You forget also that for a lot of people this is their FIRST Witcher game. They're not as familiar with the lore as veterans are, just like people who read the books know more than those that didn't. Witcher 3 reminds me of Witcher 1 in that it's good but flawed. They could've done better, perhaps by ditching open-world and streamlining it like Witcher 2, but I would still recommend the game.
I did not forget that. I mentioned this on page 17 (last post on the page I believe).
CDPR catered this game to a casual audience, not to the mature veterans. Hopefully this does not set a precedent for future WItcher games or Cyberpunk.
What a disappointment. But TW3 is still one of the best games I've played.
There are a couple of decisions that should've impacted the ending but didn't. When you tell Ciri either that she's destined for greatness or can be ordinary should've been a point towards Witcher or Empress. I don't think the game should have a character pretty much flat out say "that wasn't a good choice, you should probably reload and choose again" though.
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I hope so too. Cyberpunk 2077 looks to be the cyberpunk game I always wanted and I'll be extremely disappointed if they don't deliver. I do have hope for the future since one journalist who got a peek at what they were doing while he was there for the Witcher said it could blow W3 out of the water if they deliver. That they've got Pondsmith helping them out gives me some measure of comfort.
what makes many players (including myself) might having a disappointment with the endings are pretty much the decisions that player (Geralt) made wasn't convincing enough to be believable to make such ending. this might happen because the dialogues and choices that determined half of the decisions are simply too vague. the parental decisions was pretty much are "how to please your daughter" not "how to be a good and encouraging parent to your daughter". It feels like those decisions are too simple to be discouraging or encouraging (negative or positive) Ciri about her power.
Well, I think you make some assumptions here that aren't true or at least not the way I see it. First, I've made pretty clear in my initial post that this is MY assessment of the topic and that it is very likely that some or many people will disagree with my points. Second, you claim that I want to be objective although my points are completely subjective. Well, yes and no. In human sciences absolute objectivity doesn't exist. It's not a natural science or maths. A critic or review of a work of art or any form of media is always a subjective action. It depends on perspective, on expecations, on experiences, on eduation on personal priorities. But subjectivity doesn't equal arbitrariness. What I tried to lay out here was my reasoning why I think there are issues with the final chapters of Witcher 3. There is a difference in quality between saying "I don't like that." and "I don't like that because of reasons X,Y,Z." It's not about claiming that you have found the ultimate truth or natural facts but about enabeling other to understand your way of thinking. So is it subjective? Of course it is. I never claimed that it isn't and if you just interpretated my rather "rational wording" as a kind of claim for objectivity that's imho just a misinterpretation on your behalf.
Of course there are different aspects to pacing and different structures. For example, I already admitted that classical drama offers a pacing structure that is actually pretty close to the one I see applied to Witcher 3. The question is not whether the pacing structure is theoretically optimal but whether it serves the purpose of the narrative pretty well. I don't think Witcher 3 is or wants to be a classical drama of the like of Romeo and Julia. Of course it borrows stuff from classical drama (almost every work of fiction in media does) but it at least follows partially the goal of offering long-lasting entertainment, which includes a good amount of tension and emotional engagement beyond a certain climax. That's actually how "tension-driven prose" and "tension-driven movies" is usually composed and that's why I used Star Wars as an example. It's not about the length of the work, but about it's goal in respect to the consumer. In my opinion one of the basic goals of tension-driven works (and I think Witcher 3 qualifies for that as almost every other mainstream video game that builds on storytelling) is to keep the consumer engaged until the very end with a climax rather at the end than somewhere in the middle. If I understood you correctly your point is that just by doing it differently Witcher 3 offers a unique experience. Well, maybe. But then human psychology and basic motivation stays usually the same. That's of course a wide topic but I'd say that even if you offer different experiences you still shouldn't forget why most or many people actually want to consume your product. If you make a small progressive indie film for example, you don't have to follow certain principles of structure. Your audience already expects that you won't do so. But if you make a multi-million blockbuster movie for a huge audience with a certain "mark" (like story-driven RPG in this case) you should be well aware of that many people who want to consume your product have certain expectations to its structure and that they probably feel disappointed if you don't deliver on that. I would argue that most people watching a fast-paced story-driven action movie want to be engaged until the very end (without epilogue) and not being more or less bored after perhaps 50% or 75% of the movie. Of course you can say that you don't give a shit about your audiene and that you do whatever you like. But then again you're not immune to critique and you should imo have good reasons for your decisions, especially if you raised certain expectations within your consumers before the release of your game.
