- Thread starter NeonGhosts
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Superocco
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- Apr 16, 2025
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I know, in-game her name never appears, but I did remember reading about her being Bea or Beatrice like you said somewhere. Thanks for clarifying!
MF_DOOM
Active Member
- Mar 1, 2023
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Fucking dairy farmers! First It's Friday, then it's "by the end of the month", and when December comes it's going to be "before Christmas" and then it's going to be "next year" and so on and so on.
My nipples are empty! I demand you release it, now!
Oh ok, my bad. I'm behind on the update then. Personally, I think the drugged scene should require darkminded variable and/or dark points; those seem to be the most relevant variables, not necessarily Ashe's dark route specifically, imo. I think it's a fun and logical way for someone on the friend, corruption, or even romance route to get on her dark route. Maybe that's how it is in the code? But yeah, it doesn't make any sense, from a story/character perspective, to play a nice, normal person that is also capable of initiating that scene.
Yes they are. That's the easiest way to predict someone's behavior in the future, to look at how they've behaved in the past. And when it comes to moral issues, it comes down to a few things I'd say: a person's psychology, which includes their personality, their sexuality, their moral convictions, and so on; and their environment and how it interacts with their psychology or even changes it (over time).
So, someone who's morally & sexually disgusted by the idea of rape... get this... isn't going to rape someone tomorrow.
Whereas someone who has neither of those guardrails, well.. they're not guaranteed to act on it, but obviously the likelihood of them partaking is much higher.And yeah, that first psychological example can obviously change; 20 years? 10 years? Sure. It's possible. But in a single moment? Of course not. That's just ridiculous.
So, I think this game does a good job of reflecting that. There's the darkminded variable and dark points; darkminded is enabled early on (Nicki and brazil girl), maybe later too I'm not sure, and that represents how your MC thinks and hence what they're capable of. Dark points are a useful scale to catch everything gray in between, but also the MC changing over time. If the author plans on a slowburn route towards darkmindedness and the dark route, or in the opposite direction from the dark route, this is a great way to do that as well.
You can predict their likely behavior but they are not locked in that behavior. People can surprise you by acting in a manner you did not expect, because something has influenced them in a way causing them to act in a way they usually don't.
Hell, the very concept of "character growth" which is the most basic block of storytelling is that someone changes their ways and behaves in a way they didn't before, due to their fresh experiences.
That is the difference between freedom of action and being limited by external force.
Someone who is morally and sexually disgusted by rape can very well do it out of sudden to a person who drives them to the point where they think such sort of disgusting act is warranted as "punishment" or whathaveyou. E.g. do you think people who rape pedophiles in prison are actually thinking that rape is okay in general? Or they can have a more nuanced view on this issue, and think that it's okay to rape some people but not others. Consider how people who generally think murder is wrong can, in certain situations, murder someone without compromising their views on the act itself.So, someone who's morally & sexually disgusted by the idea of rape... get this... isn't going to rape someone tomorrow.
This all boils down to individual players having different takes on personality of their MC. Just because theirs and yours are different doesn't mean theirs is wrong, or that it shouldn't be accommodated if it's not too much of a hassle.
Ropyl
Newbie
- Feb 26, 2025
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I entirely agree.Yes they are. That's the easiest way to predict someone's behavior in the future, to look at how they've behaved in the past. And when it comes to moral issues, it comes down to a few things I'd say: a person's psychology, which includes their personality, their sexuality, their moral convictions, and so on; and their environment and how it interacts with their psychology or even changes it (over time).
So, someone who's morally & sexually disgusted by the idea of rape... get this... isn't going to rape someone tomorrow.
And yeah, that first psychological example can obviously change; 20 years? 10 years? Sure. It's possible. But in a single moment? Of course not. That's just ridiculous.
So, I think this game does a good job of reflecting that. There's the darkminded variable and dark points; darkminded is enabled early on (Nicki and brazil girl), maybe later too I'm not sure, and that represents how your MC thinks and hence what they're capable of. Dark points are a useful scale to catch everything gray in between, but also the MC changing over time. If the author plans on a slowburn route towards darkmindedness and the dark route, or in the opposite direction from the dark route, this is a great way to do that as well.
The main thing to me is the timescale. As PHIL said, change can happen but with time for said change to happen, not overnight.
And yes people can react in unpredictable ways but usually not at the extreme opposit of what they are normally.
Like in the examples i gave, it very much can happen overnight, depending on circumstances. A sworn pacifist can still kill if they're convinced the situation warrants it. On the opposite side of the spectrum, a rapist can choose not to rape. In a way it's kind of funny that people aren't objecting as earnestly that the dark side MC isn't really locked down on that path and can take good options, as if suddenly the "people act the way they did in the past until they had 10-20 years to change their mind" ceases to matter so much.
(also, just because it doesn't happen usually it doesn't mean it should be blocked from happening at all, or that such action would automatically reduce plausibility etc. People usually don't make millions from drunken investment in crypto, but here we are. Again, it largely boils down to the player's choice. If someone believes their MC wouldn't out of the blue change their ways, they can simply choose for their MC to remain stuck in their ways. But requesting that others should be forced to do the same even if they feel different about their MCs, that's rather unreasonable)
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Other people can surprise you because you didn't know something about them. How often do you surprise yourself, though? In the way you behave I mean, given your values and what not? Ever? I never do.. now, if you asked my past self from 5, 10, 20 years ago, then sure... past me might be surprised. Change creeps up on you, it doesn't really happen in a single moment.
