Heavily dissapointed with the ending "system"

[yiunko]

Heavily dissapointed with the ending "system"

The game was sold as the final Chapter of Geralt of Rivia, ok. Amazing game, ok. So now I spent like 30 hours in the main storyline, protecting and caring about Ciri and trying to make the choices I think Geralt would have. I don't cheat on Yen, I don't even take Ciri to Emhyr and I respect her choices. What ending did I got?

SPOILER:

Geralt deciding to die in pain and depression in a house by drowners and ghuls and Ciri is dead. WTF

You can't just make a 30 hours story line and give the viewer the worst posible imaginable result to the story! Is not like I can just load an old save to fix it, because I would have to play like 15 hours at least! I loved every bit of the game but this ending just left me depressed and upset for an entire day. Making you connect with the character after 3 games and like 7 books and then throwing to your face that everybody dies in pain and suffering because I invited Ciri to drink a beer instead of throwing snow to her face?!

TLR I think a very poor decision was made when it comes to determine what choices makes the player get the cruelest ending.

PD: Amazing game, love it and will recommend it till I die, but broke my heart at the end

 

[AdamSnow]

I remember lots of others with the same complaint, all I can say that I get it. thou I did get the exact ending I wanted - I was probably very lucky - because to be honest some of the dialogue choices are not entirely clear about what Geralt is going to say and/or do and then this is what decides what ending we are going to get.

 

[RedBehrend]

It's more if your ending a 300+ hour 12 year trilogy you need something a little more. Like a celebration/banquet/drinking night anything with all the characters or at least cutscenes with them. Give you some kind of closure after saving the world again... lol

SPOILER
Plus like we said in the other threads if you have a big heart and you try to please everyone you end up with the sad alone ending.

 

[AdamSnow]

It's more if your ending a 300+ hour 12 year trilogy you need something a little more. Like a celebration/banquet/drinking night anything with all the characters or at least cutscenes with them. Give you some kind of closure after saving the world again... lol

SPOILER
Plus like we said in the other threads if you have a big heart and you try to please everyone you end up with the sad alone ending.

I don't think it's true. You just make the decisions that make you end up like that. I was very caring towards Ciri always trying to support her decisions and be there if she needs me and I got a great and happy ending.

 

[Kershak]

I too was confused of the ending. I based my decisions like you on good behaviour (though I loved Triss more than Yen and actually thought in the end you had to decide for one of both, didn't think they both let you down and you end up alone).

Sometimes the dialogue choices feel right, but Geralt ends up saying things, that you wouldn't have imagined he might say. I just finished the game a few hours ago and I can totally sympathize with you, I am as depressed as you are. World feels empty, many things went wrong but restarting is no option.

I guess that's what makes the game so good, you build a serious connection with your and other characters and in the end, everything abruptly stops.
Having the same feeling you get after finished a good book. =/

*edit: Also I'm hoping that with a proper DLC I get the chance to win Triss back, that seriously broke my heart.

 

[RedBehrend]

I don't think it's true. You just make the decisions that make you end up like that. I was very caring towards Ciri always trying to support her decisions and be there if she needs me and I got a great and happy ending.

Spoilers
Actually the sad ending it based off 2 choice which are spread way apart Triss and Yen. It's not like Triss is saying do you love me or not, she's saying I'm going to leave for good and your trying to keep her around. You shouldn't have to read spoilers to get a not alone ending, it's how they set it up you don't even know Yen till after the Triss choice and she still disappears lol

 

[C0bR]

Ciri's not dead. None of the choices that affect her decision have anything to with what she does with White Frost. She simply chooses to not return to Geralt because he wasn't a good enough dad with his choices.

 

[Shakewixx]

Ciri's not dead. None of the choices that affect her decision have anything to with what she does with White Frost. She simply chooses to not return to Geralt because he wasn't a good enough dad with his choices.

i did not get that ending but when i saw it it was confusing, it sugest geralt dies after ciri suposedly sacrifices herself to stop the wite frost but in the last cutscenes it shows other wise. kind of wtf

 

[bilsantu]

Still better than three different colors ending.

