RANT warning, Criticism over Ferry Flotsam quest *facepalm*

[Octopus-Pancake]

I can't begin to explain how horrific the writing for this stupid quest was.  It's so short of a quest that I honestly wonder if isn't even worth bothering to criticize, but I just can't get over the fact.   Where the hell were the writers'brains when they wrote this mess.  

 

First off, WHY in the WORLD do you get a negative hit on Defiance Bay's reputation if you "HELP" Peregund, and I say help very loosely because I am left to wonder what it is I accomplished after this quest.  This makes not a SINGE LICK of SENSE.  If I'm helping someone who has been attacked by looters, irregardless WHO the looters are, wouldn't that be a good thing?

 

Second the looters themselves.  To start with why would I, or even Peregund, be attacked by looters randomly if they were farmers and misfortunate people...  REAL PEOPLE DON'T FEKKING ACT LIKE THAT.  Also if the looters had cared to EXPLAIN their situation, MAYBE Peregund would let them have what was left seeing as she has AN ENTIRE BLOODY SHOP IN TOWN.  This really perplexes me on too many levels for me to care about some mediocre miscellaneous quest.  FURTHERMORE, after you kill these 2 idiots, you are confronted by their cousin who gets all pissy about you defending yourself *facepalm* again this is STUPID.  She gives you some spiel about how they are misfortunate and are pulling the "self-defense" excuse against nature itself.  Ok I'm not against helping people.  But you are given NO room to offer aid other than allowing a theft to take place.  HOW DOES THIS EQUATE TO POSITIVE REPUTATION FOR ANYTHING.  The moral ambiguity of this writing just shows a pure lack of reality, or fantasy for that matter, in their writing.  I could think of several different ways this could have played out making it much less ridiculous and stupid and much more reasonable:

     

     1. Give more options for helping aside from a single indirect way to help these people.  Give us the option to give them MONEY or something.  

     2. Completely redo the reputation change to reflect something that isn't so retarded and stupid.

     3. Instead of outright being attacked by the first 2 "looters" Initiate a dialogue with them that can play out in several different ways. 

     4. Moral implications could be adjusted completely to better reflect a more realistic outcome.  Instead of it being so stupidly cut and dry, IF you decide to allow the "looters" to steal at least give an option for us to help Peregund.

 

RIGHT THERE, thats 4 simple quick ways you could have fixed this ridiculous quest and made it 100% better within the 5 minutes of me WRITING this entire thing.  On a sidenote regarding the reputation hit itself there is NO explanation or LOGICAL REASON AT ALL, that I would even GET a bloody negative reputation hit.  Why, was Peregund evil?  Did she maybe lie saying the ferry was hers when it wasn't?  Maybe SHE was the real looter.  That is another possible edit to that quest so in total theres 5 things you could change.

 

Third the conclusion of the quest is just... As I stated above, there is no wiggle room whatsoever for choices made.  It's way too black and white and it shouldn't have to be.  And to anyone who has the mindset "it's just a 2 minute quest chillout"  This is horrible thinking because it's minor miscellaneous quests like THESE that add flavor, substance and additional immersion to an RPG.

 

I seriously look at this writing and wonder,  what were they thinking, SERIOUSLY.  Someone had to look at this and ok this entire quest and I'm just shocked by how this pisspoor amateur writing was allowed to pass...  UGH I seriously had to step away from game and I decided, perhaps against my better judgement, to write this critique, good lord that writing it was so godawful.  Please Obsidian look at this criticism seriously.  You guys aren't some new indie dev company starting out for the first time you are an established company.  You shouldn't allow such amateur writing to go in a more professional type game.

[Messier-31]

UGH I seriously had to step away from game and I decided, perhaps against my better judgement, to write this critique, good lord that writing it was so godawful.

 

[asnjas]

its a chill quest relax dude. 

 

normal people resort to crime during crisis or desperation. the fact they were normal people that lost everything due to unfortunate events makes you sympathize more. they are not just mad and ruthless.

 

and maybe we can agree to disagree on this point, but i like when you have to choose: you pick either peregund or the looters. you cant **** foot the middle ground. to me, your suggestions are **** footing middle ground. its like why cant me and the main villain just have reasonable discourse and compromise? because that would be boring! make the choices tough! help the looters and screw peregund or help peregund and screw the looters. pick one. no all hold hands and skip into sunset wiggle room options.

 

i agree about the way they did reputations. if what you say is true then defending defience bay citizens from looters should give positive rep. letting looters run off with def bay citizens property should be negative rep for def bay. good point.

 

 

[IamNOOB]

That RAGE!

[Beboop]

There is so much more wrong with this quest than mentioned in the opening post. There is not a single part that makes any sense beyond the opening of "someone's having their stuff looted and wants help..."

The looters themselves state that it's of little value, yet are willing to die for it.

