Choices do matter

[americanaussie]

Well I'm not. It would be fine for me to loose the story..

 

But seriously you can't say they matter, they really don't.

 

They do change the cut scenes that you get. They do not garner you a completely different story. Just think...could bioware create a different story for each of us? No. So they do matter. I still have Koth. Some do not. I still have the gravestone, some do not. We've yet to see what will happen from accepting Valkorian's power completely, but on one character, she kneeled. She accepted his help another time. On asylum, she refused and he overrode her, killing thousands. That was my poor Jedi My Sith told him to shove it and thousands lived on asylum. She got to have a Lana kiss instead after being impaled. Two totally different stories based on my choices. Choices matter If they didn't, then both of them would have had Valkorian override them regardless of their decision.

[Audoucet]

They do change the cut scenes that you get. They do not garner you a completely different story. Just think...could bioware create a different story for each of us?

 

Yes.

 

ME1, ME2, ME3, DA1, DA3, 8 SWTOR class storys...

 

It's basically the point of Bioware.

[TUXs]

Big spoilers for a bunch of BW (and an Obsidian) games and to save those uninterested from an even more massive post:

 

 

ME: So after I let Kaiden eat a nuke and saved Ashley, ending that romance in atomic fire on my first run, and then went on to convince Saren he'd been duped and he suicided during the final fight, I got the same experience on my second run, when I let Ashley eat the nuke and saved Kaiden, and then went on to taunt Saren about his failure and killed him myself? Really? Because Saren ended up zombifying and having to be put down twice, my choices didn't matter at all? Oh, wait, they did. I built up my Renegade so high that first run, that it didn't matter if I got through to him on Virmire, I blew his mind with my verbal Judo and then he blew it himself. Completely different emotional release to see the main villain realize you are right and kill himself versus a typical fight to the death and let fate determine who is right. Saving Ashley over Kaiden, my lover, devastated her. Saving Kaiden the second run led to him being super guilty I sacrificed one friend for another (I romanced Liara that time). Those choices mattered at the time, NPCs reacted realistically to events and later in the same game my past choices opened different avenues to victory.

 

Did ME2 screw with that when they time-jumped and then replaced most of the old crew? Absolutely. But that was the equivalent to Season 2, after I'd gotten my satisfying ending in Season 1. I expect certain things not to be carried over 100% the way I want in the follow-on iterations of a choose your own adventure game. But then ME2 gave me a ******ton of choices that mattered right up to and through the awesome final suicide run that I managed to luck through and ace the first time, and then screwed up (usually on purpose to see what would happen) on subsequent runs. That whole game was pretty amazing for making me feel I had agency.

 

Did ME3 screw with that? Hahahahaha! Yes. Yes it did. But it was on its way to becoming the best of the three games all the way up to the point where you run into the laser artillery and get blinded. Then the cracks of doubt over whether BW would fumble the ball became fissures that shattered the entire experience with the Three Colors Ending and your alliance was revealed to be pointless after a certain, very low threshold, and the consequences for all those choices you made across three games had been rendered meaningless. They screwed up so badly with that ending that they had to come up with some sort of bandaid to cover up the wound to their reputation and it was still meh.

 

DA:O - The hero can live or die in the final fight. Sleep with Morrigan or not. Allow Loghain to redeem himself and take the hit. Choose the next ruler. There's a crapton of choices that change how the game ends. Why would you even bring this one up?

 

DA 2 - Time jump, different protag. Major choices from first game imported save affect questlines/dialogue in this game. And then there's the make peace with / hand over companion / duel to death with the Arishok, before siding with the mages or the templars and deciding the fate of the city. Again...why bring this up? Choices clearly matter here.

 

DAI - Haven't played much of this, so I can't speak to how it all plays out, but the startup process using the DA website thing was pretty involved when I imported past saves. It's the third in a series for BW though, so they probably fumbled at the 1 yard line again. Wouldn't surprise me there.

