife, and I can get behind that: you don't want to feel like you've brought about a new state of things, but set new events in motion.

 

2) Dialog reputations seemingly do nothing. It's an amazing illusion of uniqueness, but the amount of times a dialog reputation actually changes your outcome can be counted on one hand. Typically dialog reputation amounts to little more than someone commenting on what a great person you are (Benevolent) reputation before offering you the quest they were going to offer you anyways. Prime example? There's a quest where you find a monk who asks you to deliver a sealed message to his order. If you have Honest reputation he thanks the gods you found him, if you're deceptive he comments on it but also says you're sadly his only hope. In both scenarios, you're treated exactly the same. There is no situation where his monk order will be skeptical of what you tell them because you're deceptive or the like, it plays out exactly the same. All scenarios where dialog reputation is recognized, it has no actual impact on the quest and the quest would be obtainable anyways. The only exceptions I can name off the top of my head is it's possible to psyche out some enemy attackers with Aggressive rep and get them to back off.

     Fair warning: I played with no metagame dialogue information, so what follows is an opinion based on impressions left by the dialogue options I remember.

     If community reputation is how much a given group (dis)likes you given how beneficial or detrimental your actions have been towards that group, dialogue reputation is what individual people have heard of the way you treat people in dialogue, which for all intents and purposes acts as your character's perceived personality. If that has little to no bearing on what type of job people think you're the best kith for, I agree it's a wasted opportunity. If that has little to no bearing on what extra option you are offered to complete a quest, I agree it's a wasted opportunity.

     However, I feel that on that last account it would be absurd to, for instance, make your ability to even come up with benevolent/ cruel/ honest/ deceptive etc. answers depend on your mastery of a benevolent/ cruel/ honest/ deceptive etc. skill. I certainly don't want the game to prevent me from trying to lie altogether just because I haven't lied enough. Judging from what I've seen, it seems to me that what the designers have decided on is to provide the player with different options to express a personality trait and have the intensity and effectiveness of some of these options scale with the character trait rank. Then again, I might be wrong for all I know.

     It also seems to me that they have tried when appropriate to have the attitude you choose influence the outcome in some way. Let's assume for the sake of argument that there is only ever one way to complete a quest, only ever one reward for the player, and only ever one outcome. Even then I remember very vividly getting to influence how the person my PC was talking to interprets the outcome. For instance, I have the nagging feeling that because of the attitudes I adopted during her quest, Sagani decided to commit blizzard-assisted suicide, that the tone I used while handing Calisca's sister the potion she wanted could be life-changing, or that the (pertty distinct) ways to deal with Iovara's soul correspond to dialogue reputations.
This is something that can be overlooked or downplayed in the game's quest design. It highlights the fact that how people deal with answers/solutions or lack thereof is as valid an outcome to take into account as physical consequences. Dialogue reputations are a means to cause psychological repurcussions both to others and to your PC.

     Unfortunately, like you said, it seems that dialogue reputation checks are not used to influence how a quest develops. That is, I think, tied to a more general design choice that permeates almost every aspect of the game: inclusiveness. The designers created everything like a GM painstakingly making sure that no-one around the table will feel left out, overlooked or useless. The way quest designers went about it was twofold. First, they did not put character-dependent conditions to quest acquisition. Barring a very few quests, any character can pick up any quest. Second, they bent over backwards, once you started a quest, to make sure that at any stage any player could find a way to move forward that suited their playstyle, that fit their character concept and that validated their build and choices. I for one think that they did an admirable job on that account, but that apparently did not leave them enough time to design more branching and exclusive quests or paths.

     To take your monk quest example. There is no barrier to entry: no PC is prevented from talking to the dying monk and he will entrust the sealed scroll to any PC (the writer took care to put the monk in a position where it made sense). But the writer, according to your own account, has him take under consideration the PC's reputation and treat the PC differently (yes, differently and not "exactly the same" – if you meant that, in both scenarios, the result is the same because you're given the missive, that's what you should have written) and, if I remember correctly, the PC can accept the scrolls adopting different attitudes (I can't remember if you can refuse). My own PC, who was honest, was then offered a choice to break the seals and didn't, and in the end could either deliver the scroll or lie and try and keep it (or, third option, never even bother to deliver it). I don't know what happens if an honest PC lies to the monks (do they buy it because people say you're trustworthy? Do they catch up on it because you're a bad liar?), I don't know what happens if you open the scroll, and I don't know what happens when an honest PC opens the scroll and goes see the monks anyway. I'll take your word for what happens with a deceptive PC. However, even though the same people are involved whatever the case, I still see different ways in which the situation can play out and in which the designers try to validate your choices both for the quest and in character development.

