#QuestionOfTheDay what's a decision you're forced to make in a game that you think is unfair/not your call to make/etc
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#QuestionOfTheDay what's a decision you're forced to make in a game that you think is unfair/not your call to make/etc
For eg a decision that offers you unfair choices where an obvious better alternative exists that you're just not allowed to have, or a decision that shouldn't be up to your character to make and has far reaching consequences etc
i.e. not simply a decision you don't want to make (choose who gets to die in a situation where you're in charge and the choice is reasonable and necessary)
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#QuestionOfTheDay what's a decision you're forced to make in a game that you think is unfair/not your call to make/etc
For eg a decision that offers you unfair choices where an obvious better alternative exists that you're just not allowed to have, or a decision that shouldn't be up to your character to make and has far reaching consequences etc
i.e. not simply a decision you don't want to make (choose who gets to die in a situation where you're in charge and the choice is reasonable and necessary)
Whether to "do one more quest before bed" or not... 🫣
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#QuestionOfTheDay what's a decision you're forced to make in a game that you think is unfair/not your call to make/etc
For eg a decision that offers you unfair choices where an obvious better alternative exists that you're just not allowed to have, or a decision that shouldn't be up to your character to make and has far reaching consequences etc
i.e. not simply a decision you don't want to make (choose who gets to die in a situation where you're in charge and the choice is reasonable and necessary)
I'll give two different examples from Mass Effect: Andromeda, one of which we saw on stream the other day when I played it, the other one is in the future
1) a man is accused of killing his superior officer, he says he killed him by accident but witnesses say otherwise, you investigate and find out he's innocent of murder, he missed his shot, his superior was killed by a Kett, but he intended to kill him as an audio recording shows, the choice is to exile him anyway and cover up the evidence that he missed his shot, or to vacate the charges and let him be free, for some reason retrying him for attempted murder is not an option
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#QuestionOfTheDay what's a decision you're forced to make in a game that you think is unfair/not your call to make/etc
For eg a decision that offers you unfair choices where an obvious better alternative exists that you're just not allowed to have, or a decision that shouldn't be up to your character to make and has far reaching consequences etc
i.e. not simply a decision you don't want to make (choose who gets to die in a situation where you're in charge and the choice is reasonable and necessary)
@ami_angelwings The whole of Spec Ops: The Line is full of unfair decisions.
It's also the point.
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I'll give two different examples from Mass Effect: Andromeda, one of which we saw on stream the other day when I played it, the other one is in the future
1) a man is accused of killing his superior officer, he says he killed him by accident but witnesses say otherwise, you investigate and find out he's innocent of murder, he missed his shot, his superior was killed by a Kett, but he intended to kill him as an audio recording shows, the choice is to exile him anyway and cover up the evidence that he missed his shot, or to vacate the charges and let him be free, for some reason retrying him for attempted murder is not an option
2) you rescue the Moshae, spiritual leader of the Angara, from a Kett Exaltation facility which is basically where they turn people into Kett, you find the Cardinal who is in charge of the facility who begs you not to destroy it and offers you a deal to let all the prisoners and Angaran rebels in the facility go in exchange for leaving the facility intact, Jaal (an Angaran rebel in your party) wants you to make the deal because it saves everybody, The Moshae wants you to destroy the facility killing all the Angaran prisoners, rebels, & ones being rescued from Exaltation chambers because she doesn't want the facility to be used again.
Both have their arguments but why is this up to me??? This should be a choice made by the Angara! It affects them, not me
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2) you rescue the Moshae, spiritual leader of the Angara, from a Kett Exaltation facility which is basically where they turn people into Kett, you find the Cardinal who is in charge of the facility who begs you not to destroy it and offers you a deal to let all the prisoners and Angaran rebels in the facility go in exchange for leaving the facility intact, Jaal (an Angaran rebel in your party) wants you to make the deal because it saves everybody, The Moshae wants you to destroy the facility killing all the Angaran prisoners, rebels, & ones being rescued from Exaltation chambers because she doesn't want the facility to be used again.