 

KOTOR - On it's own, running a full Dark or Light side character through this story gave you all sorts of consequences, especially towards the end when companion deaths started happening. And then it ends with either the Light Side redeeming Bastila and saving the day by destroying the Star Forge, or Revan dooming Bastila to darkness and ascending a new throne with an Eternal Fleet of his own, ready to conquer the galaxy under a Dark Side banner. Standing alone, two hugely satisfying endings that rewarded choices made all the way up to the finale.

 

KOTOR II - An even better story (especially with the restoration mod) that told of the rise or fall of another great Force user as they regain access to the Force and survive betrayal to be redeemed or plunged further into darkness. All kinds of choices mattered here again, along the way and right up until the end.

 

Vanilla SWTOR - The journey from starting world to Chapter 3 finale made you feel like you were the center of attention, the focal point for important events. You decided who lived and who died - in the moment. Did each of those decisions get played up in detail further along? No. Then again, I don't expect the family of some mook I executed on Hutta to show up on Hoth in a story spanning 13 planets. I can temper my expectations and take satisfaction in knowing, in the moment, that something I did mattered, if only to that one mook. And the state of things by the end of each light/dark run of a class story is colored by how you chose to behave throughout. You even get multiple endings (some, like the Agent, get like three or four variants).

 

 

KOTFE - NOTHING MATTERED. Everything the Outlander did accomplished nothing. Everything is mocked and laughed at and undone almost immediately after you do it. Win a fight handily? Nope, cutscene says you lost badly and were beaten like a redheaded stepchild. Destroying the Star Fortresses? Nothing. Recruiting a billion allies? Nothing. Clearly going to kill the villain? Nope. Falling debris saves him on three different occasions. Koth steals your ship? Doesn't matter, he still fires the gun before leaving. No ally gained or lost mattered. Stealing the treasury meant nothing. Saving Havoc squad meant nothing - they die no matter what on their first op. Communing with the Force to make a magic weapon, even with characters that can actually USE the Force, meant nothing. Everything Satele and Marr said was a bald-faced LIE. Arcann hadn't gone beyond the Dark Side. He was cartoon evil and then he saved his mom and suddenly he's redeemed. Kneeling or not to Valkorian meant nothing. Agreeing with Valkorian every single time results in the exact same exchange of dialogue about how you're not doing what he wants and are a totes loser. Still no explaination of *** Valkorian's? ...Vitiate's? ... Sel-Makor's? whomever's actual motivation or plans are or why the Outlander (especially a mundane one) matters AT ALL.

 

Not a single antagonist was put down permanently, or even captured.

 

Arcann lives. Vaylin lives. Valkorian "lives". SCORPIO lives. The Eternal Fleet is intact. Zakuul still controls both the Empire and Republic. Koth lives. Senya betrays us (that's both Zakuulan recruits who betray the Alliance when forced to choose and I'm supposed to feel bad, if I let the Zakuulan singer eat it in chapter 15? Yeah, OK.). No great feat was accomplished. Our Alliance recruits all sat on their hands and did nothing while the Deus Ex Machina lumbered into orbit and managed to fire a few shots without blowing the Star Wars equiv of an EPS conduit every single time. Who we assigned to what task didn't matter. They all lived and did equally as well at all tasks because why not have more pointless choices to make? Lots of running around moving pieces with no clear purpose on a board we can't see only to pick up a magic shield, smack Arcann with it, and then have the game delayed due to Lucy yanking away the ball. Twice.

 

Where was my soul-sucking insane monster man? My furry, bug-faced berserker man? My numerous Sith and Jedi? My mad, shape-shifting monster doctor? My Findsman? My merc Trandoshans? My Mandalorian army? Why was NO ONE crewing the Deus Ex Machina but Theron, Tora and three redhirts? The Eternal Fleet hasn't landed ground forces since the Blur trailer. They hyper in, annihilate all enemy fleet assets, and then bombard the surface until the world surrenders. Why would all of my defenses for the Alliance base be centered around sitting on the surface waiting for an invasion that will never come?