     To sum up, I agree that it's a shame dialogue reputation checks apparently are not used to gate exclusive content. I personally like how the system is used to create room for the player to provide meaning and internal motivation to their character's actions and to draw attention to the psychological outcome of the quests, but, just like with party reputation, using the system less reactively and more proactively would be a boon.

 

3) Endings feel meaningless as far as difference goes, at least on the Gods. Helping a God is always universally good; even supporting Woedica does not support in the game feeding you tidbits about the bad it did, but rather only good or neutral aspects of this choice are mentioned. Betraying a God is always bad. I enjoy morally grey, but I also think trying to be as good or as evil as possible should be a thing. As far as the Gods and Companions go, bad endings are achieved by purposefully breaking a pact with a God or by just not bothering with a companion's quest (usually). It just feels a little weak. Unfortunately, Gods and Companions endings make up the majority of the endings.

     I have some difficulty getting my head around the "I enjoy morally grey, but I also think trying to be as good or as evil as possible should be a thing" bit, so I'll just interpret it as you saying that morality is handled poorly, presumably because it is too clear-cut (only two sets of alternatives – help god=good/ betray god=bad and help companion=good/ ignore companion=bad – and no real and profound quandary involving multiple choices that have nothing in common). But what your wording suggests is that the endings are too ambiguous and do not allow for clearly good or clearly evil decisions, which contradicts what you said in the previous sentence.

     Moving on. There is a point you make I can't get behind, Longknife, not even to qualify it. The god endings are not "meaningless as far as difference goes." Go to the page you yourself provided a link to in another post and read the slides. Fair enough, in all endings you end Waidwen's Legacy, go PC! But can you really not see the difference in the way that was accomplished depending on your choice? Can you really not see how restoring souls to the Hollowborn is different from using them to make Woedica - the Queen that Was - the Queen that Is and Apparently will Forever Be? The intricacies of your choice haven't even been fully felt yet.

     As for the endings in which you did not betray your promise to a god being "universally good" or the writing focusing on the "good or neutral aspects,"I guess the writers were going for "slightly uplifting but not shamelessly triumphant while not too detailed" as their ending note rather than "rock falls everybody dies" this time, so they try and make the player feel a little bit good about themselves. They had to give the player a sense of accomplishment for ending the Legacy, knowing that their actions did not undo the Legacy (for instance, whatever their choice, parents who murdered their Hollowborn children have murdered their Hollowborn children still, a fact some slides state outright) while leaving room for expansions and sequels (notice how the god slides and the PC's own slides only move the timeline a few months into the future at most). The endings in which the player betrays a god are bound to be less enjoyable (unless there was no love lost between your PC and the Dyrwoodans) because they are meant to show the gods' revenge (still, do they cancel out ending the Legacy?). But yes, I freely admit that not betraying a god is presented in a positive light and as having a net positive outcome, whereas betraying a god is presented in the opposite manner.

     However, all of those endings – and I consider that what you do about Iovara's and Thaos' souls is part of the ending, as the resolution of the PC's personal quest even if there is no slide for those recent decisions – are morally grey and contain elements that most people would consider desirable and other elements that most people would want to avoid, and the writing, though always implying that the player was right, tries to present those endings without passsing moral judgment and without encouraging you to feel that "ending C3 was the right choice, duh." Here too you can see the overall design choice to promote inclusiveness of player input at work. "Players had reasons for doing what they did, reasons that we helped them formulate over the course of the whole game. So we are going to roll with what they chose and provide their choices with fitting consequences, instead of beating them on the head with it and telling them they're saints or monsters. Well then, so, yeah you won and you're awesome, here's what happens because of you, now make up your mind about how that makes you feel on your own."

     Because the game itself will not provide the player with a moral code. The game designers went as out of their way as possible not to paint anything as unequivocally good or unequivocally evil. They created a setting where all the gods are True Neutral constructs with completely amoral portfolios. They allowed players a broad range of actions morally speaking. It's up to the players to judge what they did according to their own moral standards, so they can be as good or as evil as they want, particularly in their motivations.

     All things considered I'd say that although it cannot be denied that the god endings fall under two categories that can at first glance appear to obey a good/bad opposition, the "good" endings, which indeed all share in the celebration of the player's achievement, never result in a situation in which the player has righted all wrongs and unmade all suffering, they are not interchangeable and they do not include one obvious right choice. The "bad" endings are more similar (but their particulars are very different) and more clearly traditionally bad (in that they all simply involve people suffering).