Both have their arguments but why is this up to me??? This should be a choice made by the Angara! It affects them, not me
Anyway, if you don't destroy the facility, the Moshae holds it against you for the rest of the game. You also get an option to shoot the Cardinal in the back after making the deal which makes the Moshae slightly less mad, but the whole choice annoys me. Like if it's up to me, then I make the deal because it saves everybody and we worry about the future in the future, and I don't shoot people in the back because I honor my deals and as much as it might make the Moshae happy, it's still technically an ongoing first contact situation and why should the Angara trust me if I go back on my deals?
I always make the deal b/c destroying one facility at the cost of thousands of Angara & crippling the rebellion is a bad trade. But again, it shouldn't be up to me.
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#QuestionOfTheDay what's a decision you're forced to make in a game that you think is unfair/not your call to make/etc
For eg a decision that offers you unfair choices where an obvious better alternative exists that you're just not allowed to have, or a decision that shouldn't be up to your character to make and has far reaching consequences etc
i.e. not simply a decision you don't want to make (choose who gets to die in a situation where you're in charge and the choice is reasonable and necessary)
@ami_angelwings I'm not sure if anything can beat when some games make you decide the fate of the whole universe...
Shin Megami Tensei is a really good example. In some (like SMT3 and 5) the world as you know it is already gone and there's not much you can do about that, but in almost all of them you ultimately decide the fate of the universe. Add to this that a more neutral fate is really hard to get as they tend to drive you to decide between order or chaos (not really good or evil — I give D&D lots of credit for showing us that these are separate alignments.)
And really, any extremes are just... not ideal...
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#QuestionOfTheDay what's a decision you're forced to make in a game that you think is unfair/not your call to make/etc
For eg a decision that offers you unfair choices where an obvious better alternative exists that you're just not allowed to have, or a decision that shouldn't be up to your character to make and has far reaching consequences etc
i.e. not simply a decision you don't want to make (choose who gets to die in a situation where you're in charge and the choice is reasonable and necessary)
@ami_angelwings I do want to say, more generically and a little bit on topic of your own example, a lot of games put you in a position where you're supposed to decide someone's fate and often enough there just isn't much actual evidence. I'm trying to remember the specific game, but there was one I remember playing a good while back where there was just hearsay on the part of witnesses and no evidence at all one way or the other but you had to decide a person's fate solely on that.
That just isn't right... No one's fate should be decided by some random adventurer just passing through based on hearsay...
If a game puts us in this position I think it should be required to give us sufficient evidence to reach a definitive conclusion at least.
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2) you rescue the Moshae, spiritual leader of the Angara, from a Kett Exaltation facility which is basically where they turn people into Kett, you find the Cardinal who is in charge of the facility who begs you not to destroy it and offers you a deal to let all the prisoners and Angaran rebels in the facility go in exchange for leaving the facility intact, Jaal (an Angaran rebel in your party) wants you to make the deal because it saves everybody, The Moshae wants you to destroy the facility killing all the Angaran prisoners, rebels, & ones being rescued from Exaltation chambers because she doesn't want the facility to be used again.
Both have their arguments but why is this up to me??? This should be a choice made by the Angara! It affects them, not me
@ami_angelwings Here's another argument in favor of making the deal: first, as you say you're saving lives and lives generally come before policies, but also...
what prevents people from later coming back to destroy it? Say, for example, the people who are now alive instead of dead...
Yeah, generally speaking lives come first unless it's some kind of situation where saving them means destroying the universe or something stupid like that. That's how any decent leaders/diplomats/whatever would handle it IRL anyway. It's stupid for the game to in any way whatsoever penalize for making that particular choice...
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@ami_angelwings I do want to say, more generically and a little bit on topic of your own example, a lot of games put you in a position where you're supposed to decide someone's fate and often enough there just isn't much actual evidence. I'm trying to remember the specific game, but there was one I remember playing a good while back where there was just hearsay on the part of witnesses and no evidence at all one way or the other but you had to decide a person's fate solely on that.