 

Where are my upgunned tramp freighters and Pub/Imp snub fighters running CAP to keep enemy starfighters away? Why didn't ground control alert me to a bogey approaching my only ship, if the ship itself couldn't see it coming? Is everyone a traitor and really working for Koth or just incompetent? I know I'M incompetent, because the story keeps telling me I am. Is it rubbing off? Koth's crap shuttle he stole didn't have stealth. It was bigger than Senya's shuttle and everyone saw that appear on the screens the instant it left the flagship hangar. Why did neither the Eternal Fleet battlegroup nor the Deus Ex Machina fire on the shuttle? SCORPIO wanted Arcann dead. Koth wanted Arcann dead. Neither fired a shot. Why continue to fire on the flagship and completely ignore an escape shuttle...from the flagship?

 

What's with the stupid metal stalactite on the Deus Ex Machina? Where did the DEM come from? Who made it? Why is it specifically designed to one-shot Eternal Fleet battlegroups? Why does the Eternal Fleet always stay in such close formation when they know they're going to be fighting a single ship that can only kill them if they stay in close formation?

 

Why is SCORPIO's motivation suddenly completely different from her vanilla storyline and then different from early KOTFE introduction and then different again in chapter 16? is she trying to emulate Valkorian?

 

Did Roberto Orci write this? Am I watching the equivalent of Lost set in SW?

 

*Brain explodes*

Brilliantly phrased post!

[Quraswren]

Big spoilers for a bunch of BW (and an Obsidian) games and to save those uninterested from an even more massive post:

 

 

ME: So after I let Kaiden eat a nuke and saved Ashley, ending that romance in atomic fire on my first run, and then went on to convince Saren he'd been duped and he suicided during the final fight, I got the same experience on my second run, when I let Ashley eat the nuke and saved Kaiden, and then went on to taunt Saren about his failure and killed him myself? Really? Because Saren ended up zombifying and having to be put down twice, my choices didn't matter at all? Oh, wait, they did. I built up my Renegade so high that first run, that it didn't matter if I got through to him on Virmire, I blew his mind with my verbal Judo and then he blew it himself. Completely different emotional release to see the main villain realize you are right and kill himself versus a typical fight to the death and let fate determine who is right. Saving Ashley over Kaiden, my lover, devastated her. Saving Kaiden the second run led to him being super guilty I sacrificed one friend for another (I romanced Liara that time). Those choices mattered at the time, NPCs reacted realistically to events and later in the same game my past choices opened different avenues to victory.

 

Did ME2 screw with that when they time-jumped and then replaced most of the old crew? Absolutely. But that was the equivalent to Season 2, after I'd gotten my satisfying ending in Season 1. I expect certain things not to be carried over 100% the way I want in the follow-on iterations of a choose your own adventure game. But then ME2 gave me a ******ton of choices that mattered right up to and through the awesome final suicide run that I managed to luck through and ace the first time, and then screwed up (usually on purpose to see what would happen) on subsequent runs. That whole game was pretty amazing for making me feel I had agency.

 

Did ME3 screw with that? Hahahahaha! Yes. Yes it did. But it was on its way to becoming the best of the three games all the way up to the point where you run into the laser artillery and get blinded. Then the cracks of doubt over whether BW would fumble the ball became fissures that shattered the entire experience with the Three Colors Ending and your alliance was revealed to be pointless after a certain, very low threshold, and the consequences for all those choices you made across three games had been rendered meaningless. They screwed up so badly with that ending that they had to come up with some sort of bandaid to cover up the wound to their reputation and it was still meh.

 

DA:O - The hero can live or die in the final fight. Sleep with Morrigan or not. Allow Loghain to redeem himself and take the hit. Choose the next ruler. There's a crapton of choices that change how the game ends. Why would you even bring this one up?

 

DA 2 - Time jump, different protag. Major choices from first game imported save affect questlines/dialogue in this game. And then there's the make peace with / hand over companion / duel to death with the Arishok, before siding with the mages or the templars and deciding the fate of the city. Again...why bring this up? Choices clearly matter here.

