List of Choices that made changes to STORY

[merovejec]

Hi,

 

since i have pretty much spacebarred all the story in KOTFE, i dont know what it is about. I keep on reading that Choices didnt matter at all. I suppose there are many freaks out there that actually did KOTFE numerous times and tried out different choices, with different classes. So can someone please tell me if there were any parts of the story where the choices you made actually affected the Story?

 

All i know is that at the start of KOTFE you fight the 2 Zakuul knights and Lana then grabs one and wants to kill him. I noticed that if you kill him, next time you meet the other knight will be pissed and will have a new partner. If you let him live he will be killed anyway for failing, so basically the same outcome. Thats when i stopped taking choices seriously.

 

So please does anyone have a list or any examples of this? I have unsubbed but still have 46 days of sub left so need to kill time somehow

[Audoucet]

You can kill Jorgan or Kailyo. It won't change anything, since they will not intervene anymore anyway, but the choice exists, and will be carried on. They will survive if you don't kill them, they will die if you do.

 

You can lose, or not, the Gravestone, depending on your treatment of Koth. But we don't know if it will actually change anything since it happens at the last moment. Maybe we will lose it anyway in KOTEE, or get it back, so we don't know.

 

Outside that, nothing changes the story whatsoever.

[merovejec]

You can kill Jorgan or Kailyo. It won't change anything, since they will not intervene anymore anyway, but the choice exists, and will be carried on. They will survive if you don't kill them, they will die if you do.

 

You can lose, or not, the Gravestone, depending on your treatment of Koth. But we don't know if it will actually change anything since it happens at the last moment. Maybe we will lose it anyway in KOTEE, or get it back, so we don't know.

 

Outside that, nothing changes the story whatsoever.

 

I also read somewhere that if you kill a companion his daugther comes to curse you or something. But the way this seems, its really true that choices didnt matter.

[JediAkemi]

If memory serves, sparing the Knight twice does mean he sends a letter to you saying that he no longer believes what Arcann says about you being a monster... not sure what else may or may not be in the letter, but that Knight never shows up after the second fight (either because you killed him or because he refuses to hunt you any more).

 

I may be mistaken though

[merovejec]

If memory serves, sparing the Knight twice does mean he sends a letter to you saying that he no longer believes what Arcann says about you being a monster... not sure what else may or may not be in the letter, but that Knight never shows up after the second fight (either because you killed him or because he refuses to hunt you any more).

 

I may be mistaken though

 

Hmm ok, anything else?

[SteveTheCynic]

If memory serves, sparing the Knight twice does mean he sends a letter to you saying that he no longer believes what Arcann says about you being a monster... not sure what else may or may not be in the letter, but that Knight never shows up after the second fight (either because you killed him or because he refuses to hunt you any more).

 

I may be mistaken though

My analysis says you are mistaken.

 

I took the letter as being from "B", the second partner. *He* thanks you for sparing them, but he describes Novo as being hard-headed, so he has no idea of what Novo will do.

 

[merovejec]

Its funny, i mostly only go through server forums, general and flashpoint/operations forum, there people complain about KOTFE etc, but people say, well go to other Forums, like Story and Lore, there are many people there praising KOTFE and discussing it.

 

I was hoping that by posting my question here, i will get loads of answers, but so far not much

[SteveTheCynic]

Its funny, i mostly only go through server forums, general and flashpoint/operations forum, there people complain about KOTFE etc, but people say, well go to other Forums, like Story and Lore, there are many people there praising KOTFE and discussing it.

 

I was hoping that by posting my question here, i will get loads of answers, but so far not much

It depends a bit on whether you are talking about the broad strokes of the story or the specifics.

 

In terms of broad strokes, there's not so much difference (see below for my thoughts on why not), but there are lots of small-scale differences, like the Novo/Tanek and Novo/B, or like what happens during your conversation with Lana on the way to the Gravestone in Chapter XV. All of the small-scale differences are, however, changes to the *tone* of the story rather than to the *flow* of the story.

 

That said, however, it is, perhaps, instructive to compare the sky over the Odessen base on my two characters who have finished Chapter XVI.

 

The sky is empty in the Odessen that belongs to my Light V Commando main, because she took (and burned off) the Dark Side points for letting the reactor blow and letting Kaliyo push the button.

 

The sky is full of Gravestone in the Odessen that belongs to my Dark V DvL Sorceress, because she took (and burned off) the Light Side points for NOT letting Kaliyo push the button and not pushing it herself. She did leave the reactor to blow, but saving those people in Chapter X was enough to persuade the Kindly Old Treacherous Hypocrite(1) not to run away.

 

(1) I don't like him. I wanted to see what would happen, and besides, my Sorc has ambitions to out-pragamatify Lana and Darth Marr, and deliberately annoying allies isn't normally very pragmatic.

 

I don't know what the importance of this difference will be in KotET, of course, and I may well be disappointed...

 

Now, I promised to give you my thoughts on why the broad strokes have to remain relatively untouched by the player's choices. To put it simply, the more significant branches there are in the storytelling, the more story they have to write, and the longer it takes to write and to develop and record (voice work for the dialogues that you see only if you pick sequence 27, visual design for the cinematic that goes along with those dialogues, that sort of thing).

 

GW2 faced in its original design a similar issue. They resolved it by dividing the "Personal Story" into, roughly speaking, eight sections (that someone watching SWTOR might be tempted to call "Chapters"). Each section has choices that influence it, some made during character creation, some during a previous section. There is, however, very little impact (more likely none) on the content of, say, the last two or three sections by the choices that shaped the first three: it doesn't matter which social class you picked for your Human character, nor whether you picked the White Hart or the Green Knight or the other thing for your Sylvari: you still have to top Zhaitan at the end of the eighth section. (Exception: there's a throwaway reference to one Human second-section path in one of the missions in the sixth or seventh section.)

