Reasons of State quest, how would you want it to redone?

[Ghaisos]

First of all, thanks to the OP for posting this thread.

Some of you may have seen this post, which I made yesterday. My main point in that post is this:

While Dijkstra may dramatically state that he rejects the deal with Emhyr this is technically irrelevant. It is very hard to imagine that there is anything in the agreement with Emhyr that might prevent him from taking control of the Redanian state apparatus: if what Thaler says is true, all the conspirators promissed to do is stop the guerilla attacks and kill Radovid. They have no formal position in the Redanian army or government, so they could not promise for Redania to surrender even if they wanted to. Unless Dijkstra is hoping to somehow also take control of the Temerian militia (no idea how he'd do that) he could just let Roche, Ves and Thaler go on their merry way. It would not make any difference.

I have been thinking about ways in which this situation could be remedied, and have come up with the following solution: Dijkstra should be the one who is threatened by the others, and not the other way around.

How would this work? The five conspirators would have their little gathering, as before. Dijkstra dramatically reveals that he intends to take control of the Redanian government, and that he has already taken steps to realise this ambition. If and when he succeeds he will continue the fight against Emhyr, until Nilfgaard has been defeated. Roche is shocked: Dijkstra never intimated that he had any such intentions. He is afraid that if Dijkstra takes control of the Redanian army Emhyr will accuse Radovid's murderers of conspiring as much against him as they did against Radovid. This would jeopardise the agreement: Temeria might not gain its internal self-government. Roche shouts that Dijkstra needs to be stopped. Ves draws her sword, as do Dijkstra's henchmen.

At this point Geralt has the option of intervening or stepping away. If he intervenes, Roche, Ves and Thaler are forced to let Dijkstra go. The ultimate outcome: Redania wins the war, Emhyr is executed by his own people and Temeria gains its partial independence - under Redanian, not Nilfgaardian rule. If Geralt helps Roche, Ves and Thaler Nilfgaard wins the war, Emhyr lives and Temeria gains its partial independence under Nilfgaardian rule, as before.

If the questline were to be changed in this manner, the exchange between Dijkstra and the others would no longer revolve around the question of whether or not there is a 'deal', it would revolve around the question of whether Emhyr would still be prepared to uphold his end of the bargain if Dijkstra has his way.

What do you guys think?

 

[Sam2305]

First of all, thanks to the OP for posting this thread.

Some of you may have seen this post, which I made yesterday. My main point in that post is this:



I have been thinking about ways in which this situation could be remedied, and have come up with the following solution: Dijkstra should be the one who is threatened by the others, and not the other way around.

How would this work? The five conspirators would have their little gathering, as before. Dijkstra dramatically reveals that he intends to take control of the Redanian government, and that he has already taken steps to realise this ambition. If and when he succeeds he will continue the fight against Emhyr, until Nilfgaard has been defeated. Roche is shocked: Dijkstra never intimated that he had any such intentions. He is afraid that if Dijkstra takes control of the Redanian army Emhyr will accuse Radovid's murderers of conspiring as much against him as they did against Radovid. This would jeopardise the agreement: Temeria might not gain its internal self-government. Roche shouts that Dijkstra needs to be stopped. Ves draws her sword, as do Dijkstra's henchmen.

At this point Geralt has the option of intervening or stepping away. If he intervenes, Roche, Ves and Thaler are forced to let Dijkstra go. The ultimate outcome: Redania wins the war, Emhyr is executed by his own people and Temeria gains its partial independence - under Redanian, not Nilfgaardian rule. If Geralt helps Roche, Ves and Thaler Nilfgaard wins the war, Emhyr lives and Temeria gains its partial independence under Nilfgaardian rule, as before.

If the questline were to be changed in this manner, the exchange between Dijkstra and the others would no longer revolve around the question of whether or not there is a 'deal', it would revolve around the question of whether Emhyr would still be prepared to uphold his end of the bargain if Dijkstra has his way.

What do you guys think?

It's not a bad option but I must insist in the developing of third option betweern "Nilfgaard wins the war" and "Redania wins the war". Some kind of middle term solution where the guerrillas colaborate with the redanians and Temeria, in the end, becomes independent while Redania gets the rest of the kindgoms. It's the fair thing for those who save Anais in TW2

 

[Yeiiow]

Good thread!

While i would personally prefer a lot more of changes to the entire quest, from start to finish, at least this small change would make it more believable and plausible.

 

[dunadan5]

Yes, this one... I think this is the one and only quest that I remember not liking in my playthroughs of the game. It really stuck out as missing the varied options and approaches which I liked elsewhere in W3. This by comparison seemed very simplistic, especially odd given the importance of the game.

I do think that this quest deserves to be improved if there's ever a remaster of W3.

Here's several ideas that I have about it.

