His Old Self looks unfinished

[drty]

Well, maybe it's just my play style, but this side quest in Copperlane feels slightly undone in terms of role playing.

 

Step by step...

 

I've received the ring from Kaenra, got to the house, spoke with the guy who is impersonating Purnisc, and figured out that something isn't right here. Which of course has provoked me to investigate this situation further - I've bribed guard near the staircase leading upstairs, cleaned up second floor from mercs (they've attacked me without saying a word - which was a bit unrealistic, recalling that the guard below was much more cooperative - but anyway). After the fight I've unlocked the door and found real Purnisc. Talking with him I've learned that he is in fact a drag dealer too - for me this basically means that he's already got what he deserved - therefore (according to the personality of my protagonist) I don't want to be involved here any longer. There was a phrase corresponding to the situation - don't remember exact words - but it was tagged with [Passionate] qualifier. Till the moment, this is looking more or less reasonable.

 

So I left Purnisc lying tied as he was before I came, and get back to Kaenra in order to inform her that the ring is delivered back to her boyfriend, what she had actually asked me to do at the beginning, which means that my job is done. But the only thing I can say to her at this point - is that something strange is going on in the house and I'm still looking into it. Really? But don't I already know in fact what is going on there? Don't I already did everything I wanted to do?

 

So considering all of this I have two alternatives:

1- forget about quest being hanging in the journal.

2- help the guy even if it's against my role playing style.

 

Don't like both of them.

Edited October 30, 2015 by drty

[FlintlockJazz]

So you are going to allow a vicious drug dealer continue to ruin the lives of addicts and their families just to punish another drug dealer?

[drty]

It's just about role-playing of the chosen personality, right? %)

 

I don't play do-gooder, so basically it's not my concern what will become with those addicts and their families. I believe this quest must have alternative ending, where you are not forced to solve their problems.

[FlintlockJazz]

Right, but I'm not getting the personality you are roleplaying.  So if your character doesn't care about that why does he think Purnisc should be punished?  Your character obviously cared enough to uncover what was going on (and even spend money bribing a guard to do so), yet now you want to be able to now lie (or at least withhold the truth, now that your character knows what is going on he is involved now regardless what he may want and any choice he makes will affect the lives of those involved)?  The devs could not anticipate every single person's response to the quest, most people would either deal with the quest right up to the end or just give over the ring and get out, not bothering to investigate at all.  Think of it this way, you are not dealing with the dealer for Purnisc but for Kaenra, who has been abused by this whole mess (beaten by the dealer after all) and who doesn't deserve to be lied to about this whole thing.

[drty]

Well, certainly, with a bit of imagination you can always come up with some excuse/explanation for yourself why you are doing or not doing something. That's right, I might be thinking about all of this like you have suggested here. But I don't.

 

The only thing why my character was involved is his intention to help a woman beaten by her fiance (at least she saw it this way). While speaking with fake Purnisc it became clear that something strange is going on. But after figuring out that the source of all this mess is Purnisc himself - I have made decision to not get involved into this even deeper. Originally, I was asked to give back the ring and that was already done, so no reason to do the dirty work for Purnisc. Moreover, realizing that Kaenra no longer want to know him (which from my perspective is a wise thing in such situation), my character decided to not expose any additional details to her. That's how I see this.

 

The weird thing here actually is how my character was able to react on getting the truth while speaking with real Purnisc. Devs give us the option to make a passionate reply (kind of: it's only your fault, you've deserved this), which is resulting in breaking the conversation. So basically, they allow me to releplay this situation as i want, but don't provide the chance to end the quest after this. Not fair!

[FlintlockJazz]

Fair enough, I just figured she deserved to know the truth of the matter, so at least she can understand why things happened the way they did.  You can tell her that he's a drug dealer and advise her not to go back to him, which she won't do unless you convince to do so (or don't tell her that he was a drug dealer), but that probably still involves having to kill the impersonator first to get (considering that he beat a woman he was lying and tricking into thinking he was her boyfriend, which probably also means he took advantage of her sexually as well if you think about it, I considered it a service to Kaenra to smack the **** out of him).

 

Actually, now I'm wondering: if you leave Purnisc tied up but kill the impersonator can you still end the quest with Kaenra?  Possibly telling her not to go back to him leaving him tied up alone in the house with no one to untie him?  I'm really curious now...

[drty]

Well, this I can check - still have this quest unfinished.

[FlintlockJazz]

I'd be interested to know the results for future less... nice playthroughs. 

[drty]

Killed impersonator, got to Kaenra with "good" news. Sadly the only thing I was able to say to her is the same crap about "something strange is going on, I'm investigating". Looks like the quest can only be completed if you are willing to help Purnisc. Or maybe if you kill him as well. %)

[FlintlockJazz]

That's disappointing.  Guessing the 'quest update' trigger is tied to untying or killing Purnisc.  Shame.