About the open world structure: I already said in my initial post that I confine the assessment to the main narrative and I don't think that this is a problem here. In my opinion the main narrative itself should follow the goal to keep up tension and engagement until the end, no matter what you do in between in the open world. The pacing structure I presented here has some ups and downs and the real extend or lengths of these ups and downs doesn't really matter as long as the overal trend goes up. It's true that the pacing pattern is quite heavily dependant on the extend and timing of the open world roaming of the individual player. But that has little to no influence on the pacing of the main narrative, the single element of the game every player has to experience at some point, in a certain pre-defined order. That's the very reason why I think that you can even compare that to a (often much shorter) movie or novel. (A final word to ASOIAF: it's hardly a good example for comparison here because the final parts of this sage are still missing. We can talk about the quality of pacing ther once GRRM has released the whole saga, including the actual ending.)
And of course my criticism of the pacing structure is only to be understood in the context of my whole criticism. If pacing would be the only issue with the narrative in the final hours I could probably overlook it. But with a whole range of issues the somehow out-of-place pacing contributes to my overall feel that the end is lacking. It's also worth to mention that many of the other issues mentioned here directly influence the pacing. For example, a re-written or enhanced villain, a severly improved mission structure or a re-design of certain choice situations could change the emotional impact of the final hours of the game in respect to the events that came beforehand. Therefore the whole pacing and engagement curve shifts towards higher levels in the end. Maybe one of my biggest issues is the very end with Ciri defeating the White Frost with a Geralt who is doomed to be a mere observer than an actor, an end that is determined on badly executed and desinged choice situations. Pacing structure could (and very likely would) look very differently if these issues didn't exist.
You claim to rebutt my point but you actually fail to deliver a reason why you think that the pacing is good in Witcher 3, at least not one I fully understand I'm afraid. Basically your line of reasoning is that it's good because it's different. I don't think this is a rather weak argument since being different doesn't automatically mean being good. You also said that a mismanaged pacing can mess a person's enjoyment of a work of art and that's exaclty what happened to me and arguably some other people, reading through the topics here on the board. So your claim that this is not the case here surely isn't true for everybody (which brings us back to subjectivity, the thing you kind of accused me of in the fist place...)
In modern interpretation a deus ex machina moment constitutes a "solution to a conflict by a sudden, unmotivated event". It's not necessarily connected to a God anymore. In modern media criticism it's de facto used to describe a narrative event that tries to bring a story to a conclusion without caring too much about logical consistency. But well, let me explain why I think that it is very well a deus ex machina moment by the definition I presented above. (which is actually the defintion used by Gero von Wilpert in his German book "Sachwörterbuch der Literatur").
1) Is it a solution to a conflict?
It obviously is. The White Frost is causing a conflict which pretty much is the basic reasoning for the mere fact that every at least somewhat bigger power in the world is chasing Ciri and the elder blood. Check.
2) Is it a sudden event?
I'd say yes. There really isn't much introduction to the event. One second before Geralt is fighting Eredin which was presented as the main threat and goal throughout the whole rest of the game. In the next second Ciri and Avallac'h suddenly opened a gate although there was no sense of urgency or necessity for doing so presented beforehand. It came pretty much as a surprise which constitutes a sudden event.
3) Is it an unmotivated event?
Well, that imo the hardest question but I'd say yes as well. Maybe this is a topic which really separated books reader from those who only played the games or even only played Witcher 3. You must know that book readers indeed carry a package here. They know many of the charaters in the game pretty well. They know who they are and what they are capable of. So they naturally base their expecations on that previous knowledge. Of course it's possible and likely that the games will deviate from these expecations. I have no problem with that in theory. The problem I have with that is when this change remains largey unexplained. I'd say an ingame book is hardly sufficient to explain such a deep change of abilities one of the core characters of the game possess, especially when you think about the mere fact that most people don't read every ingame books and that the change of abilities in this case is rather groundbreaking (because it more or less makes most of the events in the books arbitrary or pointless in retrospective). But even if we only look at the games the event stays rather unmotivated or unexplained. As mentioned above, the first unmotivated point is the sudden urgency. Why is it so important to open the gate in this very moment? Why wasn't it possible before? How was it even possible to open the gate in the first place? Why must the White Frost be fought and defeated now if so far it was just a far away theoretical threat that - according to the books - won't take place in the next few hundred years? Second, how exactly does Ciri defeat the White Frost. I agree with the point that the story is presented through Geralt's eyes. But it obviously wasn't a problem before to experience events Ciri went through by listening to tales of other people (like the Red Baron). So Ciri could explain what happened afterwards. Why isn't that presented? The convenient answer is of course that it's just an artistic tool to keep the player in the dark. The less convenient answer is that it' just an artistic trick to hide the mere fact that even at CDPR nobody actually know how a single human being should stop a physically explained natural event. And it also hides the fact that someone who is capable of doing so should be able to do much more, almost acting like a real GOD. So even by the classical defintion, this is almost a text-book deus ex machina moment, because Ciri acts like a GOD with the powers of a GOD in a way that was both sudden and largely unexplained and umotivated...