I think your examples are pretty ridiculous, personally. But the murder one, i.e. crime of passion, maybe? But not really? So, a husband killing his wife because she cheated on him is, I think, totally different than a guy raping a stranger for pleasure because the opportunity presented itself. The original chp 1 rape of Nicki is probably the closest to a crime of passion in the dark route that we've seen, because it's arguable he did it in a very reactionary way, whether because he felt betrayed, or shamed, or whatever. But, that's gone. So, unlike all your examples which involve some moral trigger, what is triggering Guy to rape innocent women? His dick, because he's aroused by sadistic control.
Point is, we're in Guy's head, and the developer evidently cares about internally consistent characters that behave in plausible ways. So, if you go out of your way to tell the game that you're not sadistic or psychopathic (darkminded), then the dev assumes a certain character going forward, and it stays within those bounds because anything else is jarring from a story perspective. You can still grow your character into darker actions, through darkpoints (or the other way, too, I think). So, there's your character growth.
Importantly, we shouldn't forget the dev's also thinking about the main character's psychology for the options; the MC isn't supposed to be a blank slate. Even if it's hypothetically possible for a MC to do something in a given situation, that doesn't mean the author thinks the MC he's written would do it.
- Apr 19, 2023
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Then the game shouldn't have choices, and the developer should simply stick to a kinetic novel, writing the MC as s/he sees fit. If we're given choices, those choices should extend throughout the game, not lock us into a path in the first ~30% of it.
As I said earlier - there's no middle ground for a manipulative sex fiend to go both ways through the entire game, depending on what he thinks a LI in particular needs to bend the knee to him. Sometimes coercing them with love, sometimes with bribes, sometimes with threats, and sometimes drugging and raping them. Right now - locks are put on things depending on earlier segments.
But that does not change the fact that they can act in ways which are contrary to how you expected them to act, and that their behavior is neither guaranteed to be always along the lines of how they've acted in the past, nor is it limited to only changing after 10-20 years of self-reflection. "Because you didn't know something about them" is rather empty statement here, because you never know someone in 100%
Quite often in fact, because i make my decisions based on the situation at hand, not on how i dealt with something similar in the past. That's because situations are rarely so identical than my previous decisions would be relevant or apply. Just because i've been nice to someone who cut in line in front of me does not guarantee i won't tell another person who tries it some weeks or months later to fuck off with their bullshit. And it's not because i've had months if not years of self-reflection how to handle people who cut the lines, but because it's different person, different day, different mood, circumstances, etc and so on.
It can be a crime of passion, it can be self-defense, it can be out of trying to stick up for someone, whatever. This is part of the point, in fact: circumstances shape people's behavior just as much if not more as what people think are their core beliefs, or how they've acted in regard to something before. Thus, the whole concept of being somehow long-term locked into single mode of behavior is to me far more ridiculous statements than these examples.
We could simply leave it at that. You can think my stance is ridiculous and i can think the same of yours, except why then should a game follow your model, when it's much more prohibitive on the player while my suggestion doesn't take anything away from your preferred approach to playing the game? Having choice to play different doesn't limit your ability to always play the same. But it can't be said the same about the opposite when you explicitly call for limitations to be put in place.
And what i'm saying is that developer should not presume such things about their players. Because whether the actions of the character are internally consistent for the player's character and what they do is jarring is something the player decides in their own head, as the only person with the full knowledge of what kind of character they are playing.
The very fact we completely disagree on what's internally consistent and plausible should be enough of a factor to stop insisting that the only way to produce consistent and plausible narrative is by doing it your way.
Can you actually, if you don't do it right from the beginning of the story? Do you get enough opportunities to gather dark points for Guy to "grow" from a decent person short after Nicki leaves, to a cynical rapist flaunting and abusing his power by the current end of the game? Or is he effectively blocked from it, because the game doesn't last 10-20 years that supposedly would take someone to get a taste of power and change their morals etc?
- Mar 20, 2019
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I'll try and sum up in a fairly easy paragraph what some people are thinking when it comes to the dark/light paths and how the game treats them:
From a manipulator's perspective (grey or dark path), "different challenges require different solutions". To get each LI to bend the knee and put out, they may require fake love, or monetary coercion, or drugging, etc. Equally, manipulators sometimes DO want their LI to love them, even if it isn't reciprocated.
Having said that, I think that only opening certain choices based on prior actions, is a shallow way of looking at a grey path. It should have far more flexibility in how to approach and handle each LI.
From a manipulator's perspective (grey or dark path), "different challenges require different solutions". To get each LI to bend the knee and put out, they may require fake love, or monetary coercion, or drugging, etc. Equally, manipulators sometimes DO want their LI to love them, even if it isn't reciprocated.
Having said that, I think that only opening certain choices based on prior actions, is a shallow way of looking at a grey path. It should have far more flexibility in how to approach and handle each LI.
- Mar 20, 2019
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This is just hilarious to me because I didn’t touch any of the grey paths. They’re still an option to select for characters like Jun, Ashe, Viola and Nicki, with the only prerequisite based on relationship/decisions made. Even Friends Indeed has some of these paths available—though some have been modified to make them less morally murky.
This is why I don’t really bother to respond to complaints anymore. They seem to be coming from people who are complaining about what they believe to be true, instead of what’s actually true.
This is why I don’t really bother to respond to complaints anymore. They seem to be coming from people who are complaining about what they believe to be true, instead of what’s actually true.
Not to mention, shutting up all the milking complainers with sped up development.
Lightaces
Well-Known Member
- Aug 3, 2018
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Again, drugging is not manipulation, it is rape. Period. It is an absolute violation of a person's ability to consent, and is no different from the violence Guy used on Ashe in the alleyway. There is nothing remotely gray path about a roofie.
I swear, some of y'all got a deranged sense of reality.