When C&C is spelled out for you

[Phelot]

I've been playing Drakensang: The River of Time and I've been enjoying it, but I've noticed an annoying trend that I've seen in other games, as well. RoT has a lot of nice choices to make and I must admit that the consequences aren't always apparent, the choices are so obvious that the game might as well be telling you to press a, b, or c.

What I mean is when I am faced with, for an example the river pirate and elven village conflict, each party member mumbles about how they'd do it, making it blatantly obvious what the choices are. Instead of thinking as a player, that maybe I can negotiate with the pirates or use cunning against them, I'm told right from the get go what I should do for each choice.

I saw the same thing in The Witcher where choices seemed to be this grand stand event that boiled down to choosing between two dialogue choices with obvious outcomes.

As an opposite example, I'd like to mention Fallout 2 and it's crime families in New Reno. While the consequences essentially boil down to which families hate you and it was certainly cheesy, it still had the sort of basic yet fun C&C I'm looking for, namely the ability to get as much or as little info about a situation as I want, potentially make enemies with people that might have had quests, and potentially have entire areas hostile to me.

In the end, your choices there effected the whole of Redding, shit in NCR, IIRC Vault City, as well as a number of quests within New Reno.

I'm not holding FO2 as the pinnacle of C&C, but as I mentioned it's what I look for in a game, not hand holding and tutorial like comments from my companions.



So, what do you guys look for? Is choices enough for you? Do you mind it being spelled out or do you prefer discovering it?

 

[Baron]

There are benefits to introductory choices with obvious repercussions, and not just for players new to the genre. Once the player knows the scope of the game and what is possible within its engine and breadth of game design it's obviously desirable to leave consequences unstated and let the player reason what their actions will be.

I remember being impressed with Bioshock's interactivity. So when I came across a slab of ice against the wall it occured to me to try the fire ability on it, and sure enough it melted to reveal a hidden door. But I wouldn't have tried it at the start, not expecting such features implemented into a shooter. The introductory features encouraged experimentation. So should it be with choices and consequence.

 

[Phelot]

There are benefits to introductory choices with obvious repercussions, and not just for players new to the genre. Once the player knows the scope of the game and what is possible within its engine and breadth of game design it's obviously desirable to leave consequences unstated and let the player reason what their actions will be.

I remember being impressed with Bioshock's interactivity. So when I came across a slab of ice against the wall it occured to me to try the fire ability on it, and sure enough it melted to reveal a hidden door. But I wouldn't have tried it at the start, not expecting such features implemented into a shooter. The introductory features encouraged experimentation. So should it be with choices and consequence.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about! It's a shame that modern games have taught us to not expect shit if it wasn't covered in the obligatory tutorial and that it's such a shock when they surprise us.

I've said it before, but I'd prefer C&C mean that when faced with a locked door, I can literally use any of my skills to get it open, whether seducing a guard, bribing him, killing him, lockpicking the door, bashing it open, etc. Rather than it being my character deciding whether the world will be ruled by MWAHAHAHA DARKNESS or OMG PEARLY WHITE GOODNESS.

I guess that's off topic, but yeah it'd be great to have games that encourage you to use your skills rather than hampering you with "I see you're an expert at lockpicking, but this door is actually a magic door so you gotta find the key."