And you say the stopping of the White Frost does not change the outcome of the story. Well, I very much disagree. The White Frost and Ciri's fight against it is part of the story, not something that exists in its own world. If it's completely unimportant for the story there is no reason why it actually exists in the first place so this isn't really a good argument PRO this event in the first place anyway. But I agree with you that the event serves as a macguffin as well. It's a mere tool to present an epilogue that is very much detached from the main story (in both a timely and content-related matter). But just because it serves as a macguffin doesn't mean that it cannot be a deus ex machina moment at the very same time...
What you seem to miss is that choices and the definition of choices isn't arbitrary. I mean, it might be cool to eat a banana once in a while instead of apples all day but you wouldn't call the banana an apple in that case, would you? In chapter 6 of my assessment (I hope you read that one as well, because it goes much deeper into MY problems on the topic) I explained what acutally constitutes a meaningful choice. Is that an established view? Of course it is. But you act like this was a bad thing while in fact it isn't. It's merely a description for a certain mechanic in a video game. And yes, people usually want choices to behave in a certain, predictable way because that's the reason why somebody described the game with these terms before somebody bought the game. When a game creator tells me that his game heavily builds on meaningful choice and consequence with a track record of games that suggest that he actually know what he is speaking of I expect that the actually delivers on that promise. But if he only offers mere calculations in the end instead of real choices I have every right to feel disappointed. It's not because I think that only certain mechanics have the right to exist and others not but because I expect games to deliver on the promises the developers make which led me to buy and play the game. I mean, that's the very reason why such (often shallow, yes) descriptions like "RPG", "CRPG", "action RPG" and so on exist in the first place. They should give you a good impression what to expect from a game.
Well, in my opinion the don't resembe reality and the way choices and deciscions work in real life because the game incredibly simplifies human psychology to a mere collection of simple situations. Life doesn't funktion like that at all because real life is much, much, much, much, much more complex that that, especially in the way the human mind works. And then again, nobody said that resembling real life decisions would be fun and engaging and great in a video game anyway. Just because it's realistic (which is very much isn't) doesn't mean it's automatically a good idea in a video game or a good game mechanic.
And I find it quite telling that you very much agree to my point that there in fact IS a "right choices path" which pretty much refutes the statement that these are actual meaningful choices but rather mere calculations. It's not at all about the famous "butterfly event" according to which even the most tiniest decisions can have hugely differing outcomes. It's about a moments in which you can prove whether you are a good dad or not (so whether you make the right choice or not) according to a very simple, predefined, basically only dualistic vision of "the good dad". I honestly don't see the fascination in that. Maybe it would be if the actual execuation and writing of the moments was much better, if there was no completely pointless time constraint or if the whole set of decisions was based on a complex, multi-layered set of motivations instead of a mere good vs bad principle. But then again the game still lacks the meaningful choices of the kind of "the lesser evil" during the final hours of the main plot, the kind of meaningful choices with which the game was advertized with and which are hardly present at all in the last third of the game. In this chapter 6 I also explained why I, personally, think that these meaningful choices - the ones which have an actual trade off - have a much bigger emotional impact on me. Sure, these kind of psychological father-daugther calculations seem to be "fresh" and interesting in retrospective but they didn't have a big impact on me, especially not during the final events of the game. More than thinking about my decisions and asking myself if my choices were the right ones I asked myself what actually led to this epilogue since it seemed quite completely dispatched to the previous 99% of the game. It certainly doesn't help that I - as the player - didn't have any ageny at all during the last hours of the game. More than an actor (what I expect from a video game, especially a choice&consequence heavy RPG) I was just a mere observer. I guess that some people don't mind about that but I found it rather disappointing, because in my experiences other games did indeed a much better job to keep me engaged and interested into the game until the very last minute without the change to repell me and "punish" me for apparently bad choices I made somewhere through the game (although the decisions never felt really bad at all at the respective time the choice was to be made, rather the opposite).
