Quest Reason of State - the most disappointing quest in the game and maybe even in the whole series

[misho8723]

Quest Reason of State - the most disappointing quest in the game and maybe even in the whole series

(Obvious Spoilers) I'm almost done with the main game and up to now I would call the writting in this game brilliant.. but then I played the missions Reason of State and I don't understand what the hell happened.. the start of that mission and the reason why they wanted to kill Radovid is understandable, but the end to that quest doesn't make any sense.. Dijkstra is acting totally out of character and his plan is really stupid and the choice he offers to Geralt isn't even really a choice - you're not choosing between a smaller and bigger evil, like most choices in Witcher games are.. and why does Dikstra fight even though he knows he isn't a good fighter and he is against Geralt, Roche, Ves - all of which are really good at fighting.. why didn't he poisoned the wine instead? Or used his archers? Why the world is the same after this, maybe the biggest thing (event) for Northern countries in the game ?- yeah, I know it changes the ending, but other than that the world is the same nonetheless.. No one mentions that the biggest foe of Emhyr has died.. like what the hell?

In a game where choices are everything, the biggest event which should have had the biggest consequences, and still nothing happens...
A really, really disappointing quest in a otherwise great written game.. again, what the hell happened?

 

[RageGT]

Rushed to release it? Even the Baron quest, if you fight his thugs when you fist meet them, you can hear some comments about their idiot mates who asked a Witcher to dance... if you do not, the comments are entirely different. I'd blame the pressure to release and lack of time at the later part of the game for such mistake. The world surely should acknowledge that the mad king is dead instead of keep chatting about how he's gonna win the war and stuff... from his grave. CDPR, from his grave... add that to Redanian Soldiers banter, please!

 

[Pug.]

Rushed to release it? Even the Baron quest, if you fight his thugs when you fist meet them, you can hear some comments about their idiot mates who asked a Witcher to dance... if you do not, the comments are entirely different. I'd blame the pressure to release and lack of time at the later part of the game for such mistake. The world surely should acknowledge that the mad king is dead instead of keep chatting about how he's gonna win the war and stuff... from his grave. CDPR, from his grave... add that to Redanian Soldiers banter, please!

I believe that there is a reference to Radovid's death in HoS, but I can't remember where.

 

[ilayoeli]

I view this quest as a forced politics C&C into a game which didn't first accomplished the things it set out to (we'll call it the 'personal' aspect of story as CDPR insists).
Anyway, TW3's writing and C&C are quite broken almost all of the way through. I'm surprised you're surprised with this quest.

 

[Avin]

This is one of the quests that should be fixed before even start thinking about Triss romance.

Djikstra commited suicide.

 

[OptoNick]

I believe that there is a reference to Radovid's death in HoS, but I can't remember where.

One line in optional dialogue with Shani, IIRC

 

[Aaden]

The thing is: Continuing to play after the ending is not exactly intended. It's there, because people desperately wished for it (and to easily accommodate expansions, I guess). But it's explicitly stated that the world is reverted to a state from before the huge implications of decisions near the end of the game. Anything else would be ridiculous effort for very little effect (as in: it's probably a very, very small number of players that continue roaming the world after the ending) and would, depending on the ending, still not be logical.

And it's not reflected in the game world BEFORE the ending, because there isn't supposed to be a lot of time between that quest and the ending. In that short time, it's probably kept a secret as good as possible and, besides, news travel slowly in a medieval society, anyway. The best they could do is add a few rumors and whispers on the streets of Novigrad.

 

[misho8723]

The thing is: Continuing to play after the ending is not exactly intended. It's there, because people desperately wished for it (and to easily accommodate expansions, I guess). But it's explicitly stated that the world is reverted to a state from before the huge implications of decisions near the end of the game. Anything else would be ridiculous effort for very little effect (as in: it's probably a very, very small number of players that continue roaming the world after the ending) and would, depending on the ending, still not be logical.

And it's not reflected in the game world BEFORE the ending, because there isn't supposed to be a lot of time between that quest and the ending. In that short time, it's probably kept a secret as good as possible and, besides, news travel slowly in a medieval society, anyway. The best they could do is add a few rumors and whispers on the streets of Novigrad.

Well, hmmm, other news seemed to go around the world much faster.. that people in Novigrad know about the new king of Skellige right after the quest about this issue or that I have kicked some old dude in the stomach.. atleast some form of consenquences for this quest should have been there from the start.. in the first half of the game even much more less important things happen and people on the streets, in the villages know about them.. but no one knows about Radovid's death? Even Roche says that we must go to hiding right after that quest, because people and soldiers are going to be on the streets and there are going to be riots and such.. but nothing.. or atleast some lines to other characters about this or inform Emhyr about this.. and as I said, Dijkstra is completely out of character in the last minutes of that quest.. and no cutscene with him near his death? atleast some dialog or some lines they could add to him..he just dies (it can happen by some nameless random NPC) like some ordinary bandit and that's it? Great character butchered (in many ways) in his last minutes (seconds)

 

[Aaden]

