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The illusion of choice, a monocled debate

Angelo85

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So according to Gregz excellent "Most Hated Gameplay Element" Thread the most hated gameplay element for Codexians is defined as *drumroll* "false choices where it seems like you can choose one thing, but railroads you regardless".
Based on this result I thought the topic of false choices might warrant it's own thread. If so many of us are having problems with this approach to game design let's talk about it!

What's your take on this issue? Is it really as big of a deal as the Codex wants you to believe? Are there alternatives? Let the world know! There's so many Developers lurking here, let them know what you think and help change the way games are made! Future generations of gamers will thank you for ushering in the age of incline. Right here, right now! Let's do it!!! *snorts some more cocaine*

Now with that out of the way here's my take on it. While thinking about this issue for a bit I had the following thought: perhaps false choices are merely a symptom of a deeper frustration and underlying problem with modern game design.
What I mean by that is there's only a finite amount of content available in an RPG.
Casual RPG players seem to almost have come to expect to see all - or at the very least most - content a game has to offer within a single playthrough. "Gated content" in any form is viewed as bad design because players feel like they are missing out on content they are entitled to experience because they "payed money for a full game, not half a game" as I have read recently on the Steam forums :D

In my view false choices offer an alluring compromise to Developers, perhaps even desirable. Especially since it is my impression that most players (read: not most codexers necessarily, but at the very least the majority of filthy casuals) are content with finishing RPGs once and only once. They may restart a couple times with different class/skill combinations but after they are happy with their build/composition the rest of the game is experienced only once.
If a Developer was to "hide" too much content from players behind real choices, nowadays players might actually get upset and additionally the Developers' higher ups/investors might deem real choices instead of false choices - no matter how big or small they might be - wasted development time and therefore wasted money. This results in the design philosophy of games like Age of Decadence for instance having almost become inappropriate or old-fashioned in the modern development landscape. At least in the eyes of the AAA big money companies. This can also have a long term negative impact on the perception of players exposed to these kind of games. Other approaches can be perceived as wrong or unexpected. Obviously this is dangerous to the diversity of any genre.
So in short the alternative to false choices in the form of real choices but consequently less content per single playthrough = bad from the perspective of a majority of casuals, investors and project leads alike.


So how about then instead of getting rid of real choices, simply get rid of the illusion of choice altogether? No more frustration right?
Well...

How do you actually notice false choices? If they are halfway decently presented average joe doesn't notice them. They are noticed by the ones savescumming, metagaming or replaying. In other words: only a problem for the minority hardcore players.

If you were to remove false choices suddenly everyone without exception is confronted with the harsh reality of having no real choice at all. Not even a pretend one. Is that really the more desirable approach? Where before only a select few players feel the frustration of not actually having a choice, now everyone would feel like it because now it has become a reality for everyone instead of the select few.
This really doesn't help anyone IMHO. It would merely make the hardcore nerds feel less shitty about themselves while dragging everyone else down the drain into misery land with them. Welcome to the Codex, newfag!

TL;DR: False choices in RPGs might actually be a necessary evil we will have to come to terms with.
I don't have all the answers, I was merely raising a question. Stop pestering me, man. Officer, am I free to go?
 

Wunderbar

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I don't hate false choices, it's just a small thing that mildly irritates me. I voted for it since that poll allows multiple responses, but i would probably left it unchecked if the amount of votes was limited.
 

luj1

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Compared to other bollocks such as bad rulesets, feature bloat and mandatory companions it's a non issue
 

Butter

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It should be noted that linear RPGs with little in the way of optional content (e.g. Icewind Dale) can be excellent. An RPG doesn't need a branching narrative or a variety of solutions to each quest, if it offers a lot of build or party composition variety. I imagine that implementing new classes and new spells is also less resource-intensive than new locations and new quests.

But with that out of the way, let's consider a couple examples of narrative branching. The Witcher 2 and Age of Decadence both take this idea to the extreme, offering very different paths through the main quest depending on early choices you make. This is admirable, but probably not a good investment overall. For example, imagine if AoD had 3 starting choices instead of 8, but each one had 50% more content. That would result in a single playthrough lasting longer, but with less total content in the game, and it would still be praised for giving players that choice.

My own opinion is that gameplay choices are more important than narrative choices. It's a lot more fun when you realize that you have multiple solutions to a single problem, than when you play through an on-rails game a second time just to see a different ending. Of course most video game writers are bad writers, which means they have a hard enough time telling one story, let alone multiple stories or a branching story. Gameplay choices that result from systems are usually much cheaper to implement than narrative choices, that at the very least require new writing but may also require additional voice acting, new animations, etc.