 

DAI - Haven't played much of this, so I can't speak to how it all plays out, but the startup process using the DA website thing was pretty involved when I imported past saves. It's the third in a series for BW though, so they probably fumbled at the 1 yard line again. Wouldn't surprise me there.

 

KOTOR - On it's own, running a full Dark or Light side character through this story gave you all sorts of consequences, especially towards the end when companion deaths started happening. And then it ends with either the Light Side redeeming Bastila and saving the day by destroying the Star Forge, or Revan dooming Bastila to darkness and ascending a new throne with an Eternal Fleet of his own, ready to conquer the galaxy under a Dark Side banner. Standing alone, two hugely satisfying endings that rewarded choices made all the way up to the finale.

 

KOTOR II - An even better story (especially with the restoration mod) that told of the rise or fall of another great Force user as they regain access to the Force and survive betrayal to be redeemed or plunged further into darkness. All kinds of choices mattered here again, along the way and right up until the end.

 

Vanilla SWTOR - The journey from starting world to Chapter 3 finale made you feel like you were the center of attention, the focal point for important events. You decided who lived and who died - in the moment. Did each of those decisions get played up in detail further along? No. Then again, I don't expect the family of some mook I executed on Hutta to show up on Hoth in a story spanning 13 planets. I can temper my expectations and take satisfaction in knowing, in the moment, that something I did mattered, if only to that one mook. And the state of things by the end of each light/dark run of a class story is colored by how you chose to behave throughout. You even get multiple endings (some, like the Agent, get like three or four variants).

 

 

KOTFE - NOTHING MATTERED. Everything the Outlander did accomplished nothing. Everything is mocked and laughed at and undone almost immediately after you do it. Win a fight handily? Nope, cutscene says you lost badly and were beaten like a redheaded stepchild. Destroying the Star Fortresses? Nothing. Recruiting a billion allies? Nothing. Clearly going to kill the villain? Nope. Falling debris saves him on three different occasions. Koth steals your ship? Doesn't matter, he still fires the gun before leaving. No ally gained or lost mattered. Stealing the treasury meant nothing. Saving Havoc squad meant nothing - they die no matter what on their first op. Communing with the Force to make a magic weapon, even with characters that can actually USE the Force, meant nothing. Everything Satele and Marr said was a bald-faced LIE. Arcann hadn't gone beyond the Dark Side. He was cartoon evil and then he saved his mom and suddenly he's redeemed. Kneeling or not to Valkorian meant nothing. Agreeing with Valkorian every single time results in the exact same exchange of dialogue about how you're not doing what he wants and are a totes loser. Still no explaination of *** Valkorian's? ...Vitiate's? ... Sel-Makor's? whomever's actual motivation or plans are or why the Outlander (especially a mundane one) matters AT ALL.

 

Not a single antagonist was put down permanently, or even captured.

 

Arcann lives. Vaylin lives. Valkorian "lives". SCORPIO lives. The Eternal Fleet is intact. Zakuul still controls both the Empire and Republic. Koth lives. Senya betrays us (that's both Zakuulan recruits who betray the Alliance when forced to choose and I'm supposed to feel bad, if I let the Zakuulan singer eat it in chapter 15? Yeah, OK.). No great feat was accomplished. Our Alliance recruits all sat on their hands and did nothing while the Deus Ex Machina lumbered into orbit and managed to fire a few shots without blowing the Star Wars equiv of an EPS conduit every single time. Who we assigned to what task didn't matter. They all lived and did equally as well at all tasks because why not have more pointless choices to make? Lots of running around moving pieces with no clear purpose on a board we can't see only to pick up a magic shield, smack Arcann with it, and then have the game delayed due to Lucy yanking away the ball. Twice.

 

Where was my soul-sucking insane monster man? My furry, bug-faced berserker man? My numerous Sith and Jedi? My mad, shape-shifting monster doctor? My Findsman? My merc Trandoshans? My Mandalorian army? Why was NO ONE crewing the Deus Ex Machina but Theron, Tora and three redhirts? The Eternal Fleet hasn't landed ground forces since the Blur trailer. They hyper in, annihilate all enemy fleet assets, and then bombard the surface until the world surrenders. Why would all of my defenses for the Alliance base be centered around sitting on the surface waiting for an invasion that will never come?

