Now or Never saving all 3 NPCs vs. Triss romance?

[Lytha]

Now or Never saving all 3 NPCs vs. Triss romance?

I am aiming for the threesome this time around, because I've never seen that and I want a vanilla endgame which results in Ciri as guest in Touissant.
I've a minor problem/question there, since I only romanced Triss once and apparently successfully wiped the nauseating details about it from my mind.


The problem is the start of Now or Never. Triss asks for help about Anise and Bernard. The regular methods of doing the quests will result in the deaths of NPCs: If I save one or both of the two mages, Olivier will die. If I don't save the two derps, Olivier will live but the mages die.

So, I then came up in a playthrough in which I was particularly nasty with a 3rd method, which turned out to be surprisingly effective about keeping NPCs alive. I just tell Triss that I won't help her. She then miraculously gets Anise and Bernard into the Kingfisher's basement, and Olivier lives. Survival of all 3 NPCs is accomplished; I normally don't care if Triss gives me doe eyes or not - so this is normally clearly the best way to go. Ever since I discovered this method, I always chose it.

This method does not fail Now or Never. The quest just sits in a dormant state of Triss and Olivier waiting for me in the Kingfisher, with the flock of mages in the basement, waiting for me to clear the path through the sewers.


However, I currently worry that this method might screw up the Triss romance part of the threesome, given that Triss looks thoroughly disappointed when it comes to the refusal part. And if it should fail, my hard work of ignoring all my better judgement in my dialogues with her so far would've been for naught and I'd have to replay that horribly soppy Now or Never mission and actually have to make up my mind if I want to save Olivier or the two mages.

If I had to chose, I'd probably save Olivier and sacrifice the two mages, which might also have a negative impact on the romantic vibes. Olivier sticks around so every time I'd visit the Kingfisher later on, I'd be reminded of Oliviers death, while Anise and Bernard are out of sight, out of mind. And Olivier is growing filthy rich in my current game and likes to buy junk items at good prices, so I actually visit him a lot. However, Triss might perceive Anise and Bernard as her precious little mage babies and surely as more important than the life of lowly non-magical Olivier. So, that might mean that I'd have to replay Now or Never yet another time and be thoroughly fed up by then with the soppy love talk with Triss during the sewers exploration, her behaviour in fights and with her forgetting how to walk every once in a while.



Would an initial refusal to help Triss at the start of Now or Never have any negative impact on the romance or not? Anyone actually ever tested this?

 

[Draconifors]

Wait, you can have all 3 NPCs live? Can you still continue the quest (clear the sewers) if you initially tell Triss you won't help her? Because that sounds like something I'll definitely do if the quest is still possible to complete.

 

[Lytha]

Yes. All 3 NPCs live, and you can finish Now or Never as soon as you enter the Kingfisher's special room.

"Sorry, Triss, I can't help you. Ciri is in danger and I am in a hurry."
"I am terribly sorry too. For the record, I hope you find Ciri. If you should change your mind, I will be at the Kingfisher for a little while longer. But not for long."

Then you approach that special room, and it goes like this:

"So, you decided to help after all! Let's go and meet the mages."

And Olivier will open the secret door, and you decend down the stairs and meet Dijkstra and Triss starts her little speech and stuff. Anise and Bernard you can see after the speech as you're looting the containers of the room.


It's continued then as if nothing bad ever happened, but I do not know if Triss will be thoroughly out of romantic mood because I refused to help.

 

[Goodmongo]

I've a minor problem/question there, since I only romanced Triss once and apparently successfully wiped the nauseating details about it from my mind.

You want help but phrase it like this?

 

[Lytha]

You want help but phrase it like this?

Can't help it, because it's the truth. I often had to mentally zone out to a better place during that playthrough, because it was so bad. Though of course there were other reasons for this, too, not just the Triss part. It was the hellhole of a trinity of bad things: Hjalmar / Empress / Triss. I hated this playthrough more than the "everything goes wrong" playthroughs I have done since.

My explorer nature demanded that I had to do and witness it though, just like it demands to finally witness the threesome now. It's like when you decide that you should play TW1 and TW2 joining the opposite faction that your heart tells you to join, just because you want to witness the entire content.


Right. Come to think of it, it's probably rather unlikely that anyone opted for this combination of romancing Triss but refusing to help - the ones who adore her won't refuse; and those who refuse won't romance her. So I'll probably have to bite my tongue, grind my teeth and probably suffer replays of Now or Never until it worked, and post the results when I have tested it.

Just hoping for similar minded explorer natures among others who've already done the tests, so that I can save some nerves and time.

