Making/Picking Tough Choices

[animalfather]

Making/Picking Tough Choices

So a lot of us gamers have OCPD and have a tough time making choices. i remember back in the day i would make a choice see the outcome and then load up a save file before making the choice and seeing the other outcome before making a final decision on which path i should take, KoTOR pearl choice is the one that stuck with me for some reason all these years. I feel like i would do that because the game wouldn't exactly tell you the outcome of the choice you made. If you know the outcome and the game doesn't trick you then you could more easily make a decision without reloading. Something maybe to work on.

As for tough choices..i just saw Sophies Choice and i thought maybe we should have a choice like that in a game it would be devastating ofc but very emotional and if done right it could have a great impact on vg in general.

 

[Hoplite_22]

"if something could be done perfectly it would be great!" of course it would. it's about connections to the characters they are creating so making a strong enough one that it would be tough would be really tough.

as for Sophie's choice, fuck me that would be a bit fucking dark even for a CP game.

 

[Lisbeth_Salander]

The game's director said that it won't be a hopeless dark world like Blade Runner. But if they would go dark they could insert some aspects from both book and game "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" (book about AI taking control over people's minds in a virtual reality), specially if you consider the fact that it will probably have the virtual reality called braindance in CP2077. This right here is the polar extreme of the word hopelessness. We definetly should not focus ENTIRELY on this book, since if we do that it'll be a hellish depressing game, but we could take a little inspiration from it.

The game is extremely unpredictable with its choices, specially regarding the ending. But having to make choices that will permanently change the enviroment or the people around you may prove to be important to making it memorable, regardless if the changes are good or bad.

CP 2077 shouldn't be totally predictable nor totally unpredictable in terms of choices made by the player. Now about the extremely tough choices AKA the book from above, the game should focus on giving hints about the consequences of the players' actions, so the it would beneficiate players who pay attention to the story, or at least the ones who care about it. It'd be nice to have a middle ground for these hints. In a way it will be both hard and easy to predict what will happen in the game depending on the situation. The Witcher 3 did this greatly, it was impossible to predict things exacly as they would happen, but we feel as we knew something "similar" to what happened would happen.

But who cares? If it'll have Tarantino's unpredictabilty it may be really fun to play a game that anything could happen at ANY time. The only problem with this aproach is regarding the affection the player may have with other characters, have you seen one of those Tarantino movies? There comes a time in the movie where the unpredictability becomes predictable, so you get used to seeing important characters dying radomly, in other words, ramdom things happens so often that it directly contributes to the audience not giving a shit about whos gonna die.

Middle ground is the key.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

I think the "choices" should definitely not be laid out plainly... "this is what happens if you do X, this, if you do Y; now choose". That's not fun. If the context there and then is right for a plain choice between beef and vegetables, then yes, certainly, but in general... No. Please. Gotta trust the player a little responsibility for his actions, and give the credit that he can anticipate some of that stuff from the context without being explicity told. And there's nothing wrong with little surprise here and there whether postive or negative, sometimes you might not even know you made a "choice", that just adds spice to the game. Let the reactivity come out more organically and less handholdy.

 

[Rawls]

Agree on the need for moral ambiguous and difficult decisions. I would go even further to say it's best if you have those types of choices where the consequences are not immediately apparent ... thus making it harder to do the reload back to before the choice option. In role playing games I like not knowing what will happen based on my decisions. It's part of the fun.

I'd be fine with an ME1 style choice (Kaiden or Ashley). I'd prefer it not be kids though (Sophie's Choice style) ... that's a little too bleak for me. If it happens I wouldn't be up in arms ... but I'm not sure it would be a net positive for me.

 

[Suhiira]

As long the actions/decisions you make in character are somewhat predictable I'm fine with that. But I REALLY hate games where seemingly random results are based on if you do A vice B. You need a general context to base decisions off of.

Take Fallout 2:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Decker
While your character may well not know all the background to make the "best" decision, whatever decision you make has logical, and fairly predictable consequences.

 

[Gaidheal]

I covered most of what I think when I replied to the "Evil" thread. In short, then, choices should be meaningful - why waste time making us choose between the house special and a burger? They should also often balance selfish benefits against some kind of ethical "right" choice. And occasionally, it should be a Morton's Fork, where you basically get screwed regardless, but you still got to choose how.

 

[Suhiira]

Good a thread as any to put this in - game design anaysis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qbYj6Joc_U

 

[Suhiira]

And on the subject of making choices ... let's discuss character motivation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC3mehnQF0Q

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Didn't you put that same video in some other thread a while ago? I could swear I've clicked a link somewhere here and seen that guy salivate all over Tyranny...

-------------------------------------

Anyway. It used to be that often some the toughest choices were made right in the beginning during character creation. You had multitude of different choices for different character types and you couldn't tell where those choices might lead you, what would you want to sacrifice over what else, so you spent a looong time pondering and rolling different characters before you finally got to a conclusion (that you probably weren't sure about, but with which you decided to go).

