Annoyed by the end of Act 2

[Crucis]

 

 

 

The only way to change the outcome of that scene would have been for the PC to know Thaos' plans so that he could attempt to stop them.  But the PC doesn't know them.  The PC is there only to tell the Duc what's he's discovered and hopefully affect the Duc's decision.  

 

 

You can swing both ways at the hearing and Thaos can only swing two ways at the hearing. So one of the two possible outcomes must be in Thaos' interest.

 

 

Not sure what you're trying to say here. 

 

Thaos wants to be certain that there's only one possible outcome ... his outcome.  That's why he does what he does.  He doesn't care what the various reps say.

 

 

But your argument only holds water if his outcome is to kill the Duc in any case to blame it on animancy. But if animancy is in fact outlawed in the proceedings, there's no need for him to further expose himself. So one of the two possible outcomes of the hearing should be in his favor and therefore not require direct action.

 

 

 

You're assuming that he wants a simple outlawing of animancy.  By doing what he did, Thaos caused a violent uprising against animancy, which in turn caused far more destruction to the "science" than merely outlawing ever could. 

 

[Eywa]

I believe Thaos did what he did only because you came in and presented the facts that Leaden Key was behind animancy failures, your view on animancy isn't main focus here, theoretically even if Duc asked your opinion on animancy and you would be against it he would have probably allowed animancy to go on at some extent because most of bad things that happened was Leaden Key's fault and you revealed it at the hearings. So Thaos went for plan B at this point.

[Crucis]

I believe Thaos did what he did only because you came in and presented the facts that Leaden Key was behind animancy failures, your view on animancy isn't main focus here, theoretically even if Duc asked your opinion on animancy and you would be against it he would have probably allowed animancy to go on at some extent because most of bad things that happened was Leaden Key's fault and you revealed it at the hearings. So Thaos went for plan B at this point.

 

I agree that this scenario is entirely possible.  I've played through that scene 3 times, and have never come out squarely against animancy.  I think that twice I said that it needed to be more carefully regulated and the other time used the response that if they outlawed animancy, someone else would have an advantage over the Dyrwood later on.   I don't know what sort of scripted reaction from the Duc and the reps you get if the PC says that animancy should be outlawed, in spite of all the evidence he's collected.  I have no doubt that Thaos still attacks though, if only because I think that that's how the devs have scripted the overall scene.

 

In theory, if the PC comes out against animancy, it's entirely possible that the Duc would accept the PC's opinion and outlaw animancy.  But is that really what Thaos wants?  Given Thaos' apparent history of violent solutions, I left to wonder if merely causing animancy to be banned really isn't Thaos' goal.  Oh, I think that it's definitely part of what he wants, but I suspect that he wants more than that.  Or at least his history easily leads one to think that is the case.

[Eywa]

I agree that this scenario is entirely possible.  I've played through that scene 3 times, and have never come out squarely against animancy.  I think that twice I said that it needed to be more carefully regulated and the other time used the response that if they outlawed animancy, someone else would have an advantage over the Dyrwood later on.   I don't know what sort of scripted reaction from the Duc and the reps you get if the PC says that animancy should be outlawed, in spite of all the evidence he's collected.  I have no doubt that Thaos still attacks though, if only because I think that that's how the devs have scripted the overall scene.

 

In theory, if the PC comes out against animancy, it's entirely possible that the Duc would accept the PC's opinion and outlaw animancy.  But is that really what Thaos wants?  Given Thaos' apparent history of violent solutions, I left to wonder if merely causing animancy to be banned really isn't Thaos' goal.  Oh, I think that it's definitely part of what he wants, but I suspect that he wants more than that.  Or at least his history easily leads one to think that is the case.

 

IIRC there no different reaction from Duc or others after PC's final opinion on animancy, I meant that I'd like to think that Duc's decision would be his own (and mostly based on evidence against Leaden Key)  no matter what PC says about animancy, although they made it look like whatever PC would say, Duc would agree... but we will never know.

 

Hm, I think outlaw animancy is good enough but yeah, I was a bit surprised how subtle this current plan of Thaos was, comparing to other examples of his past deeds.

[ruzen]

As I, most people stopped playing at act2 which is the game begins to crack.

[Venatio]

As I, most people stopped playing at act2 which is the game begins to crack.

 

Pretty sure most people who get to Act 2 keep going, which would put you in the minority. We have Thaos on the run and the rest of the game world opens up to us - why walk away?

[abaris]

 

As I, most people stopped playing at act2 which is the game begins to crack.

 

Pretty sure most people who get to Act 2 keep going, which would put you in the minority. We have Thaos on the run and the rest of the game world opens up to us - why walk away?

 

 

Yeah, just spent the better part of 50.000 on equipment at the Twyn Elms market. They're the only ones with rare ingredients as far as I know.