[Gairnulf]

You can give the ring to the mage straight away and this will lead to quest solved, but in your journal there will be a hint in the lines of "I could go back to OKaenra right now, but I feel something's not right here". If you just give the ring to the wrong guy and return to Kaenra, I believe you'll get less quest experience than if you investigate.

 

Once you discover the real Purnisc though, I guess this will invalidate the "quick" solution and you'll have to either play with the mage (accept you'll lie to Kaenra about what happened to Purnisc) or kill the mage (and tell Kaenra some version of what happened).

Edited October 31, 2015 by Gairnulf

[drty]

Yeah, we've already figured out that this quest hasn't got all logical endings. I was forced to complete it by the way which was looking "inappropriate" to the personality of my character, just to rid off of it.

[Gairnulf]

That's not what I meant. I don't think it's illogical, but that's up to interpretation:

 

1. If you don't care about doing the job Kaenra sent you to do, you might as well not go to the house at all and just lie Kaenra without ever checking out what's happened to Purnisc.

 

2. If you've gone to the house, but chose not to investigate, you can give the ring to the mage, your character not knowing it's not actually Purnisc, and report success to Kaenra.

 

3. If you've gone to the house, chose to investigate, found Purnisc, you have the options of killing the mage, killing Purnisc, and after doing either, report success to Kaenra. If you chose the latter option, killing Purnisc, this would mean lying to Kaenra.

 

If you intend to discover Purnisc's fate, then give Purnisc the ring, and then go to Kaenra and say "Job's done", that's pretty hypocritical. So you're truthful in the part where you've given the ring to the right guy, and not truthful in the part where you hide from her what happened to him. The new circumstances you've uncovered add new objectives to the quest, so it's only right that it can't be resolved that way. That's my opinion at least.

[drty]

I'm somewhere between 2 and 3. And ring is already given back to the fake Purnisc. Yes, I have chosen to investigate, but finding out that the guy who have caused all this mess has already taken his punishment, I decided to depart (because my character is passionate, but not needlessly aggressive). And the person who I'm actually helping (Kaenra) does not want to know the details for her own sake. That's my vision as I've already said before, but not the vision of someone who designed this quest. %)

[Stoner]

That's very odd complaint here because it's a game, and there's no way it can take into account billion roleplaying designs players might have, especially in sidequest which might be easily go unnoticed or skipped. The fact that you don't directly speak with NPC's but choosing dialog options instead (because technologies aren't there yet) put high restrictions on your freedom in roleplaying and action consequences. 

 

This particular quest have enough options for many (not all) types of characters IMHO. Content which I don't like or can't get over with I just skip/abandon, you can do the same since it's not really related to story.

Edited November 2, 2015 by Stoner

[drty]

That's very odd complaint here because it's a game, and there's no way it can take into account billion roleplaying designs players might have, especially in sidequest which might be easily go unnoticed or skipped. The fact that you don't directly speak with NPC's but choosing dialog options instead (because technologies aren't there yet) put high restrictions on your freedom in roleplaying and action consequences.

Agreed, they can't include any possible resolution to every possible quest. But if such dialog option (that I mention earlier) is available for players to select, then it has to lead to some different result. I mean, devs gave me the option to react on the situation in very specific way, but didn't provide an alternative to go ahead and complete the quest based on the given option.

 

This particular quest have enough options for many (not all) types of characters IMHO. Content which I don't like or can't get over with I just skip/abandon, you can do the same since it's not really related to story.

Well, you can't skip something you don't like until you know for sure that you actually don't like it. When I will play the game next time I may possibly skip this quest - it will depend on the personality of my future alter-ego. But it's hard to skip something you are facing the first time.

 

And generally speaking, you can't abandon quest when there is no such possibility. The only thing you can do - is to pretend to forget about it and don't notice it in you journal anymore. But I don't like this option too. Perhaps, it would be a good generic solution to add "abandon" functionality (at least for side quests) in order to resolve such problematic RP situations.

[Bazy]

So considering all of this I have two alternatives:

1- forget about quest being hanging in the journal.

2- help the guy even if it's against my role playing style.

 

Don't like both of them.

Ran into this same problem and found it very annoying/immersion breaking. Not sure why people are fighting you on this. This is an oversight from the devs not you asking for some really uncommon roleplay solution. You literally do exactly what the lady asks of you but she doesn't let you finish the quest. 

Edited November 22, 2015 by Bazy

[globalCooldown]

Real shame; I can imagine why your character might want to wash their hands of this once they knew the truth.

 

Look on the bright side, you can release Purnisc and then tell Kaenra not to get back with him because he's a dirty drug dealer?

[Infinitron]

You could try posting this in Tech Support and asking them to fix it.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Infinitron