Poll: Do you like permanent choices?

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  1. #21
    Choices need to effect the storyline in some noteworthy way, or there's simply no point in having them there. Why even put my character in there if I can't roleplay as that character and make their decisions?

    A story can still be made when you're railroaded through and can't make any of the decisions, but there needs to be few/none of the "Why don't you just do X?" moments. Something like "What do you mean we HAVE to keep the bitten ally in the party? Chuck the guy out before he zombifies! Grr, game y u no have choices?!" and you usually have your player character not be the main character in the story for it to work.

    So having choices is important, but I'd still like to have the routes be relatively clear. Games like Fallout where there's so many paths you'll never see them all without a guide feel overwhelming.
    Last edited by Powerogue; 2013-01-02 at 03:54 AM.
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  2. #22
    Well in short I don't. But it is more complicated than that. I think for an elongated corridor game like mass effect it sort of makes sense for permanent choices, but for open world sandbox, not so much.

    Just a little gripe about permanent choices though from DA:O. Remember Alistair? Yep the whining wouldbeking whelp. Well apparently at some point in time you have a chance to "harden" him and get what you might consider to be a more desirable ending. Well, the choice involves being a complete cock to him and a really inappropriate time and is a one time thing. You can't talk to him later and say "you are an heir and have responsibilities, man up", you have to be a jerk while he is mourning the death? of his sister IIRC. There is not really any indication of what an impact this dialogue option has either. Yep, I don't like it, and bioware is pro at BS such as this. I just find the demeanor you have to take rather inconsistent with the ending it provides (Alistair as a stronger leader, again IIRC a long time since I even looked at this game). I am really over playing through games with wiki in hand to make sure I don't miss stuff like this. I should have my intent, and the means to make it happen.

    On the other side, my first play through of fallout:NV was my best. I sided with the town and killed the powder gangers, yet did not become vilified with them. Turns out this is a bug which can no longer be replicated but still. I went on to do their quest chain and thus made enemies with the NCR. It was awesome being chased around by the NCR rangers on my trip to NV for the first time, and when I got there? After having a blast being enemies of the NCR and gathering a lot of info on who I was dealing with I got a second chance with them from the karma reset. It was an awesome, fluid experience and I think this is how it should be. The reset was quite artificial and maybe there should be better ways of reconciliation but that is just a detail.

    I really think permanent choices have to be presented well otherwise they really hinder enjoyment imo.

  3. #23
    Morality choices are my fav. Mass Effect series did it well, Dishonored tried it's damnest but kinda fell flat. The Walking Dead just blew it out of the water with the time ticking down and weighing up what is the best choice for the group. Adds greatly to the story and playthroughs.

    If a game gets it right that's 3 playthroughs. First what I think is right, then evil, then nothing but good. I finished mass effect 1-3 four times because of it. A lot of extra bang for your buck.

  4. #24
    I vote yes, BUT ... I don't like restrictive factions. Players being split by factions unable to freely form guilds together is annoying. Also developer should do these things effectively, not spread too thin going for lots of options without necessary quality.

    My part in this story has been decided. And I will play it well.

  5. #25
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Repefe View Post
    I vote yes, BUT ... I don't like restrictive factions. Players being split by factions unable to freely form guilds together is annoying. Also developer should do these things effectively, not spread too thin going for lots of options without necessary quality.
    Why would players be split by it? Only thing that would be affected by it would be players rewards and quests. If anyone still remembers Aldor and what were those blood elves called again in Shatt in TBC for example but on a larger scale. If you join one faction, the other one hates you but both offer completely different rewards and quests.

    Lets say something like a thieves guild VS a city watch. You could join one but not both. Both have their own guestline as well as repeatable quests but one offers you completely different rewards, crafting recipes etc. and has a different style, not just kill 10 thieves or kill 10 guards. Maybe even teaches you unique abilities.

    ---------- Post added 2013-01-02 at 10:55 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Jakexe View Post
    Morality choices are my fav. Mass Effect series did it well
    ME has morality choices? I think you have it confused with Dragon age games. ME choices mostly only let you either handle things the rough way, hit the bad guys till they tell you things, or you talk to them nicely. Bad things only happen when you play poorly and fail things but taking all red and blue options usually results on good things every time.
    Last edited by mmocc089ef6a74; 2013-01-02 at 10:56 AM.

  6. #26
    I think it depends on the game. If it's something like MW or GoW, the only choice I want is whether to head shot or curb stomp. Everything else should be tightly linear for maximum storytelling.

    If it's an RPG like Dragon Age or Skyrim or Mass Effect, choices should be permanent and cause a larger-than-cosmetic shift in the storyline/gameplay.