 

The only thing bothering me a little is that you don't get the opportunity to plunder the ducal palace at the end of act 2. There's the ducal body lying in the locked hall after all. Must have some cool stuff on him.

[archangel979]

I didn't enjoy end of Act 2. I was hoping Obsidian learned something from NWN2 and they would make a better game this time around but it seems that both the trial and Stronghold are worse than NWN2. If not for the superior engine, NWN2 would overall be a better game than PoE.

[Amentep]

 

 

 

 

The only way to change the outcome of that scene would have been for the PC to know Thaos' plans so that he could attempt to stop them.  But the PC doesn't know them.  The PC is there only to tell the Duc what's he's discovered and hopefully affect the Duc's decision.  

 

 

You can swing both ways at the hearing and Thaos can only swing two ways at the hearing. So one of the two possible outcomes must be in Thaos' interest.

 

 

Not sure what you're trying to say here. 

 

Thaos wants to be certain that there's only one possible outcome ... his outcome.  That's why he does what he does.  He doesn't care what the various reps say.

 

 

But your argument only holds water if his outcome is to kill the Duc in any case to blame it on animancy. But if animancy is in fact outlawed in the proceedings, there's no need for him to further expose himself. So one of the two possible outcomes of the hearing should be in his favor and therefore not require direct action.

 

 

 

You're assuming that he wants a simple outlawing of animancy.  By doing what he did, Thaos caused a violent uprising against animancy, which in turn caused far more destruction to the "science" than merely outlawing ever could. 

 

 

 

It also leads to the destruction of the Sanitarium and providing good cover for killing Lady Webb - neither of which would have worked as well had Animancy just been outlawed (thus allowing the Sanitarium Animancers to go to ground with their research and equipment and not hiding the massacre of Dunryd Row under the guise of the riots).

[GameNerdVeggie]

It should have been a main quest to stop the Riots. I dont like to see a Town going down, in which i invested so much time helping other People.

[abaris]

Btw, did anyone take part in the riots?

 

Just because I hated to see the sanitarium burned down, I wiped out the group attacking it. Didn't change anything of course, but it was a personal satisfaction.

[Crucis]

 

 

 

 

 

The only way to change the outcome of that scene would have been for the PC to know Thaos' plans so that he could attempt to stop them.  But the PC doesn't know them.  The PC is there only to tell the Duc what's he's discovered and hopefully affect the Duc's decision.  

 

 

You can swing both ways at the hearing and Thaos can only swing two ways at the hearing. So one of the two possible outcomes must be in Thaos' interest.

 

 

Not sure what you're trying to say here. 

 

Thaos wants to be certain that there's only one possible outcome ... his outcome.  That's why he does what he does.  He doesn't care what the various reps say.

 

 

But your argument only holds water if his outcome is to kill the Duc in any case to blame it on animancy. But if animancy is in fact outlawed in the proceedings, there's no need for him to further expose himself. So one of the two possible outcomes of the hearing should be in his favor and therefore not require direct action.

 

 

 

You're assuming that he wants a simple outlawing of animancy.  By doing what he did, Thaos caused a violent uprising against animancy, which in turn caused far more destruction to the "science" than merely outlawing ever could. 

 

 

 

It also leads to the destruction of the Sanitarium and providing good cover for killing Lady Webb - neither of which would have worked as well had Animancy just been outlawed (thus allowing the Sanitarium Animancers to go to ground with their research and equipment and not hiding the massacre of Dunryd Row under the guise of the riots).

 

 

Good points.  I think that Thaos (and Woedica) wanted Animancy to be more than outlawed.  I think they wanted it destroyed.  And assassinating the Duc, thus fomenting the riots which caused the deaths of so many animancers and the destruction of the sanitarium (not to mention providing cover for killing Lady Webb) seems much more along the lines of what Thaos wanted.

 

[Crucis]

It should have been a main quest to stop the Riots. I dont like to see a Town going down, in which i invested so much time helping other People.

 

The problem I see with stopping the riots is that there's largely no non-lethal way to do it in the game.  In real life, unless you're a really blood-thirsty brutal dictator, you just don't go out and kill all the rioters.  You try to subdue them and arrest the worst of them, and try to get the rest to disperse and go home.

 

That said, if the rioting was portrayed not as outright fighting between the rioters and the Knights, perhaps there'd be a chance for the party to go around the city and talk to various rioting/protesting groups to get them to back down.  And how is it determined that you've succeeded in quelling the rioting and completed the "stop the rioting" quest?  For what it's worth, it seems that trying to stop the riots means that you're siding with the Knights and probably the Doemenels, whereas the Dozens are on the side of the rioters.

 

On the flip side, what if you prefer to side with the rioters?  Put another way, what if you side with the Dozens and the common people against the city's nobles?  How is that handled?  Do you attack any Cruc. Knight you see and then attack their HQ as well?  Of course, the thing is that if you side with the rioters, you are effectively doing what Thaos wants, unless you can find a way to side with the Dozens, etc. but stop the destruction of the Sanitarium.