 

[Guest 3847602]

@Lytha I've not tried Triss romance, but judging by the console commands used for enabling it, doesn't seem like the choice of helping her with Anisse and Berthold matters in the end.

addfact(q309_completed)
addfact(q309_triss_lover)
addfact(q309_triss_stayed)

 

[Lytha]

@ooodrin: thanks, that should at least mean that I only have to replay it once, if worst comes to worst and I have to decide who I want to sacrifice.

Going to save Dandelion now, then get the Soldier's statuette, then get that Triss nonsense out of the way.

 

[dragonbird]

If she's still waiting for you to change your mind, I don't see it having any impact.

@Lytha - out of curiosity, where were you in the main quest line when you did this? I'm assuming you need to have done The Play's The Thing first, as the Kingfisher is "locked out" for the duration of Now or Never and you can't talk to Priscilla.

 

[Lytha]

I got distracted last night by some witcher contract and then by Cabaret, so I haven't done the test yet. But I will report on the results when I get to it.

@Dragonbird: Process was like this (I am following the "natural order of quests" this time):

- Get Junior (I didn't even ask Dijkstra about Dandelion before Junior was done with)
- Eye for an Eye
- Redania's Most Wanted (gave Triss the crystal, because if I go for this romance, then I can go the whole way, and she became so whiny)
- I found that the Vegelbud Races were unlocked at this point (some herald on Hierarch Square and the pamphlets), so I did them then.
- Count Reuven's Treasure (Triss got to kill her Menge; Dijkstra got a key but not information (it's okay, Radovid is going to win this time anyway))
- ignored Triss' request to visit her and to Matter of Life or Death (for now)
- Play is the Thing
- Poet Under Pressure
- Zoltan's quest
- Soldier's Statuette (I did the Nobleman's Statuette way earlier already, by the way)
- Dandelion's quest and other diversions. Going to do Carnal Sins before Matter of Life and Death now as well, so that Ingrid Vegelbud gets to say different lines.

If I do Matter of Life and Death now, there won't be a perfumed letter. Triss will just bluntly ask me right away at the end of Matter of Life and Death to help with Now or Never.

I'll try and fit in the rescue of Moritz between these two of her quests and then be hopefully done with her until Battle of Kaer Morhen.


This is one of the two possible paths through the Novigrad thicket of quests that allows for full solution of every statuette, rose of remembrance and megascope crystal details.
The other path is a completion of Count Reuven't Treasure before Junior was dealt with, then a quick Matter of Life and Death, then a careful avoidance of ever touching the Perfumed Letter until everything else is solved and done.

I normally would do the 2nd method (because early Dandelion and Milva cards), but I am not quite in the mood for Scoiatel gwent this time around anyway.

I had the Soldier's Statuette never resolved last time. Triss was willing to talk about the statuette in the final act, but Geralt always thought that he didn't have time for this whenever I tried.


So, yeah... I'm curious about the differences between a straight "no romance at all" and the threesome.
Also, first time ever, Triss will actually have a reason to make that ugly face in Kaer Morhen when I return with Ciri.

---------- Updated at 03:51 PM ----------

Alright, here's the result:

Refusing to help at the start of Now or Never puts an abrupt end to that romance.
(I am pretty sure I did the "right" (lol) dialogue choices. Had to cover my ears and look away from the screen a lot, so I am pretty sure it was the "correct" path.)

Now going to run it again, sacrificing lives for the "love" of that manipulating scum, just to make sure I did everything "correctly".

---------- Updated at 04:16 PM ----------

And the confirmation. (My space key really hates me by now for all the cutscene skipping.)

a) it's okay that I sacrificed her precious mage babies instead of the lowly innkeeper. That is something nice.
b) I hadn't screwed up the oh so romantic romance earlier. They're in the lighthouse now as I type.

Sheesh. I want to punch that smug face of that ... that... person. ("Yippie, I won! I won! My lies, deception and manipulation ever since he turned up with that amnesia finally paid off! Take this, my 'best friend'': I stole your man! I won!")

Loved how her face turned into an icequeen mask behind Geralt's back, when I told her that I didn't want to settle down in Korvir though. Hehe.

So, interesting.

That means you actually have to sacrifice people to get that sex scene and to be her personal lapdog who runs Miss Court Sorceresses' biddings and has to leave Touissant to please the mistress. Mind = blown.


Alright. This investigation was worth the pain in this experiment. Now for the rest of the plan for this playthrough. Now that this part is over, the worst should be done with.


And I can't already wait for the next playthrough with the more natural dialogue choices.

 

[YenneferB]

Alright, here's the result:

Refusing to help at the start of Now or Never puts an abrupt end to that romance.

I load my old save and I can confirm that you are right. I thought that if I refuse to help Triss in Now or Never that it will failed the quest but you can still do it. I was shocked when I see that the two mages and innkeeper are alive. So it seems that I should not interrupt Triss becouse she will do better on her one when she is force to act alone.

