NaturalEnclave
Member
- Nov 24, 2020
- 111
- 361
Just to make it clear, I wasn't trying to defend CoC2 or anything. It does fuck up a lot of aspects. What I meant by "Forced choices" however is the fact that I don't always feel like having a choice is always a positive thing. As you mentioned - CoC2 itself has an enormous amount of meaningless choices that have zero consequences. Not just CoC2 honestly. Most of non-hardcore AAA "RPG" games also get this critique. A few pages ago I made people argue about Skyrim and how little choice or memorable characters it has. Point is - player agency and choice is something people always want and something only a few games deliver on.Snip
So the question is - what's better? A hollow choice or a lack of choice entirely? You mentioned how, despite having an entire confidence system created and developed just for Ryn, her quest has the exact same resolution. Corruption system doesn't alter anything. A bunch of other quest have choices, yet no real consequences or alterations to the world. It could be writers being lazy, it could be that they simply do not have the ability to do such massive changes. Whatever the case, they gave you a choice because that's what people expect them to do. It's an illusion of player's agency. Would it be better if they didn't even try?
I don't know if it's fair to expect Owlcat levels of polish in terms of choices and consequences from a fucking free porn game, even if it's making quite a lot of money and is a very, very famous name in the porn games industry. I am not that kind of person who would disregard an enjoyable story just because it doesn't allow you to be evil, or be asshole to some character for no reason other than "a few players might do this". Not every quest has to present you with choice with huge impact, not everything need to be a part of this grandiose net of cause and effect. Having a choice for the sake of having a choice without full commitment to make it actually matter in my opinion is slightly worse than having no choice at all, if it has negative impact on the story's quality.
It's honestly funny how freaking gacha games sometimes handle this is a slightly better way. They don't have any meaningful choices and you cannot change your relationships with character at all, but just having options over what your character says that highlight their personality traits sort of goes a long way into making you understand the character you are playing as and what sort of person they are. What I wonder if having less variables means that the player is more okay with lack of agency. If there is no corruption meter, there is no anticipation that you can alter your personality by corrupting yourself. If there is no ability to pick or ignore companions - will the player be more okay with them tagging along without permission? Does lack visual customization makes it feel more appropriate when MC a doesn't full reign over every single decision? It's seems like a difficult balance of meaning versus... "vibes".Depends on the game personally. I don't have a singular preference, just whatever works for the premise. In Fenoxo game's case, I prefer complete freedom in choice and personality because that's what the premise is. They have a corruption meter, you can be a variety of races, choose your name, companions, how you interact with said companions, etc. I hate it when writers (mostly Tobs) railroads dialogue to make you respond to everything in the most robot-like fashion or make you say the most cornball shit like Fleep, no matter what your personality is suppose to be. Not to mention how some make you act like a fucking virgin despite the miles of ass you've fucked. If the MC is suppose to react to something, then give me the option to choose which reaction I want. Or actually tailor it to my choices and states.