Well, hmmm, other news seemed to go around the world much faster.. that people in Novigrad know about the new king of Skellige right after the quest about this issue or that I have kicked some old dude in the stomach.. atleast some form of consenquences for this quest should have been there from the start.. in the first half of the game even much more less important things happen and people on the streets, in the villages know about them.. but no one knows about Radovid's death? Even Roche says that we must go to hiding right after that quest, because people and soldiers are going to be on the streets and there are going to be riots and such.. but nothing.. or atleast some lines to other characters about this or inform Emhyr about this.. and as I said, Dijkstra is completely out of character in the last minutes of that quest.. and no cutscene with him near his death? atleast some dialog or some lines they could add to him..he just dies (it can happen by some nameless random NPC) like some ordinary bandit and that's it? Great character butchered (in many ways) in his last minutes (seconds)

Others news happened much earlier in the game with an unpredictable amount of time left to the credits. As I said before: The assumption is that the assassination happens very close to the end. And as the end is supposed to literally be the end, not the end of the story and the beginning of a fleshed out roaming mode, there's no need to spend valuable development resources on reflecting this decision in the game world.

I'll give you that the finale of the quest was handled rather poorly. And other aspects of the quest - like deciding to not assassinate Radovid being a fail-state instead of another success-state - lack as well. But outside the quest itself, decisions made are very reasonable from a development perspective.

 

[BladeRunnerBlues]

Dijsktra's behavior is definitely the last nail in the coffin for Reason of State, but the whole set-up of the mission was very weak. Leaving the fact aside that Radovid's character was written terribly in The Witcher 3 compared to Assassins of Kings, the whole assassination plot is just presented incredibly sloppily. I agree with the OP that it was the most lackluster quest in the game (due to the conclusion and many-many other reasons) and if one plays Hearts of Stone, I think the flaws become even more pronounced. It's probably not safe to spoil HoS story threads in this section of the forum, but the expansion has a vastly superior quest where Geralt is involved in a massive team undertaking. I don't think there's any way how Reason of State could be amended to reflect the same quality without the quest being drastically redone.

 

[Yeiiow]

This is one of the reasons why i truly think an EE is required for the Witcher 3....a patch here and there just ain't gonna cut it when it comes down to all the narrative problems currently existing in the game.

 

[sv3672]

This is one of the reasons why i truly think an EE is required for the Witcher 3....

As far as I know, an enhanced edition is not planned for The Witcher 3, but maybe this has changed since the developers said so in older interviews before the release of the game. I would not be surprised if one was not made or if nothing story related was changed, as the game, while not perfect, has been a major critical and commercial success, and most of its narrative problems are only an issue for a minority of players. Patches focus mainly on optimization for consoles, fixing bugs, and gameplay improvements. And after Blood and Wine is released, resources will probably be shifted to developing Cyberpunk 2077, with only patches for The Witcher 3 until the end of 2016.

 

[whitewoof]

If you play HoS after completing the main game (assuming you did Reason of State), Shani and Geralt discuss Radovid dying but the war raging on. I understand how complicated it can be to adjust the end world state to reflect who won the war i.e. Nilfgaard banners in Novigrad, more witch hunters around Velen, Redanian flags at former Nilfgaard strongholds. But the thing that annoyed me the most was that (aside from Shani in HoS), there was no acknowledgement about what was done in this quest at all. I get it, the Redanians might wanna keep Radovid's death a secret to avoid a panic outbreak, but maybe just from time to time, if Geralt was to walk by some peasants or Redanian guards, there was a small conversation like "So you think the rumours about the king are true?" "Sssshhhh... that's poppycock", that would mean a lot. It's bad enough that if you sided with Djikstra, you can't even find him anymore after this quest, and if you sided with Roche, in spite of him telling you he wants to reward for helping him, when you meet him again at the Temerian hideout after the quest he has nothing to say.

 

[Yeiiow]

As far as I know, an enhanced edition is not planned for The Witcher 3, but maybe this has changed since the developers said so in older interviews before the release of the game. I would not be surprised if one was not made or if nothing story related was changed, as the game, while not perfect, has been a major critical and commercial success, and most of its narrative problems are only an issue for a minority of players. Patches focus mainly on optimization for consoles, fixing bugs, and gameplay improvements. And after Blood and Wine is released, resources will probably be shifted to developing Cyberpunk 2077, with only patches for The Witcher 3 until the end of 2016.

I am aware of that, that is why i sais that it was "required" from my point of view, not that it was already coming.

I trully believe CDPR is better than that, completly ignoring big flaws in the narrative of their most financially succsesfull game does not sounds like them, if anything releasing an EE would be a great PR move.
Also while the people who have noticed the flaws might be only a minority in terms of the 6+ millions copies of the game sold, lets not forget that most likely that minority is the one that has remained loyal since their first game was released, supporting the company financially, moral and even with free marketing and pr, that is at least 100k people that would in minor or mayor degree feel let down and maybe even loose faith alltoguether in the company. Loyalty is a very powerfull thing.

 

[BladeRunnerBlues]

I trully believe CDPR is better than that, completly ignoring big flaws in the narrative of their most financially succsesfull game does not sounds like them, if anything releasing an EE would be a great PR move.

