Choices seem... easy? (Spoilers)

[Slevin424]

Basically what I'm saying is that you cannot judge the moral complexity of a choice based on your perspective on how difficult it is.

It's not just my perspective I'm going off of, Crach an Craite even made the same point. He basically said Hjalmar would be better suited as a warchief rather than a king. He did mention his courage and strength but said those qualities are not enough. He then spoke very highly of Cerys and his only real concern was whether the Jarls would listen to a woman. But he said she would be a great leader.

Honestly all we need to do is look at the way they handled the attack on the feast. Cerys held her sword in order to find the real culprit and have them admit their crimes THEN punish them. Having proof of their crimes and being rightfully punished is structured. She wasn't just after revenge, she was after justice. She was able to keep her cool and get the best results.
Hjalmar ran out the doors closed his eyes and started swinging at everyone, hoping one of the people he killed was real culprit. I know that they both get the end result, so there's no bickering over that. We're scoring them based off what a King/Queen would do. Hjamlar seems like the best choice now considering the war, but Cerys is capable of winning wars as well, but she comes with the added bonus of being able to keep the peace. Say, after the war Hjamlar wanted his thirst of blood so he starts civil wars just to have his names in some songs. Clearly that's his mind, as we saw with the Giant. Cerys would do better in the long run.

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Bah I'm getting off topic. Regardless of what you think the best choice is, you have to admit that their story and character development are bland and completely panned out for us. They are complete polar opposites which is the point I'm trying to make. They're clear cut choices, which is something we don't really see in Witcher.

Roche and Iorveth seemed to be polar opposites but their character development actually shows us something really interesting. After seeing both choices I released that Roche and Iorveth are the same, they care for their people.... or elf people. They care so much for their people they don't bother with what people think of them. Roche frees Geralt knowing it will make him look bad. Iorveth befriends Geralt knowing this as well. But they're both willing to do so because Geralt fights for a more noble cause, rather than making things better for one side he tries to even things out. Unite is probably a word they'll never see, but Geralt is trying and both Roche and Iorveth respect that. That level of character depth is a staple of The Witcher series.

 

[DuranA]

The only two major choices where I even considered doing the alternative was with the Bloody Baron and then with whether or not I let Triss be tortured, and it ain't even a major choice with Triss.

Small decisions in Villages had my questioning my actions, big ones however? I felt very shoehorned in most of the time, including with Reasons of State, the ruler of Skellige ( Cerys ) and Ciri's fate.

Although one can justify choosing other actions, like Romancing Triss, placing Hjalmar on the throne and so on it becomes very clear that the game points very clearly towards certain decisions being the "good" ones.

 

[Slevin424]

The only two major choices where I even considered doing the alternative was with the Bloody Baron and then with whether or not I let Triss be tortured, and it ain't even a major choice with Triss.

Small decisions in Villages had my questioning my actions, big ones however? I felt very shoehorned in most of the time, including with Reasons of State, the ruler of Skellige ( Cerys ) and Ciri's fate.

Although one can justify choosing other actions, like Romancing Triss, placing Hjalmar on the throne and so on it becomes very clear that the game points very clearly towards certain decisions being the "good" ones.

Yeah, I had a tough time figuring out what's the best option for Triss. This is something that doesn't need extreme levels of over analyzation but it is definitely a tough choice. I'm wondering if maybe, this Witcher game having the biggest spotlight in the mainstream gaming media out of all the other Witcher games... just maybe our Witcher 3 got hit with a bit of mass appeal? To make it easier for the Call of Duty kids in the hopes they'll buy the game, rather than try it out on a demo then go GameFaqs and complain about "the choices were hard, the dialog was too hard to follow, why can't the game think for me.... thinking hurts, where's the shotguns?"

Then again maybe I'm a cynical old bastard.

 

[Ishxan]

It's not just my perspective I'm going off of, Crach an Craite even made the same point. He basically said Hjalmar would be better suited as a warchief rather than a king. He did mention his courage and strength but said those qualities are not enough. He then spoke very highly of Cerys and his only real concern was whether the Jarls would listen to a woman. But he said she would be a great leader.

Honestly all we need to do is look at the way they handled the attack on the feast. Cerys held her sword in order to find the real culprit and have them admit their crimes THEN punish them. Having proof of their crimes and being rightfully punished is structured. She wasn't just after revenge, she was after justice. She was able to keep her cool and get the best results.
Hjalmar ran out the doors closed his eyes and started swinging at everyone, hoping one of the people he killed was real culprit. I know that they both get the end result, so there's no bickering over that. We're scoring them based off what a King/Queen would do. Hjamlar seems like the best choice now considering the war, but Cerys is capable of winning wars as well, but she comes with the added bonus of being able to keep the peace. Say, after the war Hjamlar wanted his thirst of blood so he starts civil wars just to have his names in some songs. Clearly that's his mind, as we saw with the Giant. Cerys would do better in the long run.

________________________________

Bah I'm getting off topic. Regardless of what you think the best choice is, you have to admit that their story and character development are bland and completely panned out for us. They are complete polar opposites which is the point I'm trying to make. They're clear cut choices, which is something we don't really see in Witcher.

Roche and Iorveth seemed to be polar opposites but their character development actually shows us something really interesting. After seeing both choices I released that Roche and Iorveth are the same, they care for their people.... or elf people. They care so much for their people they don't bother with what people think of them. Roche frees Geralt knowing it will make him look bad. Iorveth befriends Geralt knowing this as well. But they're both willing to do so because Geralt fights for a more noble cause, rather than making things better for one side he tries to even things out. Unite is probably a word they'll never see, but Geralt is trying and both Roche and Iorveth respect that. That level of character depth is a staple of The Witcher series.

Reading your reply I'm left with the impression that you only read what you quoted...

 

[Slevin424]

Reading your reply I'm left with the impression that you only read what you quoted...

Everything else regarding the ending scenes and what happens afterwards doesn't really apply to the topic. We're talking about how the choices feel way too obvious and that there are only black and whites. The lengths they went to make Cerys and Hjamlar complete polar opposites ended up making them both seem silly, it's almost like a sitcom. And yeah their endings and what happens to them after is something you could see from a mile away. You may have taken that "good choice" "bad choice" thing as the full argument, I'm arguing that these choices are fleshed out to be exactly what you expect. The game really tries to force you to pick Cerys by making Hjalmar out to be an uncaring, hot headed, selfish and rather uncaring of his men. They make him seem like the "bad choice" regardless of what happens in the end, that's how they present him and that's how it will be regardless of what you do because there's no character development. They don't learn anything from Geralt.

 

[svizcy]

I realised there are no good or bad choices in this game, it feels very realistic in that perspective for me. Even Ciri sacreficing herself has a possitive effect as there is no white frost coming after that, but if she comes back, then you can see snow everywhere etc...the begining of the end maybe?

I am really unsure of which ending would really strike me as the best one, eventhou from personal view i really like to keep Ciri alive, since it had a great impact on me thrueout the game of how much Geralt cares for her. (and yet i messed it up the first time t_t)

I also feel like romance with Yenifer/Triss is pushed to much towards the Yenifer and i felt really strugling to make the right choices if i wanted to finish up with Triss in the end.

As for Djikstra vs Roach/Ves/Thaller goes...well i agree with most ppl here. It feels almost innatural to chose Djikstra over Roach in that dialogue.

But what bothers me most of all is that once main storyline is finished if you continue playing all main plot characters are bassicly errased from the game and well...it feels very unsatisfiying. :/