The looters, so hard up they're willing to die for it, happen to have about 70 "currency" on them, along with various items including one with a value of over 700.

So they're willing to die over some flotsam rather than going an buying food with the money they have, even excluding the high value item in their possession, which by the way they will apparently give to your freely so they can have the low value flotsam.

This "quest" is not just a ham-fisted attempt at creating some forced false dilemma, then punishing the player for refusing to lie or die. It sets this stupidity in motion by arbitrarily removing the most logical dialogue option pretty much every player would expect to see in the list in this situation, before with little to no warning sending the looters with knifes and no armour into a suicidal attack against a larger group of well armed mercenaries in a fight to the death, over some flotsam.

If I came across a snake eating itself, it would be less "facepalming" than this.

 

 

-edited because all formatting vanished for some reason.

Edited July 12, 2017 by Beboop

[Heijoushin]

It uh... wasn't a great quest, admittedly. The first time I sided with Peregund and was also surprised at the reputation lose. Sure, you kill a few Defiance Bay citizens, but since y'know, they're dead, I didn't think there would be anyone left to tell tales. A morality vs. law context would have been better. 

 

That being said, I think you're overreacting a wee bit  

[Juodas Varnas]

I, honestly, think that there simply should've been a few more options to end the quest.

 

Like for example, instead of having the looters take the "rotting clothes" or whatnot, you coulda given them some coin (kinda how in pretty much every stronghold guest's request, you can just throw coins at the problem until it fixes itself), or maybe even let teh PC to be honest and tell the merchant that he let the looters go (which would cause the merchant to no longer wish to do business with the player).

 

You know? The whole choices and consequences thing.

[Gnomic]

I agree with basically every criticism of this quest.

 

I didn't get that worked up about it, personally, but it did strike me as either a bug ("should be Minor Positive"), or as poor writing ("killing bandits is positive, killing bandits with minimal backstory is negative? why?").

[scythesong]

Actually, it makes sense that helping the looters would raise Defiance Bay reputation if you look at it from a romantic angle. "Random person *allegedly* helps looters and screws over shady merchant." Same for negative reputation and murdering desperate looters, even if in self-defense.

 

Personally though, I also didn't like how the quest didn't give you a lot of options for dealing with the looters so I ended up just ignoring it on my first run.

Edited August 10, 2017 by scythesong

[PangaeaACDC]

This one was a bit annoying, but... I'm playing White March 2 for the first time and came across something even more borked. Saying that an innocent man was innocent gives me negative reputation. WTF?

 

Probably just strengthens my view that the game would be better off without these reputations entirely. Let us do what feels right in the various situations, without the pat on the back or slap on the wrist of that decision being right/wrong based on positive/negative reputation changes.

[Boeroer]

Which innocent man?

[Juodas Varnas]

This one was a bit annoying, but... I'm playing White March 2 for the first time and came across something even more borked. Saying that an innocent man was innocent gives me negative reputation. WTF?

 

Probably just strengthens my view that the game would be better off without these reputations entirely. Let us do what feels right in the various situations, without the pat on the back or slap on the wrist of that decision being right/wrong based on positive/negative reputation changes.

You're talking about the miner?

 

It's definitely intentional, just listen what the other mines say after you let him go. They're dyrwoodans, they need the scapegoat. They don't care that he's innocent, they just want someone to blame.

[PangaeaACDC]

Yes, I noticed those comments after posting here, when I exited the mines. I still find it odd, but it's not a big deal of course. But pretty weird that after wading through a million enemies, clearing a mountain of dangers, uncovering a murder and finding the accused was in reality innocent, we get negative reactions because we were honest about it.

[Juodas Varnas]

Yes, I noticed those comments after posting here, when I exited the mines. I still find it odd, but it's not a big deal of course. But pretty weird that after wading through a million enemies, clearing a mountain of dangers, uncovering a murder and finding the accused was in reality innocent, we get negative reactions because we were honest about it.

That's Dyrwoodans for you.

Buncha bastards.

[Gnomic]

When I tried blaming him anyway, they were pretty happy... "Best thing to happen all week."

 

Bastards, yeah.

[Madscientist]

my 2 cents about this quest:

 

I play now as a kind wayfarer paladin and you are screwed somehow.

I chose the benelovent answer to the looters ( You can keep the stuff ) and so the only way to end this quest was a deceptive answer ( There was nothing to be found).

An option to pay the merchant for her lost goods would be welcome.

Or you tell her that you have given it to them [honest], she is angry at me, I lose reputation but the quest is over.

 

I had the same problem with the quest for the merchant of house domoel.

She wants me to punish somebody.

I chose the only nice answer (She is after you and you should better run). The only way to finish the quest then was to lie to her ( tell her he is dead [deceptive]).

Maybe I should be able to tell her the truth, even if it means that I lose reputation and she does not sell me items.