And as it specifically pertains to false choices, in a way this is Steam's fault. It's so easy to accumulate hundreds of cheap games and not finish any of them, and developers are well aware of this phenomenon. They have achievements and other metadata to show that people aren't replaying their games to see all the permutations. It's also the fault of reviewers and journalists who race through games so that they can get their reviews out quickly, and who very rarely take the time to experiment with all the available choices. So developers cynically responded by offering only the illusion of choice.
 

V_K

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My own opinion is that gameplay choices are more important than narrative choices. It's a lot more fun when you realize that you have multiple solutions to a single problem, than when you play through an on-rails game a second time just to see a different ending. Of course most video game writers are bad writers, which means they have a hard enough time telling one story, let alone multiple stories or a branching story. Gameplay choices that result from systems are usually much cheaper to implement than narrative choices, that at the very least require new writing but may also require additional voice acting, new animations, etc.
Couldn't agree more. However, while possibly cheaper, gameplay choices are harder to implement because you need competent systems designers and level designers for that. That's mostly a lost art.
Unless by gameplay choices you mean the choice of combat vs. dialog checks - then no, only one of those qualifies as gameplay.
And as it specifically pertains to false choices, in a way this is Steam's fault. It's so easy to accumulate hundreds of cheap games and not finish any of them, and developers are well aware of this phenomenon. They have achievements and other metadata to show that people aren't replaying their games to see all the permutations.
I wouldn't blame it on Steam or players. You just have to be extremely confident in your game to assume that people will want to replay it. And most of the time that confidence would be completely unfounded. In my experience, in 95% of RPGs mechanics get old and stale way before the end of the first playthrough, nevermind subsequent ones - and most of the exceptions are exceptions simply because they are on the shorter side.
 

octavius

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Of course it's nice to have, but not really essential. Not to me, at least.
If you really want meaningful choices and branching stories, I think tabletop role-playing with a human GM is better suited for that, while a CRPG can do things like combat so much better and quicker.

Personally I don't mind linearity on a strategic level, but I like lots of tactical choices, and I rather detest individual maps/levels that are too railroaded. Which is why I love Chaos Strike Back's level design, but loathed the first Splinter Cell game, for example.
 
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The only implementation of false choice that really irritated me was the one in Fallout 4, with the 4 possible responses to every NPC request: Yes, Yes with extra words, Yes but sarcastic, No but Yes.
 

Yosharian

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Rising costs (in practical terms not just financial) of game development are causing actual 'choice' in games to become less expansive.

For example, how are you gonna create a bunch of different dialogue paths (and maybe even divergent quest paths as a result) in a given quest when you gotta pay for the voice actors to do all that dialogue? And then when the quest is inevitably rewritten or changed significantly later on you you gotta redo it all...

In the past changing a few words in a dialogue set was trivial, relatively speaking. Now that every fucking game has got to be 'cinematic' in order to appeal to normies, actual choice has gone down the toilet.
 

Harthwain

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TL;DR: False choices in RPGs might actually be a necessary evil we will have to come to terms with.
Not really. You could have the actual choices to be systemically ingrained in the gameplay (and its mechanics), instead of being tied to C&C. Because the main strength of RPGs is not the narrative - it's how the player decides to engage with the world, and the rules allow for a lot of flexibility in approaching problems.
 

Ocelot

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A game with an ideal amount of impactful choices would be hard to develop. If you keep giving meaningful choices to a questline, the number of possible outcomes is increasing exponentially. So if a dev team has a limited amount of resources, they may have to axe other types of content to makes quests have choices that matter. And not all quests have to be extremely elaborate. If anything, it's more immersive to have small and simple side-quests in an RPG along with ones that give more choice.

As Yosharian said above, this becomes even harder when a set of dialogues is based on voice actors and not simply text. Modern games/RPG in general juggle between a lot of things to maintain a broad appeal. They must have at least some cinematic elements, be user-friendly, avoid anything too politically incorrect, have a lot of talented voice actors, branch out to other genres etc. Therefore, some RPG elements get watered down along the way.
 

Twiglard

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There are already plenty of shit games with visceral, yet diverse and inclusive gameplay. The developers need to have at least a modicum of ambition. These third-person action games surely could've been made in a factory line. OP is willingly embracing the decline.

And then when the quest is inevitably rewritten or changed significantly later on you you gotta redo it all...

Voice acting is always done last.

TL;DR: False choices in RPGs might actually be a necessary evil we will have to come to terms with.

Sure, as long as there are actually some real narrative choices. Then cosmetic ones are fine.
 

Sigourn

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Chioce and consequences are not just about quests, but also about gameplay.

There are RPGs that offer a ridiculous amount of options when it comes to the gameplay, but ultimately most of them don't matter. This is just as, if not even more, frustrating that fake dialogue/quest choices.
Regarding quests: I truly don't mind if devs simplify false choices into no choices at all. You know why? Because the existence of false choices means the devs acknowledge players want choices, but they simply won't give them to them and will instead disguise linearity. Meanwhile a developer that removes false choices altogether is looking to offer a different, linear, experience, pulling no punches.