[Zwiebelchen]

This one of the most non-linear RPGs I ever played over the last 10 years.

You can basicly skip 80% of it's content; you can go basically anywhere right from the start, except for one town, you can do almost all of the content in any order you like.

And yet people still complain.

 

In order to have satisfying storytelling, you need to cut down on some of the variables and create bottlenecks. That's the nature of the matter. You just can't create a completely non-linear story within a reasonable game budget. Especially not if you are heavily limited in your budget by crowdfunding.

 

And here it is, a game that is still ridicolously large for it's budget (easily 70+ game hours on PotD difficulty ... that is three times the size of most AAA releases.).

 

 

Seriously, people these days...

 

 

PS: But I agree on the riot stuff. I wish there were more options to talk the rioters out. In general, I feel that there should be more options to talk in the game in general. Game is too fight-centric at many critical points. But that's nitpicking.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Eywa]

 

It also leads to the destruction of the Sanitarium and providing good cover for killing Lady Webb - neither of which would have worked as well had Animancy just been outlawed (thus allowing the Sanitarium Animancers to go to ground with their research and equipment and not hiding the massacre of Dunryd Row under the guise of the riots).

 

If anymancy was outlawed Thaos wouldn't need to massacre Dunryd Row, he needed to do that during riots because with powers of ciphers they could possibly stop the chaos and calm citizens down, plus with the help of the PC's discoveries Lady Webb knew too much at that point. And unlike the PC and his/her group, Lady Webb is well respected and known member of Defiance Bay's society, so people probably would have listened to her. Thaos could kill her anytime if he really wanted to. Lady Webb mentioned when she ran away from him, it was their(Leaden Key) rule that he had to kill her for it but he never did (because love? ) until was forced to and even then he was reluctant to do so.

 

I really think getting animancy banned is just as good. Once animancy would be banned, everything that Sanitarium animancers had would be confiscated and their research probably destroyed. I mean, sure, most brave and dedicated animancers would go underground, but then they wouldn't have same level of supplies, support and protection by society they once had, as a result it would slow down their research by a lot and Leaden Key's agents wouldn't have legal problems hunting them down. And it's not like with riots going on, means that all animancers die, the ones that survived could also go underground as well, so riots don't exactly solve anything better in this situation.

 

And when Waidwen's Legacy would have ended (from ending its clear that when you used the machine no matter where you send souls or do anything with them Hollowborn crysis does stop, so I guess same goes if Thaos sent souls to Woedica) people would see it as sign that banning animancy was a good idea and gods favored them for it or something.

 

Also from player's point of view isn't it more interesting to know that it's your actions actually triggered certain events rather than it would just happen no matter of what you did or didn't or even showed up? 

Theory that Thaos had to improvise with killing Duc and causing riots I like more than it just being his plan all along.

[kensu]

This is also when Aloth tells you that he was part of the Leaden Key. "I'm part of the organization that's been causing all the trouble. But I'm not an active agent, I deserted and just happened to run across you."

Considering my reaction was "Yeah, right, whatever", I suspect that scene didn't have the intended effect.

[Amentep]

If anymancy was outlawed Thaos wouldn't need to massacre Dunryd Row, he needed to do that during riots because with powers of ciphers they could possibly stop the chaos and calm citizens down, plus with the help of the PC's discoveries Lady Webb knew too much at that point. And unlike the PC and his/her group, Lady Webb is well respected and known member of Defiance Bay's society, so people probably would have listened to her. Thaos could kill her anytime if he really wanted to. Lady Webb mentioned when she ran away from him, it was their(Leaden Key) rule that he had to kill her for it but he never did (because love? ) until was forced to and even then he was reluctant to do so.

Sure Thaos COULD have killed Lady Webb at any time.  And there'd have been an investigation into who killed her, possibly including powerful Ciphers.

 

She gets killed (along with a clean out of Dunryd Row) then who bothers to think that she wasn't killed in the Massacre to investigate further (excepting Watchers, which raises the question of why not make sure the PC got killed too, but hey no villain is perfect).

[teknoman2]

all games have points that set the story moving. points that you cant do anything about the events, and by how well these points are handled you can make or break the whole plot. usually though they are near the begining of the game and not in the middle and the most important thing about them is that you must be actually unable to do anything in the situation (like in Dragon age origins that you were in a completelly different location when the betrayal took place) and not just stand there and watch the event passivelly because the plot says so

Edited May 27, 2015 by teknoman2

[Bryy]

Reminds me of that time I was playing Mass Effect and the Reapers still invaded. Or that time I was BG and I was still the bad guy's brother at the end (spoiler alert). Or that time I was playing...

Or the time all those doctors in hospital shows were doctors.