And I want to add that again I don't think the "it's good because it's different" has any kind of significance in itlself although you tend to present thatas a rather strong argument for your opinion. A well written meaningful choice situation would be different from every other such situation as well by the mere scope and content of its implications. And you really don't have to be different just for the sake to be differnt in order to be good...
Maybe I've interpreted her body language in a different way, maybe I've overlooked some of it. But then again you obviously lack the background of the books and how their relationship is described there so I don't know whether we can talk about the topic on an equal foundation. For me, for example, Ciri's reception by Yennefer in Kaer Morhen felt totally out of place given their relationship and Yen's character presented in the books (and up until that point there wasn't any chance to exlain why the relationship should be different in the game). Or take the scene in Avallac'h's lab when you allow Ciri to destroy the furniture. If you do so Yennefer just stands by and smiles smugly although that again doesn't resemble her relationship with Ciri known from the books. So of course there are interactions between the characers, but not necessarily those one would expect knowing the backstory.
Totally true. I actually only mean scenes in which Geralt is present as well of course.
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Totally true. But the player should have the change for an educated guess what the outcomes of their decisions could be. And the player shouldn't be forced to act against his (roleplaying) character and believings just to get the "good" end. The problem with the "choices" here is that psychology isn't simple and that it's a highly debatable question what actually is good parenting and how you should treat your children. Always assuring them isn't the "obvious" choice for everybody although it's the way you have to go when you want to see the good ending. That's pretty much shoehorning a certain perspective of being a good father down down the player's throat. But without knowing that you can never make a good guess. Without knowing that you would assume that the mechanism behind determining the outcome would probably more complex without just calculating whether you always assure Ciri or not. So naturally, people who get to see the "bad" ending are probably often disappointed because they (rightfully) feel that they haven't done anything wrong. They played the game the way it "should be played" by putting way more thought into the choice situations than they actually stand for, by treating them like complex and meaningful choice situations instead of the mere calculations they actually are. Everyone who gets a "good" ending maybe never even understands why others are disappointed though. I guess CDPR could have at least limit this problem by not making a clear "bad" ending based on these choice situations (which is not only bad in its outcome but even lacks information in the epilogue compared to the other ones). I don't see the point in punishing a fraction of your players for no obvious reason. But that's how some people feel. They don't feel that they made hard choices that led to a sad, but believable outcome. They feel that rather arbitrary, simplistic decisions led to an outcome that is quite disconnected from the rest of the game and the rest of the decisions you made within the game. And if that's the case the developers surely made something wrong down the road.
It's nice to see thorough write-ups like this, so thank you for putting the time in Scholdarr.
I wanted to raise out a few really important points that stood out for me.
This, for me, is something of a reoccurring theme in this game. Witcher 3 feels like it builds directly on the book lore, but then omits things or makes changes without explaining it. I made this comparision in another thread but I still feel it's quite apt:
Witcher 3 feels for a book reader like being dumped into an alternate realty version of the Witcher-verse. Everything seems to be the same, but there's subtle and important differences everywhere. It's as if your best friend suddenly only sees you as a passing acquaintance because for him, you've only ever met once before.
There's no explanation and using pre-existing knowledge from the books always comes with the caveat of: "Maybe this isn't true anymore?" Any changes in the rules need to be explained so we can move forward with full awareness. Without that, it holds me back from feeling a decent amount of closure after the endings. I still have a lot of lingering doubts "But what about X,Y,Z...?" that make it difficult to take the endings at face value.
I didn't have as much of a problem with having to be a "good dad" because it led to some really nice moments and I am usually very willing to go with the flow. Having said that however, I did have an issue with how vague the dialogue options were as you make those important choices. If you're going to make a clear good/bad decision, you need to make it crystal clear what you're about to decide. Or, if you leave it vague and open to interpretation, you need to give the player the option to turn a bad decision into a good one depending on how immediately follows up.
Example: Preventing Ciri from destroying Avvalac'h's lab should've given you an opportunity to remind Ciri that she needs to confront the responsibilities that come with her power. Giving her the amulet would influence her to accept her destiny and that she cannot run away anymore. If you then have an option to not give her the amulet, it should signify that she should reject these plans laid out for her more consciously, eyes open.
