- May 17, 2020
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If the prospect of 10 chapters was ever real, and only DPC knows this, it would have gone all the way to the end without any blocking of choices.Realistically there were only a few ways to handle it. Originally, I expected we'd just keep removing boxes (right through neutral if necessary) until we were only left with a single box, which would then effectively lock both our Status and Affinity. Once Permanent Affinity was revealed in Episode 6, I was hoping we'd still be be able to make the choices (they just wouldn't affect our Affinity anymore). In retrospect that sort of flexibility isn't DPC's style; the reason the system is so overly-complicated in the first place was probably to dissuade people from metagaming. So it really should not have been a surprise that not only are choices forced, the game will hide the choice itself, too.
In the long run that might be for the best; as I said, the rationale behind why some choices are more important than others was always the weakest link in the system. So if DPC does a good job tying future choices to a consistent 'ideal' for CHICK and DIK actions, it will probably give us the same replay value with less argument and less work from DPC. It won't be great at handling nuanced outlooks, but that was always going to be a big ask for an automated system.
Big IF though.
It's a good question. My first thought was that we could eventually get permanent Neutral Affinity if we play both sides long enough - though it would probably take all of Season 3 to get there.
But that does leave the question of what permanent Neutral Affinity would mean in practice. I doubt DPC would keep writing Major Decisions into the game just for Neutrals (who wouldn't even change their affinity as a result). So either the hypothetical Neutral would either get a standard choice (CHICKs or DIKs would either get no choice or have the other option greyed out), or the game would automatically pick CHICK or DIK for each action based on secondary information (sort of like how the ability to fight Caleb is DIK, but is also locked by the decision to fight the Jocks in Episode 2).
The second option is probably better, but neither seems all that satisfying. So I'm going to reverse course and say the decisions will probably continue until one side of the bar is completely exhausted. If I'm right, hopefully I'll remember this post when we finally learn the truth in ~2025.
otherwise agreed
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