    If it's an MMO, swap and change as you see fit.
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  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Lizbeth View Post
    Why would players be split by it? Only thing that would be affected by it would be players rewards and quests. If anyone still remembers Aldor and what were those blood elves called again in Shatt in TBC for example but on a larger scale. If you join one faction, the other one hates you but both offer completely different rewards and quests.
    At that level it's no problem. I am thinking more in line this game has 3 factions .... players from one faction can't joing guild/party/raid formed by players from other faction and faction choice is permanent.

    My part in this story has been decided. And I will play it well.

  8. #28
    Single player RPGs, absolutely. Let's have some serious, meaningful decisions. Let's kill off characters, let's make mistakes. Mass Effect, you're the golden standard here. Let's make some serious drama.

    MMOs... Well, unfortunately you can't really. Every player needs to have the same potential to reach the maximum power possible. If they get cut off from some power gain because of a choice they made when they were potentially uninformed, well that's bad design. That makes players feel as though they can never 'catch up', even if the power gain in question is just +1 to strength or whatever.

    There's also the issue with MMOs where, let's say for example you implement a story decision where you choose who lives and who dies. What happens when you want to reintroduce the person who lives into the story? 50% of your players would have chosen the 'wrong' answer, which feels bad, or you constantly have to use some sort of phasing technology to make the two characters interchangeable depending on who you chose to keep alive. A bit like how Mass Effect uses Kaidan and Ashley, but much more problematic because it's not a single player game.

  9. #29
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Repefe View Post
    At that level it's no problem. I am thinking more in line this game has 3 factions .... players from one faction can't joing guild/party/raid formed by players from other faction and faction choice is permanent.
    3 or maybe even 4 is still ok, I think. I haven't played any MMOs with more than 2 player factions but they're planning 4 for the new Elder Scrolls MMO, I think but they don't have worlds like in WoW. All players can play on any server or there's just one big server. Either way, it should result in a lot more players being able to play together.

    But yea, it's not what I meant. I was thinking more along the lines of NPC factions but much more important and having bigger consequences than the Aldor and Scryers had.

    ---------- Post added 2013-01-02 at 11:24 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Kisho View Post
    Single player RPGs, absolutely. Let's have some serious, meaningful decisions. Let's kill off characters, let's make mistakes. Mass Effect, you're the golden standard here. Let's make some serious drama.

    MMOs... Well, unfortunately you can't really. Every player needs to have the same potential to reach the maximum power possible. If they get cut off from some power gain because of a choice they made when they were potentially uninformed, well that's bad design. That makes players feel as though they can never 'catch up', even if the power gain in question is just +1 to strength or whatever.

    There's also the issue with MMOs where, let's say for example you implement a story decision where you choose who lives and who dies. What happens when you want to reintroduce the person who lives into the story? 50% of your players would have chosen the 'wrong' answer, which feels bad, or you constantly have to use some sort of phasing technology to make the two characters interchangeable depending on who you chose to keep alive. A bit like how Mass Effect uses Kaidan and Ashley, but much more problematic because it's not a single player game.
    It could be done in MMO's easily. It wouldnt be 1 strength vs nothing. The reward (in WoW terms) might be 5% haste vs 5% crit vs 10% critical damage or getting a crafting recipe for a new potion or a new axe or some enchant. Something like that. It's still balanced but joining some factions helps certain styles better.

    Killing off certain characters could be done easily too. The quests could be instanced. You make your decisions there. If you go with a group, you need to have a group vote or group leader decides and after, if you spared someone, you might see that character again, phased so only those who spared them can see them, offering a few lines of text, maybe even some additional quests.

  10. #30
    Merely a Setback Adam Jensen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kisho View Post
    Single player RPGs, absolutely. Let's have some serious, meaningful decisions. Let's kill off characters, let's make mistakes. Mass Effect, you're the golden standard here. Let's make some serious drama.

    MMOs... Well, unfortunately you can't really. Every player needs to have the same potential to reach the maximum power possible. If they get cut off from some power gain because of a choice they made when they were potentially uninformed, well that's bad design. That makes players feel as though they can never 'catch up', even if the power gain in question is just +1 to strength or whatever.

    There's also the issue with MMOs where, let's say for example you implement a story decision where you choose who lives and who dies. What happens when you want to reintroduce the person who lives into the story? 50% of your players would have chosen the 'wrong' answer, which feels bad, or you constantly have to use some sort of phasing technology to make the two characters interchangeable depending on who you chose to keep alive. A bit like how Mass Effect uses Kaidan and Ashley, but much more problematic because it's not a single player game.
    SWTOR made an interesting attempt at this, I thought, allowing you some control over the story, but those changes don't get reflected in the world because it's an MMO, so it didn't really work.

    And honestly, I'm not sure you can make it work in an MMO.