 

Where are my upgunned tramp freighters and Pub/Imp snub fighters running CAP to keep enemy starfighters away? Why didn't ground control alert me to a bogey approaching my only ship, if the ship itself couldn't see it coming? Is everyone a traitor and really working for Koth or just incompetent? I know I'M incompetent, because the story keeps telling me I am. Is it rubbing off? Koth's crap shuttle he stole didn't have stealth. It was bigger than Senya's shuttle and everyone saw that appear on the screens the instant it left the flagship hangar. Why did neither the Eternal Fleet battlegroup nor the Deus Ex Machina fire on the shuttle? SCORPIO wanted Arcann dead. Koth wanted Arcann dead. Neither fired a shot. Why continue to fire on the flagship and completely ignore an escape shuttle...from the flagship?

 

What's with the stupid metal stalactite on the Deus Ex Machina? Where did the DEM come from? Who made it? Why is it specifically designed to one-shot Eternal Fleet battlegroups? Why does the Eternal Fleet always stay in such close formation when they know they're going to be fighting a single ship that can only kill them if they stay in close formation?

 

Why is SCORPIO's motivation suddenly completely different from her vanilla storyline and then different from early KOTFE introduction and then different again in chapter 16? is she trying to emulate Valkorian?

 

Did Roberto Orci write this? Am I watching the equivalent of Lost set in SW?

 

*Brain explodes*

 

Awesome post. I got to quote this so I can easily find it later.

 

Nice work.

[casirabit]

Yes. They matter. People whinge that losing the gravestone or koth doesn't matter because it'll be replaced etc...like with Tora. But they also expect to be able to finish the game too. So they want their choice to really matter...but they don't want their choice to really matter. Like they don't want it to be more difficult without the Gravestone etc.

 

Bottom line: people are just pissed that

thru couldn't kill arcann

 

Actually people are upset that we were told at the beginning Chapter 16 was the end and it wasn't until we were 3 chapters away from completing it that they told us about the new season. They should have stated that at the beginning not near the end. They should have been honest about it.

 

As far as the gravestone, I didn't lose it so doesn't matter with me and I also let them go so nope not upset about that. I am not thrilled that they couldn't have been honest at the beginning and tell us this was only season 1 instead of waiting and telling us at Chapter 13.

[assasinguy]

You know the simplest thing to do is to just shutdown this game and make actual singleplayer or continue the game and actually add MMO content for christ sake or at least make the god damn singleplayer in the game worth something.

[NatashaTerenzio]

..snip

 

*Brain explodes*

 

This. Yes. Your entire post. Thank you. I'll be off playing Dragon Age and Witcher 3, mourning what could have been, and slightly perturbed I spent 30 bucks (sub at KotFe first drop, then at the end) and nine hours of my life on my that ********.

[Nempo]

I think that the BIGGEST mockery of a choice was, to kneel, or not to kneel.

 

I was so happy, when I thought that I actually COULD, kneel in front of the bad guy, with my Wrath. Well... He didn't even seem to remember it. He even went to the point of accusing me of "resisting him". Even though I literally NEVER said no to him. I mean, even on Ziost, I told him that I still wanted to serve him even if he killed everybody.

 

You fought against him on Yavin trying to slow his rebirth. So no matter what you do at one point you resisted him. I know...it is story entrapment as you were after Revan and all but it is there. Then there is Ziost where outside of that last conversation with him you were effectively resisting him.

 

The guy eats planets, he is prolly finicky enough to hold that against you for the next thousand years.

 

 

You know the simplest thing to do is to just shutdown this game and make actual singleplayer or continue the game and actually add MMO content for christ sake or at least make the gosh darn singleplayer in the game worth something.

 

I enjoy the story, even with the problems it has. I do miss getting OTHER content though.