This then should also tie into her decision to become Empress or a Witcher. If you had prevented her from acting out and destroying the lab and then reminded her of her importance with the amulet, she should naturally be more inclined to become an Empress. She is slowly learning to let go of her own desires to try to live for something greater. Conversely, destroying the lab should reinforce her free spirited nature and move her to mirror Geralt's sensibilities of "Family first."
I just realized, writing that, how much better this would be for the game. Holy moley.
Yeah this is something I felt too. You're really just a capable "hired sword" and most everyone gives you crap for your "family first" views. Yet that never really becomes a major issue and you just do whatever it is that you're told. The story shifts its focus away from Geralt and secures itself firmly on Ciri. I would be fine with that if this wasn't the end to Geralt's journey, but it is. While he is a badass in combat and gets stuff done, Geralt should be much more than that.
Yeah, this follows the other points above for me too. I've said this in a number of threads now but the Geralt-Yen-Ciri family relationship really needs to be explained and shown properly. It's so lukewarm and I don't understand that. Yeah, all three have been apart for a number of years and they have bigger things to worry about when they first meet again. Still, by Act 3 there should've been some time set aside to affirm what they mean to each other. This is a big lingering problem for me, especially because the ending slideshow makes no mention of how the three of them (or Triss) work things out.
It's like Yen and Geralt just show up to make sure Ciri is no longer in danger and then they go "Ok, job's done. Lets move on.". This is NOT how the books showed us their relationship works.
I wanted to raise out a few really important points that stood out for me.
This, for me, is something of a reoccurring theme in this game. Witcher 3 feels like it builds directly on the book lore, but then omits things or makes changes without explaining it. I made this comparision in another thread but I still feel it's quite apt:
Witcher 3 feels for a book reader like being dumped into an alternate realty version of the Witcher-verse. Everything seems to be the same, but there's subtle and important differences everywhere. It's as if your best friend suddenly only sees you as a passing acquaintance because for him, you've only ever met once before.
There's no explanation and using pre-existing knowledge from the books always comes with the caveat of: "Maybe this isn't true anymore?" Any changes in the rules need to be explained so we can move forward with full awareness. Without that, it holds me back from feeling a decent amount of closure after the endings. I still have a lot of lingering doubts "But what about X,Y,Z...?" that make it difficult to take the endings at face value.
I didn't have as much of a problem with having to be a "good dad" because it led to some really nice moments and I am usually very willing to go with the flow. Having said that however, I did have an issue with how vague the dialogue options were as you make those important choices. If you're going to make a clear good/bad decision, you need to make it crystal clear what you're about to decide. Or, if you leave it vague and open to interpretation, you need to give the player the option to turn a bad decision into a good one depending on how immediately follows up.
Example: Preventing Ciri from destroying Avvalac'h's lab should've given you an opportunity to remind Ciri that she needs to confront the responsibilities that come with her power. Giving her the amulet would influence her to accept her destiny and that she cannot run away anymore. If you then have an option to not give her the amulet, it should signify that she should reject these plans laid out for her more consciously, eyes open.
This then should also tie into her decision to become Empress or a Witcher. If you had prevented her from acting out and destroying the lab and then reminded her of her importance with the amulet, she should naturally be more inclined to become an Empress. She is slowly learning to let go of her own desires to try to live for something greater. Conversely, destroying the lab should reinforce her free spirited nature and move her to mirror Geralt's sensibilities of "Family first."
I just realized, writing that, how much better this would be for the game. Holy moley.
Yeah this is something I felt too. You're really just a capable "hired sword" and most everyone gives you crap for your "family first" views. Yet that never really becomes a major issue and you just do whatever it is that you're told. The story shifts its focus away from Geralt and secures itself firmly on Ciri. I would be fine with that if this wasn't the end to Geralt's journey, but it is. While he is a badass in combat and gets stuff done, Geralt should be much more than that.
Yeah, this follows the other points above for me too. I've said this in a number of threads now but the Geralt-Yen-Ciri family relationship really needs to be explained and shown properly. It's so lukewarm and I don't understand that. Yeah, all three have been apart for a number of years and they have bigger things to worry about when they first meet again. Still, by Act 3 there should've been some time set aside to affirm what they mean to each other. This is a big lingering problem for me, especially because the ending slideshow makes no mention of how the three of them (or Triss) work things out.
It's like Yen and Geralt just show up to make sure Ciri is no longer in danger and then they go "Ok, job's done. Lets move on.". This is NOT how the books showed us their relationship works.