 

[Lytha]

@YenneferB: I knew already that Triss will solve the Olivier vs. Berthold/Anisse dilemma better without help of the player, and that this is the way to keep all 3 NPCs alive. I think I used that as an argument against the Triss romance in one of these waifu war postings some months ago, actually ("the romance is even bad for Triss: She performs much better without Geralt's clumsy interference.") Hrm, if this fact about Now or Never isn't common knowledge, I actually understand the glassy stares I got for that line. :lol:

But the for me shocking part that I discovered yesterday is that this literally means that you have to sacrifice one or two (or all 3?) NPCs to get to shag Triss. You have to walk over dead bodies to get it going with her.


That the initial refusal ends that romance is very understandable, if you looked at that sad kicked puppy dog face. But the meta-conclusion "people have to die so that we can get the lighthouse encounter" is actually very disturbing.


By the way, were you as annoyed as I was, when you learned that the initial refusal did only put the quest on hold instead of end it? I came across it in the playthrough in which I wanted to see what happens if the mages were not evacuated and had hoped that this would unlock the Geralt-gwent card by skipping over the quest. But nope...

 

[YenneferB]

By the way, were you as annoyed as I was, when you learned that the initial refusal did only put the quest on hold instead of end it? I came across it in the playthrough in which I wanted to see what happens if the mages were not evacuated and had hoped that this would unlock the Geralt-gwent card by skipping over the quest. But nope...

Yeah I was annoyed but I think why they do it. I think they don't want a player to miss the quest where you can do quest about assassination Radowid. That wasn't a good idea tied that quest to quest Now or Never. It will be better if that quest can start depiste the fact if will help Triss or not. Dikstra will not tie his plan to Triss helping or maybe not. He will still want to get Radowid out of the way and still want Geralt help becouse he knows he can be helpful.

 

[sv3672]

I think I used that as an argument against the Triss romance in one of these waifu war postings some months ago

As far as I can see, you are the only one still making such postings right now, like this one. I cannot see how spinning and twisting random bits of the game in a malicious way to suit a biased view of the character that is different from what the developers intended is anything other than that. In the end, it is no better than others claiming that all of Geralt's and Yennefer's relationship in the books was the result of magic.

"the romance is even bad for Triss: She performs much better without Geralt's clumsy interference."

Remind me again, what happens if you just skip the quest altogether, or "A Matter of Life and Death", for that matter ? Does she perform better then, too ? On average, Geralt's "interference" is obviously helpful, which is of course what was the writers' intention to begin with.

But the for me shocking part that I discovered yesterday is that this literally means that you have to sacrifice one or two (or all 3?) NPCs to get to shag Triss. You have to walk over dead bodies to get it going with her.

Which is a rather disingenuous way to interpret it, even ignoring the obvious possibility that it could very well be a bug in the quest. To say that refusing to help and then still doing the quest anyway is the "right" choice because it avoids the (not predictable at the time of the decision) death of an NPC or two is basically a meta-gaming logic, you make choices to contrive some specific already known outcome. Your choices are based on information Geralt's character would not have in the given situation. Naturally, he would reasonably assume that by helping he saves people, and there is no explanation in the game why refusing to help leads to a better outcome for those specific NPCs (which is of course understandable if it is indeed a bug), nor is it apparent what he does wrong when he does help, so I see it more as bad luck than "walking over dead bodies".

But if you really want to play the game this way, perhaps it would be best to consider skipping a number of optional quests ? Many of them lead to deaths that would be avoidable by not doing the quest in the first place, by choosing to play them you walk over dead bodies to get XP, or money, or whatever other rewards. :

Wait, you can have all 3 NPCs live? Can you still continue the quest (clear the sewers) if you initially tell Triss you won't help her? Because that sounds like something I'll definitely do if the quest is still possible to complete.

To be honest, this looks more like a bug than something that was intended by the quest designer. Considering that very few people seem to choose this path, it probably was not tested much, and it is easy to see how the quest logic was implemented in a way that choosing one of the first two paths (help the two mages or join Triss to go to the Kingfisher) activates a script that kills the other NPC(s) that were not helped, while the designer simply forgot to implement this for the less conventional "refusing to help but join later" case, so all three stay alive by default. I think the mages should die (since there is nothing that suggests that they are helped, and it also makes more sense that the romance fails if the choice actually has any negative consequences) in this case and the innkeeper stay alive, which would be fairly easy to fix in theory.