 

That choice led to one of my criticisms of GW2's Personal Story: for all the appearance of variety at character creation time, the last half of the story is the same for everyone.

[merovejec]

It depends a bit on whether you are talking about the broad strokes of the story or the specifics.

 

Thank you, this is what i was hoping for. Interesting, well such things seem nice then, like the sky in Odessen for example. Are there many more such things or just a few here and there?

[SteveTheCynic]

Thank you, this is what i was hoping for. Interesting, well such things seem nice then, like the sky in Odessen for example. Are there many more such things or just a few here and there?

Well, that one's the only really *big* one. There are some smaller choices that have permanent (if small) effects, especially in the way you interact with some companions. (Example: it is possible to kill some of them. Since they appear in the story - if left alive, that is - afterwards, the story cannot flow quite the same way afterwards.)

 

Xalek is one, but he's a side-recruitment companion.

 

There is one point, after they are recruited in their respective chapters, where you can end up killing either Kaliyo or Aric Jorgan.

 

Also, I don't know what happens in Chapter VIII on the way to the Control Spar if you kill Tanno Vik when you first arrive on Asylum, when rescuing Tora.

 

[FixerFortyKay]

There's a few possible changes which have an effect. Most are inconsequential.

For example if you choose to spare someone Vaylin will kill them anyway and a line of dialogue or two will change. The rest of the story remains the same.

 

First. Companions. You romance some companions, which happens only if you've treated them well and flirted with them. They'll then have the occasional private moment with you.

 

You also have the option of killing/exiling one of two companions. Though there's a somewhat counter-intuitive way to do it.

 

In Chapter 12, the companion you chose to make the distraction will ask to rescue the one attacking the Gemini signal center. If you tell them to wait, they will disobey orders. In chapter 13 you can then kill them or exile them for disobeying.

 

 

There's a minor change that comes with accepting Valkorion's power.

 

If you choose to use Valkorion's power throughout Chapter 1-8, if you try to refuse to use it against Arcann he takes over and you use it anyway. This is one almost no-one would see, because why would you take Valkorion's power only to stop using it at the most vital moment?

 

 

The only major change comes from one character's approval of you.

 

If you upset Koth by doing enough of the following: refusing to repair a completely alien nuclear reactor in the midst of meltdown while the trained personnel flee in terror, fail to give aid to refugees, be cruel to his crew-mates, chose to help Kaliyo blow up the spire in Chapter 10, he'll leave. Then return in chapter 16 to steal the gravestone.

 

 

That is quite literally the only thing that makes any impact on the story so far.

[merovejec]

Hmm, ok thnx for the info!

[Estelindis]

I've seen many people making fun of Bioware for pointing towards Koth as an example of consequence of choice, but personally I felt quite pleased when Koth thanked my character and supported her decisions in Ch. 16. I'd been accidentally spoiled that he would betray us, but he never did anything of the sort. He grumbled about Senya, but that was it. I actually think he's a pretty good person, so I was proud of retaining his loyalty. I felt in that case like my choices actually mattered.

 

It's also nice to hear that accepting Valkorion's power has some small consequence already.

 

As such, I'm willing to believe that some of our past choices may have future consequences that we can't yet predict.

 

In general, though, I support the distinction between player agency and character agency. The KotFE story is so much on the rails, funnelled down corridor after corridor, with few options to do things in a different way or in a different order, that a story that's meant to make my character feel special would fail, I think, if I replayed it - because the replay would expose how few things could be different no matter your background or personality or would-be-choices, and thus make my character not feel special at all.

[ZanyaCross]

Hi,

 

since i have pretty much spacebarred all the story in KOTFE, i dont know what it is about. I keep on reading that Choices didnt matter at all. I suppose there are many freaks out there that actually did KOTFE numerous times and tried out different choices, with different classes. So can someone please tell me if there were any parts of the story where the choices you made actually affected the Story?

 

So let me get this straight, you couldn't be bothered to watch any of the cutscenes, but you want the "freaks" here to take time out of their day typing out an explanation for you?

Edited September 15, 2016 by ZanyaCross

[Eanelinea]

If you can't be bothered to watch the cutscenes to understand what's happening, I can't be bothered to explain what's going on. You don't like cutscenes, you probably shouldn't be playing. BW=story, HEAVY story based game.

[HaltHammerzeit]

Also, I don't know what happens in Chapter VIII on the way to the Control Spar if you kill Tanno Vik when you first arrive on Asylum, when rescuing Tora.

 

 

If you don't kill Vik you see him fighting on Asylum when Arcann attacks. If you kill him you don't see him

 

[merovejec]

our past choices may have future consequences that we can't yet predict.

 

Well thats the thing, at the start of KOTFE they were really highligthing this that CHOICES MATTER!! But while playing i really didnt see none of that. To hope that our choices will matter in the future is simply not enough based on how they presented it!

[merovejec]

So let me get this straight, you couldn't be bothered to watch any of the cutscenes, but you want the "freaks" here to take time out of their day typing out an explanation for you?

 

yes

[merovejec]

If you can't be bothered to watch the cutscenes to understand what's happening, I can't be bothered to explain what's going on. You don't like cutscenes, you probably shouldn't be playing. BW=story, HEAVY story based game.

 

yeah well it became a heavy story game later on, wasnt like that from start. Also, my life changed since when i started playing. While i started as F2P enjoying the story now, i barely have 3 evening per week to play so cant bother watching cinematics too.