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First, sorry for the bad English. It is not my native language. I was tinking the same thing, this is a great example to how the player could have impact on Ciri motivations. The choices that the player has to do to determine the future of Ciri, are always determined by a valid choice and a invalid one. In the example given, if Geralt chooses to prevent Ciri of destroying the lab, this counts as an invalid choice, in the point of view of a player who wants to have a good ending. I think both choices should be valid, they only reflect the opinion that the player has on the situation. I do not think these lab choices affect the will of Ciri to live (assuming she died on the bad ending), but the way she chooses to live. Assuming her responsibilities as empress or denying her destiny and assuming the role of a witcher.
This is only a specific example, but I think this logic could have been applied to other choices as well. If developers wanted to have a bad end, they should have placed more choices that through common sense define a bad parent. Thus, players will not arrive to the game ending wondering why Ciri did not return? Or why she had turned empress? Or why she have turned into a witcher. They would know the choices they made to influence her decisions. Of course it is not possible to apply the suggestions now, but they are for future games of the company.
No one has considered the possibility of Ciri and Avallac'h rigging it?
It would've given Ciri the possibility of faking her death or at least having focus lost from her potential child.
This would mean that the ending decision for her was based on her thoughts of returning to Geralt.
It would've given Ciri the possibility of faking her death or at least having focus lost from her potential child.
This would mean that the ending decision for her was based on her thoughts of returning to Geralt.
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Not "how to please your daughter", but "how to comfort your daughter".
Are you really dismissing his entire argument because you don't like a comparison he made and then claiming his logic is flawed?
EDIT: Ok, wasn't sure. I see you also further elaborated your points below.
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In regard to choices you correct state that they are based in psychology. But your mistake is twofold. The good/bad ending are indeed based on how Ciri reacts to the decisions you make as Geralt. But you then make the mistake that Geralts choices as to how Geralt feels about them is how the game should determine the ending. That is a major flaw in your analysis.
We play Geralt. That means his ultimate psychological and moral bearings are determined as much by the player as the lore. We can do many things that a witcher in the books would never do. So your argument that a witcher or Geralt wouldn't act a certain way is flawed because that's the entire purpose of the game. To be able to shape Geralt as we the player sees him.
The ultimate impact is how Ciri reacts. You acknowledge this but seem to dismiss it as not valid. I think this is were your personal beliefs come out the strongest. We as players do not get to decide how Ciri should or should not react. We are not Ciri. We get to play her for short portions but we do not determine her makeup. That was done by the devs.
Not sure if you are a parent but being a parent sometimes mean that we have to know our child and how they will react. So we sometimes have to make decisions that go against our makeup because this is what is best for the child. that is what they were doing here. Geralt as an individual would not trash the lab. Fine OK. But here's the key point you seem to have missed. It was not for Geralt's benefit but how should Geralt act to help Ciri that is key.
So you can stick to your ways but the consequence is what it is. The choice comes down to thinking about someone else and changing how you behave or making yourself the main thing that matters. The devs wanted you to experience empathy.
So sorry but for two major points you made serious fallacies in your argument.
EDIT: I'm wondering how many that object have ever been a parent of a teenager or older. Seer as a parent that raised two boys I know from experience exactly what was going on. Sometimes you compromise your position to the benefit of your child. Whereas if you've never been in those shoes you naturally think in the "me" viewpoint.
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No it was very specific to pacing. I purposely said "So even if the pacing is broken your logic is flawed". He needs to prove the pacing is broken as a game. All he did was prove the pacing was broken as a movie.
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Welcome to the world of being a parent. There will hardly ever be crystal clear choices to make. The devs did a GREAT job here. It was for once a real life type decision and not just one for a game. When I came across these choices I had to think not what I wanted to do but how would Ciri react. We were given clues during the game about her. And that was the key.
We play Geralt. That means his ultimate psychological and moral bearings are determined as much by the player as the lore. We can do many things that a witcher in the books would never do. So your argument that a witcher or Geralt wouldn't act a certain way is flawed because that's the entire purpose of the game. To be able to shape Geralt as we the player sees him.
The ultimate impact is how Ciri reacts. You acknowledge this but seem to dismiss it as not valid. I think this is were your personal beliefs come out the strongest. We as players do not get to decide how Ciri should or should not react. We are not Ciri. We get to play her for short portions but we do not determine her makeup. That was done by the devs.