    As for single player, I don't want to sound like the Mass Effect fanboy that I am, but it truly is the model for storytelling and decision making in an RPG (the end notwithstanding of course lol.) New games would do well to look at ME's successes, and its few failures, and improve on top of them.
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  11. #31
    replay value is one of THE most important factors in a single player game (along with story and gameplay) so choices are definitely a huge plus. compare for example a game like Dragon Age: Origins where you have so many different choices that you can play the game over and over and over and still discover new things and have a different experience each time against a game like The Longest Journey which is a great game (one of my all time favourites) but has only a few real choices that make minor differences on replays. both are amazing games that I love but I've gotten a lot more game time out of Dragon Age than TLJ

  12. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Lizbeth View Post
    3 or maybe even 4 is still ok, I think. I haven't played any MMOs with more than 2 player factions but they're planning 4 for the new Elder Scrolls MMO, I think but they don't have worlds like in WoW. All players can play on any server or there's just one big server. Either way, it should result in a lot more players being able to play together.
    I think it's 3 player factions and then one enemy-of-all faction in ESO. The problem with that is you get a bunch of friends who want to play the game together, one says he wants this faction, other says other faction etc and they can't pick their factions freely. Instead they are forced to settle for a single faction. And then when growing their guild they are still limited to just the one faction ... not the end of the world, but it can be done better. In games where you have strong focus on faction you can have deserters or guns for hire, in games where you have factions together against common enemy you shouldn't enforce faction only guilds/groups.
    Last edited by Repefe; 2013-01-02 at 11:40 AM.

    My part in this story has been decided. And I will play it well.

  13. #33
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Repefe View Post
    I think it's 3 player factions and then one enemy-of-all faction in ESO. The problem with that is you get a bunch of friends who want to play the game together, one says he wants this faction, other says other faction etc and they can't pick their factions freely. Instead they are forced to settle for a single faction. And then when growing their guild they are still limited to just the one faction ... not the end of the world, but it can be done better. In games where you have strong focus on faction you can have deserters or guns for hire, in games where you have factions together against common enemy you shouldn't enforce faction only guilds/groups.
    Well, at least 2 factions is required if you want players to compete against each other and for PvP. Deserters and such would be fun.. but if you can just change sides at whim as many times you like, it does more harm than good. I wouldn't mind the option being there and hard to use so most players wouldn't do it. I don't like how WoW handles it. Not wanting to pay real money shouldn't be the factor that discourages players to do it, it should be for ingame reasons.

  14. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by Lizbeth View Post
    It could be done in MMO's easily. It wouldnt be 1 strength vs nothing. The reward (in WoW terms) might be 5% haste vs 5% crit vs 10% critical damage or getting a crafting recipe for a new potion or a new axe or some enchant. Something like that. It's still balanced but joining some factions helps certain styles better.
    That's still a potential power gain difference, though. Imagine if a player has a Warrior. Warriors, in this example, love crit (no idea if they do, let's just go with it for the sake of argument) and hate haste. However, this player is entirely new and whilst questing isn't thinking about overall power gains at all.

    He then gets to the point you describe, where he can choose between 5% crit or 5% haste. He has no idea what he's doing, so he likes the idea of hitting faster. That's what he thinks he wants his warrior to be: a fast hitting whirlwind of doom. So he chooses the haste.

    A couple months down the line, he's done the theorycrafting and now knows that he should've picked the crit option. Yet he can't, because of this 'meaningful choice'. You can then argue that he can be allowed to change his decision, but then we've removed the limits. We've removed the meaningful choice. As for crafting options, that's been done in the past: Aldor/Scryer, Oracles/Wolvar. It'll probably be done again at some point, as crafting BoE stuff is acceptable differences (though there are collectors out there who hate the idea of being cut off from certain items, they want to get ALL THE THINGS, so this doesn't work for them).

    Quote Originally Posted by Lizbeth View Post
    Killing off certain characters could be done easily too. The quests could be instanced. You make your decisions there. If you go with a group, you need to have a group vote or group leader decides and after, if you spared someone, you might see that character again, phased so only those who spared them can see them, offering a few lines of text, maybe even some additional quests.
    Totally doable, but the problem here becomes an issue of technological restriction. I, and many others, experienced severe FPS lag as we flew over the world in WotLK (and sometimes still do). This was because phasing was overused, and was clogging up the processing power of our computers. Sure, we couldn't see all these phases, but they were still being processed. So our PCs are working twice (or 3, or 4) times as hard, but you're only seeing half or less of the actual content being processed.

    Blizzard have lately optimised their phasing (and reduced the amount they use it), so this isn't anywhere near the issue it used to be. But it's still something to keep in mind.

    Furthermore, there are quest completionists who would hate the idea of missing out on 1-2 quests because they chose to kill the wrong NPC. Also, if the quest is instanced, can it be run again? Can you choose a different option when running it again? Meaningful choice removed. Or if you run it only once, would that not be confusing to an MMO player? We're used to grinding the same instance several times over, that's what we're meant to do. To then suddenly be told that we can only do this particular bit of content once and only once, ever, is problematic to say the least.

  15. #35
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    Permanent decisions are always bad, and add no replayability.

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