I'd like that kind of toughness of choice in character creation to make a return in CP2077. That I get to really think about what kind of character I want to make and have those choices pay off; flavor options and all. It's no longer possible in most mainstream games since everything is so streamlined, often you are forced with a premade character and/or a blank slate adult-infant that has no skills at the beginning and next to all them at the end. That's.... well, bad for a game like this.

 

[Suhiira]

Might have ... if so I apologize, still worth watching/discussing.

Streamlined or non exclusive? Seems folks don't want to have their choices effect the overall game-play, they should experience everything a game has to offer regardless of how they choose to play.

 

[Lisbeth_Salander]

Considering that CP2077 will approach missions on the personal level, giving focus to stuff that happens locally instead of saving the world, it may be beneficial to implement a higher amount of choices.

 

[Suhiira]

Agreed, but will Joe/Jane I-Want-It-All action gamer understand that? They think RPG means a game that has skills (usually really special abilities for use in combat). The entire concept of playing a character is alien.

 

[Lisbeth_Salander]

The local/personal aspect will attract even more casuals to the game. I affirm this, because it happened before and it was a success, of course I'm talking about the GTA series. The low level stuff is more relatable to the average joe.

I'm not criticizing it, I'm a fan of it myself. Oh yeah, average joe doens't want to think for himself, that's why he hates to make choices in his games, for him there's only two things: games that are fun and the ones with great graphics.

Few are the players who give value to being influenced in both intelectual and emotional levels.

BUTT, giving that this is a rpg and most of the demographic is familiar with Bethesda's """""RPGs"""""" and Bioware's "Politically Correct RPG's" , perhaps it will be tough for them to not feel like gods saving the whole human race for once.

But this demographic is just not familiar with this low level approach, I bet they'll love it, because there aint no difference between these guys and those average joes i mentioned earlier. It's just like my grandad used to say: "there's an average joe inside all of us, you cunt, now get the fuck out of my house".

 

[Suhiira]

And another good analysis of what makes an RPG.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjWWuUDtSaE&t=3305s

 

[Azriel7]

I want choices to open up or closed based on your stats and what you done. For example, if there is a hostage situation the perp could really hate cops and if your a cop they will shoot the victim in a murder suicide regardless of what you say, at best you might shoot them before they kill the hostage, however if they are into music and a rockerboy could easily talk them out of it, or you might have a character who specilizes in stealth and take them down before they know what happens. I do not like choices that give you only two bad options, I prefer there to be other options that open up if certain conditions are met and your willing to work a little harder to get a better outcome. Forcing two bad options gets old really quick, I prefer games to give a lot of options and different ways to solve issues.

 

[Suhiira]

Yeah, options are key. In Fallout 4 your options boiled down to "Do the task" (play the game) or Don't do the task" (don't play the game).

 

[NukeTheMoon]

I feel that as in real life, the choices in games should be neither predictable, nor black-and-white.
Unintended consequences are also often more impactful than intended consequences.
It can be simple to make a choice, it can be difficult to accept the consequences of those choices.

 

[Sunsibar]

As a first thing, we need to care about characters. We need characters and story, which really makes us feel things. If we don't have that, our decisions won't really matter to us.

I want tough decisions, where it's not obvious what is going to happen later. Or that our intentions were good, but it ends up in a disaster later in the game.
It would be great if some of our decisions takes us to different places. Choose A and go to place C. Or choose B and go to place D, but you can't do both.
I want someone to say "trust me and choose this" and then he betrays me in the end, and characters that say "trust me and choose this" and it was worth trusting. I want them both in the same game.
I want to cry! Give me a minor character, who seems to be nobody at the beginning, but then becomes my trusted friend and ally, and then he dies.
Of course we need to have obvious and easy choices somewhere in between.
I want to see my companions (if we have one) getting mad at me and leaving, if I do something they don't like.
I want to see moments, where I have to sacrifice either my trusted ally (who is crying and begging me not to kill him), or lots of other very important people. (Am I really that terrible person?)

I don't want to see good choices vs evil choices, which makes you easily walk through the game if you are good, and turns the game into full blown war zone if you make evil choices. It should only affect to our options and allies during the game. Not making it easier or more difficult.

And no major choices, which can be reloaded and replayed if the outcome was wrong. Unless that means playing again several hours of game. I know I'm going to hate it, but at the same time, I love it.

I want to see shocking things that I won't expect.

 

[SigilFey]

I hope they leave every single faction "grey", just like the original Deus Ex. Not so much choosing to be good, evil, or neutral as it is choosing what type of twisted path you wish to walk. I also hope for the return of unexpected consequences (e.g. fight bravely, thrash the bad guys, and save the hostages...the criminal organization you affronted later destroys an entire town, killing hundreds in retaliation.) No heroic actions without heroic prices.