New Vegas had a lot of great C&C when it came to dialogue. It also had some questionable dialogue "choices", e.g. when you encounter Ringo in his hideout you can choose between three dialogue options. All of them lead to the same response. It's even more ridiculous when at least one of them sounds like a threat ("If you shoot, you'd better not miss") and yet he replies with "Sorry pal, you caught me off guard, that's all".
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

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while a CRPG can do things like combat so much better and quicker.

Quicker, but not necessarily better. In fact, never better if you've got a good DM. And it depends on ruleset and level. AD&D 2nd Edition combat goes p. fast due to subtraction. Providing the group doesn't go full retard with 10 ApR and other shit that shouldn't even be in computer RPGs.
 

harhar!

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You don't need to play a game multiple times to benefit from locked content. Just the knowledge that my decisions actually make a difference makes them much more meaningful. I have no interest in playing a "your decisions matter" game with fake narrative branches.
 

samuraigaiden

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Multiple branching paths that ultimately lead to the same outcome. Your choices impact your playthrough in significant ways, but not the ending. These are not false choices. Dialogue options that serve only as flavor text but do not have consequences at all. These are false choices, but are they detrimental to the overall experience? If the dialogue clearly implies that you are making a choice but the events of the game make that choice irrelevant, that's a false choice that enriches the game. It's a storytelling artifice.

People who are triggered by this kind of false choices remind me of those who are triggered by missing a 90% shot in XCOM. Ultimately they are just dissatisfied by things not happening the way they expect them to.
 

V_K

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I'm not triggered but I'm annoyed by any kind of narrative choices because they break the flow of gameplay and make me engage with the story beyond the level I want to engage with it (i.e. as a window dressing for gameplay). If I have to make all that effort for nothing, that's twice as annoying. Just give me a wall of text instead and let me move on to more exciting stuff.
 

Serious_Business

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The problem of fake choice came from the Bioware design choice of giving the player options to "express themselves", but that would always lead to the same impact. It was created not necessarily to be "fake", or even to save resources because players don't play games more than once, but to have player expression in mind - "roleplaying". The concept of expression here, as elsewhere, essentially means something that allows individuals to affirm their identities ; essentially you can "be" your character this way, but it has no impact beyond what you believe of your character. What your character is or isn't actually matters very little in traditional crpgs. Expression has very little place in Fallout - only world reactivity. Either your character "is" something, or acts certain ways : you are what you do. It's a metaphysical issue, man.
 

Sinatar

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The only choices I care about are things like "Do I stab this goblin with my broadsword or bash him with my mace?" or "Do I cast Magic Missile or sleep?".

"Story" choices in someone's poorly written rpg fanfiction matter precisely 0 to me.
 

DeepOcean

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Choice and consequence is about character freedom to me, I mean character freedom, not player freedom and both are different. I mean, a game like Icewind Dale doesnt need choice and consequence because it isnt selling you freedom, you are on a specific place and on a specific situation and you need to go on a specific path, your character doesnt have choices. The focus on the game is selling you the experience of Dungeon Crawling on the Infinity Engine and it does it well. It depends the kind of feeling and experience the game is trying to sell to the player. If a game is extremely focused on combat, it also doesnt need choice and consequence because it isnt trying to simulate a world but focus on tactical and strategic elements as the main gaming loop and not world simulation.

Any rpg that claims any sort of character freedom and world simulation NEEDS choice and consequence, this is even more true when you create your own character. I'm talking about RPGs here, other games like Far Cry also offer the feeling of freedom but the focus of an open world FPS is offering player freedom, not character freedom, a sandbox for you to kill shit on it and not trying to simulate a world, on a FPS, you dont spend shitload of time talking with NPCs, you just shoot shit.

RPGs that offer open worlds like Fallout NEED choice and consequence as an extremely important element of world simulation, what defines a RPG from an action game is this ambition at world simulation. New Vegas, for example, is a decent RPG because of the choices in factions and that you cant be friends with everybody, the world is about the struggle between the Legion and NCR, if you could do the entire main quest line and be friends with everybody to absolutely not have gated content, this would provide player freedom but not character freedom because this would demolish the entire world simulation credibility and destroy the world where the character is, the character the player controls is not the player, he is inserted on another world and this character needs to abide to the rules of this world, destroying those rules to offer player freedom wont actually improve the experience.If by the rules of the game, your character shouldnt be able to do something, he shouldnt be able to, period.

Allowing the player experience everything on one go, doesnt matter how nonsensical that end being, that offers more player freedom but at cost of creating a new experience on a different world and try to simulate how a life would be on this simulated world on on another words, a RPG experience, more player freedom can mean less character freedom as you need to demolish character choices and world credibility to allow the player to have more freedom.