That just isn't right... No one's fate should be decided by some random adventurer just passing through based on hearsay...
If a game puts us in this position I think it should be required to give us sufficient evidence to reach a definitive conclusion at least.
@nazokiyoubinbou @ami_angelwings makes me think of Dragon Age: Inquisition. You keep hearing about a civil war, and there's a mission where you have to go and resolve it.
Going into this mission I know almost nothing about the civil war, despite having actively been in the war zone and apparently the only details you can get about it are in one of the tie-in novels, this was the point I stopped playing the game.
Edit: You do get a little bit of information about the queen
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@nazokiyoubinbou @ami_angelwings makes me think of Dragon Age: Inquisition. You keep hearing about a civil war, and there's a mission where you have to go and resolve it.
Going into this mission I know almost nothing about the civil war, despite having actively been in the war zone and apparently the only details you can get about it are in one of the tie-in novels, this was the point I stopped playing the game.
Edit: You do get a little bit of information about the queen
@Canageek @ami_angelwings Wow, that went beyond "unfair to the player" into straight up "go buy our crap to even be able to play the game right" level shovelware.
I guess when the first game set the bar with some dude stopping you and demanding that you go buy DLC because your family owes him it kind of already ruined any possibilities of ever being decently fair in that regard.
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@Canageek @ami_angelwings Wow, that went beyond "unfair to the player" into straight up "go buy our crap to even be able to play the game right" level shovelware.
I guess when the first game set the bar with some dude stopping you and demanding that you go buy DLC because your family owes him it kind of already ruined any possibilities of ever being decently fair in that regard.
@nazokiyoubinbou @ami_angelwings Now I didn't actually go into the mission, and apparently the dialogue trees you can get into in that mission are so complicated that no one has actually written out a full guide to that mission online.
Given that much text, it's possible that they just put all of the info dumping into that specific mission, I was just nervous about picking the wrong choice enough that I didn't do it
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@nazokiyoubinbou @ami_angelwings Now I didn't actually go into the mission, and apparently the dialogue trees you can get into in that mission are so complicated that no one has actually written out a full guide to that mission online.
Given that much text, it's possible that they just put all of the info dumping into that specific mission, I was just nervous about picking the wrong choice enough that I didn't do it
@Canageek @ami_angelwings The whole "if you want more info, go buy these things and read them first" thing is good enough reason. I'm behind you on that.
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#QuestionOfTheDay what's a decision you're forced to make in a game that you think is unfair/not your call to make/etc
For eg a decision that offers you unfair choices where an obvious better alternative exists that you're just not allowed to have, or a decision that shouldn't be up to your character to make and has far reaching consequences etc
i.e. not simply a decision you don't want to make (choose who gets to die in a situation where you're in charge and the choice is reasonable and necessary)
@ami_angelwings The choice on whether to level the ruins in Shatterscarp or to pull the trigger on dozens of innocents.
A whole company of professional soldiers, complete with siege weapons, and an actual *archmage*, and *those* are literally the only two options to just delay a horde of basically-zombies? #Avowed -
#QuestionOfTheDay what's a decision you're forced to make in a game that you think is unfair/not your call to make/etc
For eg a decision that offers you unfair choices where an obvious better alternative exists that you're just not allowed to have, or a decision that shouldn't be up to your character to make and has far reaching consequences etc
i.e. not simply a decision you don't want to make (choose who gets to die in a situation where you're in charge and the choice is reasonable and necessary)
@ami_angelwings Both weird that it's the player choice but also because all the options are bad:
In Assassins Creed Shadows, there is an sidequest chain about a butterfly obsessed woman who has spent years kidnapping children. After you kill her, a woman she kidnapped and raised as her own wants a clean break and ask you/the PC to give her a new name. Which is weird first because they've spoken like twice, but also because all the options are butterfly themed, and the UI makes it very explicit , e.g. "Ageha ( Swallowtail Butterfly)" but it never acknowledges how weird it is that those are the only options and you basically spit in her face and go directly against her request. -
@ami_angelwings Here's another argument in favor of making the deal: first, as you say you're saving lives and lives generally come before policies, but also...
what prevents people from later coming back to destroy it? Say, for example, the people who are now alive instead of dead...