Not sure if you are a parent but being a parent sometimes mean that we have to know our child and how they will react. So we sometimes have to make decisions that go against our makeup because this is what is best for the child. that is what they were doing here. Geralt as an individual would not trash the lab. Fine OK. But here's the key point you seem to have missed. It was not for Geralt's benefit but how should Geralt act to help Ciri that is key.
So you can stick to your ways but the consequence is what it is. The choice comes down to thinking about someone else and changing how you behave or making yourself the main thing that matters. The devs wanted you to experience empathy.
So sorry but for two major points you made serious fallacies in your argument.
EDIT: I'm wondering how many that object have ever been a parent of a teenager or older. Seer as a parent that raised two boys I know from experience exactly what was going on. Sometimes you compromise your position to the benefit of your child. Whereas if you've never been in those shoes you naturally think in the "me" viewpoint.
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No it was very specific to pacing. I purposely said "So even if the pacing is broken your logic is flawed". He needs to prove the pacing is broken as a game. All he did was prove the pacing was broken as a movie.
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Welcome to the world of being a parent. There will hardly ever be crystal clear choices to make. The devs did a GREAT job here. It was for once a real life type decision and not just one for a game. When I came across these choices I had to think not what I wanted to do but how would Ciri react. We were given clues during the game about her. And that was the key.
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There is a moment shortly before Ciri enters the portal where she says to you something like "What do you know about saving worlds, silly? You are only a witcher. This is my story, let me finish it."
To be honest, I was slightly shocked the first time I listened to it. It felt so out of character and I was like, fuck no that's my story, I played like 100h and I just defeated the WIld Hunt but now I feel so useless as if in a different Story.
It actually felt so weird that during my first playthrough, I thought while playing the epilogue, I had the bad ending, and I was like " I'm gonna reload and check for better dialoges, maybe i messed up somewhere." Turns out I had the good ending.
I believe that you're taking that a bit too literally.
She's being playful and also showing she's a hero in her own right.
LoL that exact same quote drove me bananas....I just felt I had reached that critical part of the game where I didn't get proper development on a lot of things and right then this line just slapped me across the face...BAM!...I simply lost it 'cause I actually got the message the devs were relaying across...they ran out of time/resources maybe and just glued something together & served us this line to keep the player in check and go with it...sorry, not 8 years old anymore.
Sorry, but I don't see my fallacies. Basically you're just saying that only a parent could assess the issue properly. And underlying that argument you seem to think that every person and parent would do and think the absolute same thing in the respective situation as if there was a golden path to good parenthood. Well, my experience is quite different to that. I think human beings in reality are incredibly complex and most or almost everything we do is very much depending on an incredibly complex construct of causalities, preconditions, experiences and the special circumstances of the situation. There is no golden path to parenthood. The problem I see here is that CDPR thinks - like you do - that there is one and that if Geralt just acts accordingly there is a certain path to salvation. And they wrote Ciri accordingly. Of course they did. And they did a pretty poor job there, especially for the choice situations. They didn't write Ciri as a complex and believable human being but pressed her into a psychological choice agenda they obviously designed before they finally wrote her character. I honestly think the fallacy here is on your side and I think it's the the reason why there is such a big seperation between people when they talk about the end of TW3: if you agree with CDPR and their vision of good parenthood you get an "acceptabe" ending. You feel assured that you've done the right thing. The problem with that is that there are obviously a lot of people who disagree and who don't think that CDPR did a good job in writing not only Ciri's decisions but also the (choice) situation that lead to them. If you're among that group you obviously have issues with the end. That's not a fallacy. It's just a disagreement on one of the very basic concepts of the main storyline in the last third of the game. (And you accuse me of lacking empathy but obviously the very same applies to you. You lack empathy for everyone who thinks differently about these things. I think the these choices CAN work for some people - but not for everyone. It's not something almost everyone can relate to or agree to.)
But that's not even the biggest problem with the choices. The biggest problem is that you - as Geralt - don't feel that you have any bigger influence in the end, no real agency. The end of Witcher 3 feels very much like an action adventure of the likes of Assassin's Creed with a linear story path and not like a traditional RPG where you have to make complex and hard choices you have to think about for some time and which often lead to inner conflicts within the player (one of the very main benefits or features of an RPG after all). In reality, you don't have even ONE such situation in the complete last third of the main narrative. The choices (if you want to call them that way, I don't) with Ciri feel small and arbitrary and due to the timer you don't have much time to think what you want to do anyway (although there is no context at all why the timer exists in the first place). Apart from that you literally only do what you're asked to do.