One can always hope. They devoted resources to the Enhanced Edition of The Witcher 1 and 2, even though the games did not earn half as much money as The Witcher 3. Given the game's complexity, a decent Enhanced Edition would probably cost substantially more than in case of the previous two installments, but seeing what a sweeping financial success The Witcher 3 has been, CDPR could probably very easily find the resources for it. In the end, it will indeed be a question of how much they value their hardcore audience.

It would be amazing to have an EE that would have as much time and as many resources devoted to it as Hearts of Stone did. Definitely a potentially amazing PR move for a studio that is already valorized by most of the audience. Of course, CDPR may very easily judge/have judged that it's not worth it, but hopefully they will return to the main campaign's weakest spots before moving all resources to Cyberpunk.

 

[DXMG]

DO we know what the canon timeframe is between Reason and the end of the game??

Keeping in mind that if you do HoS in post game, it is still technically between those two events.

What I am getting at is - has anyone even had time to learn about his death? And if they have, has enough time passed that any actual ramifications are going into effect?

If we assume HoS happens right before the end of the main story, then it has been what, a few days? a week or two? Since the end of Reason. I dont actually know how much time is supposed to be passing between these events, so maybe I am completely off base....

It makes more sense to me that even if the knowledge of his death spreads fast, the general populace are still going to be waiting a couple of weeks for anything to actually come of it. Redania is still a country, they arent going to just be like "well OK then, wars over, see yas" and leave, letting Nilfgaard come behind them 20 feet to take over everything in a neat and tidy manner that is over in 2 days.

Geralt and Shani's conversation about it is more like what i think would realistically be the general conversation about this event - uncertainty due to not enough time to actually see/experience the ramifications - but only if it is happening within a fairly short time frame. Not more than 3-4 weeks.....

 

[HarelMor]

I expected a reaction like we seen in act 1 of the witcher 2 people are uncertain and afraid of what is to become, witch hunters blaming none humans and foreigners for the death of the king and sweeping the city for scapegoats, people are starting to hate the witch hunters.

The end of reason of state was strange, Djikstra suggested that all of them will fight Nilfgaard, Roach and the spy (forgot his name) refused the offer in order to support the treaty with nilfgaard. i expected that Roche will join Djikstra and ask that temeria will be an independent country for their support in the assassination. I never understood why he sacrificed the north for a promise that can be broken at any moment by emperor. This behavior doesn't fit Roche

Edit: in my opinion Djikstra's end cutscene should have shown that even though mages allowed to use their craft they are kept under a very short leash.

 

[saladin1701]

I expected a reaction like we seen in act 1 of the witcher 2 people are uncertain and afraid of what is to become, witch hunters blaming none humans and foreigners for the death of the king and sweeping the city for scapegoats, people are starting to hate the witch hunters.

The end of reason of state was strange, Djikstra suggested that all of them will fight Nilfgaard, Roach and the spy (forgot his name) refused the offer in order to support the treaty with nilfgaard. i expected that Roche will join Djikstra and ask that temeria will be an independent country for their support in the assassination. I never understood why he sacrificed the north for a promise that can be broken at any moment by emperor. This behavior doesn't fit Roche

Edit: in my opinion Djikstra's end cutscene should have shown that even though mages allowed to use their craft they are kept under a very short leash.

That's not quite true. They're siding with Nilfgaard because of an agreement to allow Temeria to exist as an independent vassal state. Dijkstra wants the entire North united in a single Empire as a counterpoint to the South's Nilfgaard. That is were the conflict arrises from. The issue with the quest is not the politics, it's his actions. This is a guy who prides himself on reason, on persuasive argument and claims to 'know his people' who then proceeds to attack three highly trained fighters with a gang of street thugs. It's comically, and tragically out of character. I'm just not sure how to fix it because it's the inevitable consequence of the decision to turn Radovid in to a raving mad man.

 

[HarelMor]

That's not quite true. They're siding with Nilfgaard because of an agreement to allow Temeria to exist as an independent vassal state. Dijkstra wants the entire North united in a single Empire as a counterpoint to the South's Nilfgaard. That is were the conflict arrises from. The issue with the quest is not the politics, it's his actions. This is a guy who prides himself on reason, on persuasive argument and claims to 'know his people' who then proceeds to attack three highly trained fighters with a gang of street thugs. It's comically, and tragically out of character. I'm just not sure how to fix it because it's the inevitable consequence of the decision to turn Radovid in to a raving mad man.

I see Dijkstra as a very skillful negotietor one who know that it is better to "lose" one kingdom then to lose the entire north, he can elect a temerian nobleman governor/king one that will be loyal to him and keep temerians at bay (this method had been used by Babylonian and the assyrian empires), he could have used the nilfgaardian treaty as a base for a new treaty. Fighting roach, ves and geralt seems like a very far fetched outcome.

 

[Mixxer5]

I agree- end of RoS was so anticlimatic... Not just that, but preparations for assasination should be more... interactive. Last but not least- not killing Radovid is not an option- he is basically a madman.