 

[Lytha]

Yeah I was annoyed but I think why they do it. I think they don't want a player to miss the quest where you can do quest about assassination Radowid. That wasn't a good idea tied that quest to quest Now or Never. It will be better if that quest can start depiste the fact if will help Triss or not. Dikstra will not tie his plan to Triss helping or maybe not. He will still want to get Radowid out of the way and still want Geralt help becouse he knows he can be helpful.

Yes. There is also the fact that you forsake the Geralt gwent card of all things if you skip out on this quest. The devs clearly try to tell us there that their cannon Geralt would never not help in this situation. I only wish that at least the soppy love-talk lines between Triss and Geralt wouldn't happen during the sewers in Now or Never. It was bearable to do though. Triss had forgotten how to walk right at the start of the sewers, so I at least didn't have to look at her stupid face during the expedition.

Besides, these sewers are filled with enhanced and superior formulae. Another argument for not skipping the quest.

It's alright though. CDPR's cannon Geralt also thinks that Triss "helped Geralt recover his memories" (my jaw dropped when he said that in BaW), though her actions in TW1 were clearly the opposite of that. But even that is understandable from a psychological point of view: It's easier to bend memories than to admit that how badly he was being played then.

On the other hand, there's the "TW2's magic resistance vs. elven bath" evidence, and now the 3 NPC evidence, all this quite clearly stating that there is something fishy going on with that Triss individual. But alright, Geralt would probably help the manipulating liar anyway, just as he helps all the other downtrodden. Heck, I even help that hurt witchhunter these days instead of letting the fisstech dealers have their fun with him.


But yeah. I would also have much preferred if Dijkstra's Deadly Plot wasn't tied to the Triss quests. He could just have sent a letter or anything, given that the parting from him after Count Reuven's Treasure can be on not very friendly terms and so it would look weird if he offered the Deadly Plot right then... but there we go.

The way is it set up now means that almost nobody will ever get to see all the work CDPR put into the "what happened if mages weren't evacuated" cutscenes, dialogue and uhm eastern gate of Oxenfurt decorations.

 

[Draconifors]

Bug or not, I'm still going to try this. I never romance Triss, so I'll save all three NPCs for the sake of saving them and not for other, more selfish reasons. My philosophy regarding "using" possible bugs in single-player games is that as long as it's not an exploit it's free game.

:cheers4:

 

[sv3672]

It's alright though. CDPR's cannon Geralt also thinks that Triss "helped Geralt recover his memories"

Which she actually did, even if not immediately, but at the beginning of the second game, so the information is not incorrect. And in the first game, the witcher agreed not to be told about his past.

On the other hand, there's the "TW2's magic resistance vs. elven bath" evidence, and now the 3 NPC evidence, all this quite clearly stating that there is something fishy going on with that Triss individual.

I am only seeing evidence of this here. Of course, with a similar attitude, one could also twist the fact that (as you pointed out) "A Matter of Life and Death" and "Now or Never" are important for multiple reasons, while "The Last Wish" is mostly useless other than for the Yennefer romance, as a hint regarding which path is to be done, and which is to be ignored. And in the Saskia comic, Dandelion says that he would lie if he told Geralt lived happily ever after with Yennefer, another clue. But I am not really interested in looking for these kinds of "evidence", my point is simply that when one tries hard enough to find (and misinterpret) bits of information to support some biased view, they usually will be found.

Bug or not, I'm still going to try this. I never romance Triss, so I'll save all three NPCs for the sake of saving them and not for other, more selfish reasons. My philosophy regarding "using" possible bugs in single-player games is that as long as it's not an exploit it's free game.

Well, if you are intentionally using a bug to your advantage, then that is, by definition, an exploit. However, it is not clear yet if this is actually a bug or really the intended design, even if I find the current behavior of the quest illogical and it is easy to see how the quest could be bugged on this "unusual" path by forgetting to flag the two mage NPCs as dead. Kind of like this other bug, where you are accompanied by a "ghost" Ves in Reason of State, even though she died in An Eye for an Eye.

But assuming it is not a bug, I still would not make this choice only for a meta-gaming reason if it does not feel natural in the given situation. And if we were to make choices based on which of them lead to a presumably better future, who knows whether Geralt would have the opportunity to save more people later if he ends up with Triss ? It is anyone's guess. So, I rather just focus on what is known by the character at the time of making the decision, but this is of course only my preference, I do not say it is the only "right" way to play.

 

[Goodmongo]

WOW. A therapist can make tons of money around here.

 

[NukeJuice]

IF YOU WANT TO ROMANCE TRISS DONT DO THIS!
On my first playthrough I wanted to romance Triss, I did this and if u do, u can never romance Triss. RIP my dreams.

 

[Draconifors]

More than three years later and I still haven't gotten around to actually doing this. Way past Triss's quests in my current playthrough, too. Eh, perhaps one day...