 

[nordelaire]

i did not get that ending but when i saw it it was confusing, it sugest geralt dies after ciri suposedly sacrifices herself to stop the wite frost but in the last cutscenes it shows other wise. kind of wtf

What last cutscenes ? The epilogue slideshow ? What does it shows that contradict the ending ?

 

[Shakewixx]

dandelion says no one knows were she is couse no one saw her after the events of udvik, this means she is dead or she is alive in another world. most porbably dead but who knows.

 

[yiunko]

There are 3 endings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r08I_h1TBE

Ciri lives in 2 of them and dies in the 3rd one. My reason to create this post was to express dissapointment in how it is decided what ending you get. Since is not that you make a "bad" or "evil" choice, is simply that ... I have no idea honestly. But seems the choices I made trying to care and being good to Ciri lead to the worst posible ending to trigger.

 

[deltabta]

SPOILER:

Got the same (bad) ending as well. Haven't felt that depressed since watching season 2 of True Detective.

Ciri struck me as a stronger female character who would not allow subtle cues or Geralt's overprotective inclinations to cause such a dark shift in the story. The ending that I received makes me question the strength of Ciri as opposed to the decisions made by Geralt. After endless battles with monsters and enemies, having Geralt attend or not attend a sorceress meeting causes both Ciri and Geralt to self destruct? And aren't they supposed to be emotionless?

The game was amazing and incredibly immersive, but Geralt is dead to me now after that mess.

 

[vivaxardas2015]

I don't think it's true. You just make the decisions that make you end up like that. I was very caring towards Ciri always trying to support her decisions and be there if she needs me and I got a great and happy ending.

Well, you know, pretty often parents should set some boundaries, and don't support their kids in every crap that comes into their minds. In the lab no way in hell I would allow Ciri to trash it. I prefer to impart some bloody hard reality. Her meltdown over that affair was simply psychotic.
With the Lodge meeting, knowing full well from books and games what these ladies are capable of, no way in hell I would allow Ciri, who is not a mage, to go there alone. I sure don't want Philippa to compress her and teleport up to some troll's arse in Zerrikania, for example because I don't really fancy searching for her again. Sure, I understand, parents shouldn't be over-protective, and should allow their kids to walk two blocks from school on a sunny day. But not at night through the hood where a gang war is going on, you know.

The first choice to cheer her up was surprising. I did not see anything wrong with picking a second option (demanding perfection is as bad as not demanding anything at all), but I was simply curious. The other two were obvious for me. So I picked 3 out of 5 right, as it turned out, and got my most agreeable Empress ending. And I am not going to change it, my decisions will stay negative because, despite CDPR's intentions, I consider them right.

 

[phedaikin]

Lol? is that a "mimimimi" my decisions leading me to the bad ending thread?
What did you expect... there is no good or bad choice, there are just consequences... thats how the game works.

 

[Scholdarr.452]

Lol? is that a "mimimimi" my decisions leading me to the bad ending thread?
What did you expect... there is no good or bad choice, there are just consequences... thats how the game works.

Is that now the standard excuse for every bit of bad writing?

"It's just a consequence so it's ok."

I call bullshit. It's a consequence. That's right. But whether it's a good or bad one and whether the whole story is well constructed or not is a completely different question. Same is true for player psychology which shouldn't ever be neglected. If a consequence just repells and disappoints players the writing and narrative structure just sucks. Either CDPR wants to troll their fans or they just fucked it up with this ending imo (and I think it's likely the latter one)...

 

[phedaikin]

i think you got the ending that you deserve. "bringing ciri not to Emyr..." and something like this.
beeing a good father means more than: "Do what you want - i support you" - it means also to be a good mentor and teach your kid the consequences of his/hers choices.
Especiality for ciri you should act as a Mentor... and not as a "no you dont - and i dont explain why" Father. (well in real live too)...

To be a good father is not that easy .... never. Not in our world neither in geralds world...