And this linear "RPG-hostile" storytelling culminates in the epilogues. I agree very much with you people that the game is about Geralt. We roleplay Geralt. What Ciri does is up to her, that's right. It's pretty much up to discussion whether CDPR wrote a good ending in general and did her character justice in the end. But apart from that, what's up with Geralt? One of the core problems with the ending is that CDPR not only wrote Ciri's decision according to the players decisions before but also how Geralt acts in the epilogues. And that's the moment when the "RPG breaks". If this is my story and if Geralt is my character I want to have the freedom to decide how I react to Ciri's decision (no matter if I like the story or not, that's completely independent from that). I want to have the freedom to choose how I deal with it. That's especially true for the "bad" ending. If Ciri doesn't come back CDPR just forces Geralt to pursue the last crone and to (more or less) commit suicide. For three whole games it was my job to roleplay Geralt, to make hard decisions about himself, about the world around him and about the ones he love. But in the very end, he's just a linear character written by CDPR. So the very basic problem with choice and consequence in TW3 is that although you don't have any real choices in the last third of the game you have consequences which deny the concept of choices for my player character himself. That's how the game works and how the narrative is written. You interactions with Ciri not only decide upon Ciri's fate but about your own fate as well - without explanation or context. And without any real chance to have a final word on it. After you talked to Ciri in these rather arbitrary situations you have no agency at all left. You're not a "true RPG character" anymore. You're already doomed to a certain fate. That might work well for a linear action adventure, a movie or a book. But it's not what I expect from an RPG that was heavily marketed as game that features deep and complex choice and consequence. A game that is the successorto two games that count to the best video game experiences in respect to choice and consequence mechanics you can get.
So in short: the real, deep problem with choice in TW3 is that the player has no real agency in the last third of the game. You might agree with CDPR on their vision for good parenthood or not. That doesn't change the lack of agency for you own character and his fate.
I never said that the pacing was "broken". I said that it missed to keep up tension and engagement until the very end and I used a movie that is well known for good pacing for comparison. And I think this comparion is possible because I only concentrate on the main narrative in the game here. Of course a game is an interactive experience but that doesn't make the comparison any less valid. It's true that a game works differently on a mechanical level and on an interaction level with the player. But that doesn't influence how basic pacing works since modern games present big parts of their narrative in a rather movie-like, audio-visual way. Interaction is part of the tension building in game since gameplay is part of the narrative in video games. That's actually one of the core problems with the pacing in the game. There is a lot of interaction in the main narrative in the first two thirds in the game (namely: choices) while there is only little in the last third, which isn't only unusual for an RPG but for the whole concept of pacing and tension building as a whole.
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As a player I wanted to scream at Ciri. NO this is Geralt's TRILOGY, and why SHOULD I CARE about saving worlds in the first place?
You are a very likable character but if I wanted a story about you I would have gone to the movies and watched Superman.
She said what she said in a playful maner, And please dont compare her to some random girl in superman AKA "SPOILED HOLLYWOOD BITCH".
On topic:
Its true, i wish it was better developed, i wish this story was never ending one
i need 10000 hours main story, just dont want it ever to end.Now after iv finished it, 110 hours in, i feel to empty
Agreed they focused way too much on Ciri in the game and especially in the endings it just got silly
In my opinion making the decisions during the silly interactions with Ciri matter this much in the endings was a mistake
What about the other characters and choices? they got barely a 2 min narration whereas the Epilogue was completely different based on your interactions with her
I prefer the first half a lot more, in the second its just The Witcher 3: Ciri and not Geralt anymore (I like her as a character but Geralt deserved better)
Geralt got all he ever wanted his entire life. Ciri is back and he gets to spend his life with Yennefer, his friends are alive and well (R.I.P Vessimir)... deserved better what?
Regarding his relationship with Ciri, Geralt remembers her as playful, stubborn child, who's been through more shit in her 15 years of life (present day 21) then Geralt in his century of living. He feels the need to protect her no matter the cost because his relationship with her is more then parent/child relationship.
In the meanwhile, Ciri has grown into a woman who is more then capable of taking care of her self, still retaining that stubbornness and youthful playfulness. It is up to you to accept that she is a grown woman now, and therefore encourage and support her, or still treat her like a child and do the things for her out of fear of loosing her again.
In the end, no matter what you do, Ciri accepts her destiny as a child of the elder blood and sets out to do what she is meant to do. Up until that point you did all you could, and everything led to that moment, when for the first time, she doesn't need you.
So yeah, at that point of the game, Geralts story was over.