Yeah, generally speaking lives come first unless it's some kind of situation where saving them means destroying the universe or something stupid like that. That's how any decent leaders/diplomats/whatever would handle it IRL anyway. It's stupid for the game to in any way whatsoever penalize for making that particular choice...
@nazokiyoubinbou yeah, the argument against making the deal is that the Cardinal can use the facility to fill it up with Angara to be Exalted again but the same argument can be made about just going back to blow it up later with stronger forces, especially since we're replenishing the rebellion and they now have Allies in my crew and the Milky Way alien factions
I always found the Moshae sus anyway. Like she was held by the Kett for a long time and Jaal even thinks her experience changed her because she's so much more ruthless now. And I always wondered if she was brainwashed or half Exalted and that's why she acts so irrationally and wants to just destroy the tower with everybody inside
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@nazokiyoubinbou yeah, the argument against making the deal is that the Cardinal can use the facility to fill it up with Angara to be Exalted again but the same argument can be made about just going back to blow it up later with stronger forces, especially since we're replenishing the rebellion and they now have Allies in my crew and the Milky Way alien factions
I always found the Moshae sus anyway. Like she was held by the Kett for a long time and Jaal even thinks her experience changed her because she's so much more ruthless now. And I always wondered if she was brainwashed or half Exalted and that's why she acts so irrationally and wants to just destroy the tower with everybody inside
@ami_angelwings Really that's the only thing that makes sense at that point.
But it sounds like the game should make it a whole lot clearer if so...
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@ami_angelwings Really that's the only thing that makes sense at that point.
But it sounds like the game should make it a whole lot clearer if so...
@nazokiyoubinbou I always wondered if that was gonna be a reveal in the sequel, I made it a reveal in the outline for a sequel I made that I wanna turn into visual novel some day
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#QuestionOfTheDay what's a decision you're forced to make in a game that you think is unfair/not your call to make/etc
For eg a decision that offers you unfair choices where an obvious better alternative exists that you're just not allowed to have, or a decision that shouldn't be up to your character to make and has far reaching consequences etc
i.e. not simply a decision you don't want to make (choose who gets to die in a situation where you're in charge and the choice is reasonable and necessary)
@ami_angelwings
Persona 5, some time after a genuinely pretty good plot line about bounding with a girl classmate who is dealing with the aftermath of her best friend committing suicide as result of sexual assault by their teacher, male protagonist hangs out with her and the joke has three options1. Sexually harass your friend
2. Sexually harass your friend
3. Sexually harass your friendFuck off
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Anyway, if you don't destroy the facility, the Moshae holds it against you for the rest of the game. You also get an option to shoot the Cardinal in the back after making the deal which makes the Moshae slightly less mad, but the whole choice annoys me. Like if it's up to me, then I make the deal because it saves everybody and we worry about the future in the future, and I don't shoot people in the back because I honor my deals and as much as it might make the Moshae happy, it's still technically an ongoing first contact situation and why should the Angara trust me if I go back on my deals?
I always make the deal b/c destroying one facility at the cost of thousands of Angara & crippling the rebellion is a bad trade. But again, it shouldn't be up to me.
Oh also I just remembered, in Elder Scrolls Online there's a quest where the king's best friend and knight captain or whatever kills the queen under mind control and it's up to you to decide whether to execute him because the King says he's too torn up to decide, and if you choose not to execute the guy (because he was under mind control!) the king gets mad at you. And it's like okay then execute him! You're the King! Why is the final decision that can't apparently be overturned up to me???