And there is no "every unicorn is saved, everybody is happy and the good guy get the girl" hollywood crap ending. live with it.. that how the world of temeria works.

Also that you are not able to "revert" every choice you made, near the end is a realy good thing.
"one time outspoken cannot be reversed"
a choice leads to a consequence .. nothing more. CDPR and the Witcher universe show you this in a brutal way. And thats why the stories are great

 

[Tooters]

I went through, and just followed my heart, I still have no idea what influences the endings if I am honest - I got the Witcheress ending, and ran off with Yen, but I went through being selfish, I only did things to protect my immediate friends: Ciri, Yen, Triss, Dandelion, Zoltan and their close friends - but I also played a penniless Witcher, I didn't push for extra money on contracts and if the option came up I allowed them to keep the money and I defended the innocents as much as I could and refused to kill monsters that were harmless, ala-the Doppler and the Succubus on Skellige - as Geralt always remained adamant on not killing harmless monsters (which is why I loved Skellige's most wanted to much).

As for my choices with Ciri I was protective and fatherlike, until it came down to her needing to do what she had to, I did the 'Good luck' last dialogue choice, I don't know if that's important however.

It felt right to me.

 

[jjavier]

I understand that people who gets the bad ending feels disappointed.

In this game you don't suppose to be able to choose the game's ending by a couple of dialog choices before the last battle.
I understand that this may have come to many as an unpleasant surprise.

This is not a defect, but a virtue. It what makes the decision truly meaningful.

And this trait of the game is not out of the blue. The previous 2 games aim for the same.
And there several interviews from before the release of TW2 where CDProjekt takes posture in this matter.
If the outcome of your decisions will happen several hours after you take those decisions.

 

[Scholdarr.452]

i think you got the ending that you deserve. "bringing ciri not to Emyr..." and something like this.
beeing a good father means more than

You're right. Being a good father means much more than what the game can ever deliver. A good father would reason with his daughter. The fate of a real daughter wouldn't be dependent on FIVE short and extremely limited dialogues over the course of serveral days.

This excuse of "being the good vs bad daddy" is really painful to read because it completely defies how real human being act. That's why psychology is so badly fitted for vidoe games which are extremely limited in terms of dialogues and character interactions. Real characters are multi-layered and complex. They don't have just two feelings that can be triggered at will.

The most infuriating thing about this whole daddy thing in Witcher 3 is that you never have the chance to really talk to Ciri like a real father. You only talk to her when the game forces you to do so in special situations and the assumed most natural reaction is never possible. THAT'S bad writing imo (and bad character/choice design).


And "getting the ending I deserve" means? That CDPR punishes me for doing the wrong thing without ever wanting to do the wrong thing? Great. That's pretty much the quintessence of bad C&C design that completely neglects player psychology...

---------- Updated at 12:17 PM ----------

This is not a defect, but a virtue. It what makes the decision truly meaningful.

Wrong. The conseqence might be meaningful. The choice/decision itself is extremely arbitrary and pointless.

And this trait of the game is not out of the blue. The previous 2 games aim for the same.[7Quote]
The previous two games were NOTHING like that.

If the outcome of your decisions will happen several hours after you take those decisions.

That's not the problem. The problem is that the choice itself is rather non-existent. Whatever you do in most of these situations with Ciri your basic goal is always the same: to support Ciri. Only the methods differ and it's not at all clear what's the difference (before you know the consequences). So the choice is not meaningful at all, but arbitrary, and the consequence is more or less pure lottery with some being happy and some disappointed. Great game design, I guess.

I ask myself why no other RPG did the same ever before. I guess CDPR's writers are geniusses who know it that much better than everybody else in the past 30 years of gaming. Or the just failed to see what good choices are all about in the first place. If I have to guess it's typcial CDPR-hubris-of-new which led them to think that they could press complex human psychology in five simplistic and one-dimensional situations that are extremely limited and forced by game design. And of course it doesn't work as intended. The chain of causality may work but that's the bare minimum of every C&C system. It doesn't constitute whether the system is any good though.