If there is one outcome, remove the guise of control. Have my character speak for me. I don’t fucking care. I’d rather feel like my character is doing or saying something I wouldn’t personally do than for me to be given a fucking pop-up that means nothing and is just there to reinforce a self-insert facade. At least make a bit out of it if you’re gonna do it. It’s genuinely one of the worst pieces of game design outside of legitimately predatory behavior.
I am 100% with you.
Developers need to have the courage to build bad endings in storytelling/RPG games. Make a decision in Act 1 that potentially ruins your day by Act 2. Make a decision in Act 3 that ends in "You Lose" even if you've kicky-punchy'd every boss to death.
These don't have to be Earth Shattering decisions. Maybe you challenge the fencing master to a dual with naked blades and get an eye pocked out. Now you play the rest of the game with an eyepatch. Consequences! Maybe you refuse to take good advice (or follow a bad lead) and one of your party members gets Aerith'd as a result. Maybe you don't solve the murder, and you never get the promotion that gives you access the best car in the game. Maybe you don't solve the murder and you get fired and there's a big "You're Fired" on the screen before the game would normally end.
These kinds of make-or-break decision moments are what gave games like Wing Commander and Mass Effect and Deja Vu and Elden Ring real replay value. Losing is part of what makes games fun. It doesn't have to just be mashing the A button to get to the next cinematic.
dragon age origins did it well
do something that will obviously immensely piss off one of your companions and they will just fucking leave lol
The bad guy ending for Knights of the Old Republic rules, too.
Dark Side ending spoilers
Massacring half of your party, and forcing Zaalbar to choke out Mission was some pretty diabolical shit. And if you didn't take the dark side path for him on Kashyyyk, he tries to kill you on the Star Forge later.
yeah, that ending was heavy lol
Planescape torment has a choice in the middle of the game where it straight up ends if you take it and I wish more games did that.
'Choosing' to be homeless (not having enough cash for rent) is a game over in Disco Elysium.
Or maybe some kid calls you gay so hard your brain breaks and you go live under a bridge.
I play games to escape from reality tho
That's pretty much the thing that made The Witcher 3 stand out, that there were just constantly little choices to make with no indication what would just be irrelevant because you'd just leave and never see anyone involved again and what would matter to the story later.
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Other way around. Being overbearing and controlling towards Ciri leads to a bad end, while compassion in general leads to narratively better results like when you're literally put on trial for being a monster hunter only to have all the magical creatures you helped show up to speak to your defense.
Like it consistently strongly favors non-violent resolution whenever possible except in one particular case, even when violence is the appropriate reaction (IIRC you lock one storyline into a bad end if you break the sleazy spymaster's leg), and generally casts Geralts natural detachment and alienation as bad things.
I have a hard time even calling it particularly lib-brained because pretty much any other game comparable to it does it worse. It was made by a bunch of polish libs who have plenty of bad takes, but seemingly fewer brainworms than their American techbro counterparts.
Helps that they weren't living in the most propangandized country on Earth.
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I think that's from the first game? Where there are some elven guerilla fighters smuggling supplies into the city, and if you help them they later assassinate someone else you're on good terms with (because they're fighting a protracted people's war against the human authorities)? I'm fuzzy on the details because I didn't get that far in that one. But there were a lot of problems with that game.
I can't think of any case like that from the third game. I know there are some "somebody in this situation is getting screwed over no matter what" choices but in general it's narratively better to be merciful and generous than vengeful and self-serving.
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I'd completely forgotten about this. Thank you.