Edited August 15, 2016 by Nempo

[ZXFiveNineAFour]

Actually people are upset that we were told at the beginning Chapter 16 was the end and it wasn't until we were 3 chapters away from completing it that they told us about the new season. They should have stated that at the beginning not near the end. They should have been honest about it.

 

See, I thought I remember them mentioning 2 seasons way before that. I remember people arguing about the way it was phrased. But maybe I'm switching around timeframes in my head.

[DarthDymond]

See, I thought I remember them mentioning 2 seasons way before that. I remember people arguing about the way it was phrased. But maybe I'm switching around timeframes in my head.

You mean like when they talked about it in an interview one week after KOTFE was first announced, several months before it was released?

And more than all that, Knights of the Fallen Empire is only the beginning. This expansion is called season one for a reason; there will be more seasons coming. And that means more story.

Edited August 15, 2016 by DarthDymond

[ZXFiveNineAFour]

You mean like when they talked about it in an interview one week after KOTFE was first announced, several months before it was released?

 

Thank you for that! My search skills aren't working great today. I found references in yellow posts to season 1 as far back as December. I thought it was way back before release, though. So thanks for the confirmation, DarthDymond!

[JamieKirby]

Bioware games, while having awesome storylines, even the ME trilogy had an awesome storyline, i can't fault them there and neither in swtor either, but when it comes to 'choices matter' statements, i know it is a load of bull, it MIGHT affect something so minor that its a pointless, just pick a choice, it won't matter in the long run.

 

In any of the ME games, the choices were all ignored at the end of ME3 via that last choice, i mean, i always pick the destroy option, since Shepard's story is over, so who cares if he survives or not...you don't know how it all turns out, i am sure they have a canon story and ending, regardless of what we choose anyway.

 

In the end, no game will EVER have choices that affect the story in any way, except for the choice of games ebooks, which do not need any graphics, videos or voices to record, just pure words and the human imagination, but in all games, you have graphics, voices, videos to record, that is why all of the bioware games have made it so that your choices have little to no impact to the overall story, i mean if your choices made THAT much of a difference to the storyline, do you have any idea how much branches in the story there will be, it would be too costly to do.

 

So, i do not condemn Bioware for making our choices not matter at all in the long run, i do however condemn them for saying that it will, even though it won't.

[JattaGin]

[...]

 

Did Roberto Orci write this? Am I watching the equivalent of Lost set in SW?

 

*Brain explodes*

 

Terrific post! Thanks for summarising my thoughts about KotFE so eloquently.

 

For what it's worth: I thought from the beginning that there will be more than 1 season, so I expected a cliffhanger of some sorts. Nonetheless, the ending of chapter 16 is simply horrible in every way I can imagine. Reasons have been outlined by various people in various threads, with the quote snipped above summarising it perfectly.

 

Nothing that the player did mattered. That's the status quo at the end of season 1.

[ZETA_SCORPII]

The only thing that mattered in this expansion was bioware made 95% of the raiders leave the game.

[Drachdhar]

One thing I would like, and which bothered me, when you duel Arcann and beat the snot out of him in Ch8 and elsewhere you still end up losing. The losing part doesnt bother me so much, its the fact that I was winning the fight hands down and then cutscene and loss.

If the story wants us to lose, then make the fight hard... take away companion beforehand... make it an inevitable loss so that asking old Valky for power or refusing him would make sense. So that losing would make sense in the first place... because sitting there at full health and Arcann(insert other baddie for future reference) almost dead and then a cutscene loss is just bad storytelling IMO.

[ZanyaCross]

?????

 

Edit:

Are you accusing me of not being me? If so, that really just puts the finishing touch on an already terrible week.

 

I'm so sorry, I feel embarrassed and a bit ill right now.

[Ovanmaru]

these whiners are not able to comprehend the full picture of the story and the obvious development limitations.

 

LOL, "development limitations". Thanks for that man, I needed a good laugh.

 

-The game is low on funds because its unpopular

-The game is unpopular because its ****

-The game is allowed to be **** because its low on funds

 

What? How in any way is this acceptable? Why are you ok with this?

Edited August 17, 2016 by Ovanmaru