1) First of all it would be great to see Geralt have the option to refuse this entire quest chain without breaking Dijkstra's other leg. I mean whatever you may think of the man, possibly crippling him for life is choice that comes across as so cruel and unnecessary that I'd struggle to find something worse in the game. I'm sure that there is something but you get my point. I mean honestly the scene where Geralt just looks at Dijkstra as the man begs for him not to break his leg and then does it anyways is so intensely unpleasant that I probably wouldn't have done something like that even to a vastly more negative antagonist like Whoreson Junior.
Keep that scene in if you really need to but I feel like it should be entire feasible for Geralt the witcher to simply shove Dijkstra away by, you know... shoving him away? Without the amateur torturer act?

2) I think that Dijkstra's dialogue towards Geralt in the final act of this story should reflect the player's choices in their previous dealings with him.
It's perhaps not very well known but depending on your choices in the relevant quest, you can fully succeed in helping Dijkstra get his looted treasures back. Maybe this is just me but I always got the impression that if you do that then then Sigi does warm towards Geralt. This is seen in the fact that he is seen to have a genuine interest in Geralt's relationship with Triss.
Why do I mention this? Because Sigi then abruptly switches back to being written in the default hostile not-give-a-damn approach. Not only is this jarring when you've previously had the dialogue-supported head cannon of Geralt and Dijkstra being pals. But also it seems very dumb for a spymaster like Sigi to not at least try winning over Geralt to his side.

3) One of my biggest accusations for this quest is that it ends up being a choice of two very simplistic dialogue options:
- Do you like Roche whatever he does and will defend him regardless or:
- Are you a dick who's going to turn his back on Roche because you're afraid of a few nameless thugs.
Let me just start by saying that this is very, VERY dumb. When playing through both options I basically needed to write a whole fanfic in my head to replace either option with dialogue that makes it believable.
So what would I want instead? Well let me cover that in a separate point for clarity.

4) I would want to see several dialogue options that explore the reasons WHY Geralt might choose to side with Dijkstra or with Roche.
When I first played through this plotline and got to the point where it's revealed that that the assassination was a part of a hidden peace treaty that Geralt wasn't told about, I was angry. When the implications of that deal hit home, I was beside myself.
What the Roche faction essentially did was agree to massively sabotage the North's war efforts (as it is multiple times noted that Radovid though unstable and evil is single-handedly holding Nilfgaard back) as well as sell a big part of the Northern Kingdoms to Nilfgaard. And all of this for their own personal benefit of having Temeria reinstated on semi-independent status.

I would really like to have a dialogue option that shows Geralt want to side with Dijkstra out of a sense of betrayal and fury at Roche.
I would also love for the characters in the scene (both Dijkstra and the Temerians) to try and sway Geralt to their side.
I've mentioned the betrayal aspect before; I think it would make sense for Dijkstra to try to stoke that anger in Geralt. Tell him that Roche has lied to him and made him complicit in a plot to betray an entire continent.
And on the opposite side I would love to see Roche try to defend his actions. Claim that this was the only way to regain his country or simply play on Gerat's and the playerbase's sympathy for him.

Basically I would like to see the characters in this seen feel alive, believable and reactive. Instead of just standing there and acting like in the snap of a finger they turned from the north's greatest spymasters to its biggest idiots.

Post automatically merged: Jan 6, 2022

Reasons of State quest, how would you want it to redone?

I have seen a lot of threads discussing that CD Projekt Red should redo the final part of that quest regarding Djisktra and I agree completely, but I wanted to make a thread dedicated just for that because I feel it was overlooked (even though I really want more of the Wild Hunt in the main game, especially Eredin).

1- Just have the damn wine (or vodka) poisoned by Djikstra beforehand.

To modify this idea, I would have it be that if Geralt had successfully helped Dijkstra in the Count Reuven's Treasure quest and then perhaps helped him in some other way or just talked enough to him in the dialogues after that quest (enough to establish some friendship between the two) then Geralt's glass doesn't get poisoned at all.
This would show that Dijkstra does have some regard for Geralt and bears no ill will towards him, only towards the Roche faction.
Forcing a confrontation on Geralt or poisoning him seems like a bad plan because in that case even a friendly Geralt might turn on Dijkstra just because he attempted to poison him at all.
At this point the Temerians are already dead or dying from the poison so there might not even be any reason for Sigi's thugs to be shown... yet. For now Dijkstra might just be talking politely to Geralt telling him of the severity of Roche's betrayal and why this action was necessary for the good of the entire continent.
Dijkstra is not dumb, far from it. I don't think he would be naive to think that any number of thugs would be enough to kill Geralt. And even if they did the witcher could very easily cut his throat before the thugs get close enough to save him.
No, I think Dijkstra would know that the best way for him to survive this situation would be to avoid a direct confrontation with Geralt, avoid escalating things further with the threat of violence and simply use his words instead.

Only when Geralt plainly choses to attack would the thugs appear, showing that Dijkstra had a backup plan in case words weren't enough.
Mind you that backup plan should by all means also involve a rental mage teleporting Dijksta way when the fight starts, getting him to safety while his men attempt to kill Geralt.

Ideally I would want an end scene where after the poison scene is finished, Geralt is convinced not to act against and walks away: Dijksta talks to the before unseen figure of the mage, admitting to them that he didn't truly know which way this situation would develop and then tells the game to get him back to his base as his men deal with the bodies of the dead Temerians.