Skyrim is a piece of crap because of that. You can be the leader of all factions, this offer more player freedom but completely destroy the world simulation to ridiculous levels where you kill the fucking Emperor on one of the guilds and can still be a leader for Empire toops, the game becomes a complete farce, that sort of player freedom doesnt belong on a RPG and any game that do that sort of shit are actually making an action adventure game or a FPS game because those games sell more and are using RPG as only a marketing gimmick. Yes, the last RPG Bethesda made was Morrrowind.

Of course, you have games like AoD on the other extreme with short character life spans to offer tons of choice and consequence. This offers so much choice and consequence but this could mean a lesser world scope and as I said, choice and consequence are extremely important on any game that is trying to be an open RPG but I might not be interested into knowing all the different little permutations of the same choice could be so you need to do a balancing act. I mean, if Fallout was only about Shady Sands and all the little permutations on decisions on that village, it wouldnt be a better game for it. I prefer choice and consequence being targetted at bigger decisions on the world and you dont need to litter the entire game with them on every corner not because that wont be good but because that would mean or you go crazy or you go with no money to finish the game.

So, the illusion of choice, I'm fine with it if you restrict it to little things and use it more as a way to allow a character to express himself, not every single quest needs ten different outcomes but it is absolutely haram on bigger decisions where you absolutely SHOULD have the choice.
 

Ol' Willy

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C&C should result in different gameplay and this is what I like and want from the games. Choose faction. Choose path. Choose solution. See the results. This is why there's a second C in C&C - if there's no visible outcome, it's not a proper C&C and just flavor bullshit or "illusion of choice", as OP puts it. False choices and illusion of choice are part of the cancer that kills RPGs.
 

gurugeorge

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Strap Yourselves In
So according to Gregz excellent "Most Hated Gameplay Element" Thread the most hated gameplay element for Codexians is defined as *drumroll* "false choices where it seems like you can choose one thing, but railroads you regardless".
Based on this result I thought the topic of false choices might warrant it's own thread. If so many of us are having problems with this approach to game design let's talk about it!

What's your take on this issue? Is it really as big of a deal as the Codex wants you to believe? Are there alternatives? Let the world know! There's so many Developers lurking here, let them know what you think and help change the way games are made! Future generations of gamers will thank you for ushering in the age of incline. Right here, right now! Let's do it!!! *snorts some more cocaine*

Now with that out of the way here's my take on it. While thinking about this issue for a bit I had the following thought: perhaps false choices are merely a symptom of a deeper frustration and underlying problem with modern game design.
What I mean by that is there's only a finite amount of content available in an RPG.
Casual RPG players seem to almost have come to expect to see all - or at the very least most - content a game has to offer within a single playthrough. "Gated content" in any form is viewed as bad design because players feel like they are missing out on content they are entitled to experience because they "payed money for a full game, not half a game" as I have read recently on the Steam forums :D

In my view false choices offer an alluring compromise to Developers, perhaps even desirable. Especially since it is my impression that most players (read: not most codexers necessarily, but at the very least the majority of filthy casuals) are content with finishing RPGs once and only once. They may restart a couple times with different class/skill combinations but after they are happy with their build/composition the rest of the game is experienced only once.
If a Developer was to "hide" too much content from players behind real choices, nowadays players might actually get upset and additionally the Developers' higher ups/investors might deem real choices instead of false choices - no matter how big or small they might be - wasted development time and therefore wasted money. This results in the design philosophy of games like Age of Decadence for instance having almost become inappropriate or old-fashioned in the modern development landscape. At least in the eyes of the AAA big money companies. This can also have a long term negative impact on the perception of players exposed to these kind of games. Other approaches can be perceived as wrong or unexpected. Obviously this is dangerous to the diversity of any genre.
So in short the alternative to false choices in the form of real choices but consequently less content per single playthrough = bad from the perspective of a majority of casuals, investors and project leads alike.


So how about then instead of getting rid of real choices, simply get rid of the illusion of choice altogether? No more frustration right?
Well...

How do you actually notice false choices? If they are halfway decently presented average joe doesn't notice them. They are noticed by the ones savescumming, metagaming or replaying. In other words: only a problem for the minority hardcore players.

If you were to remove false choices suddenly everyone without exception is confronted with the harsh reality of having no real choice at all. Not even a pretend one. Is that really the more desirable approach? Where before only a select few players feel the frustration of not actually having a choice, now everyone would feel like it because now it has become a reality for everyone instead of the select few.
This really doesn't help anyone IMHO. It would merely make the hardcore nerds feel less shitty about themselves while dragging everyone else down the drain into misery land with them. Welcome to the Codex, newfag!

TL;DR: False choices in RPGs might actually be a necessary evil we will have to come to terms with.
I don't have all the answers, I was merely raising a question. Stop pestering me, man. Officer, am I free to go?

I honestly think that it's more of a mechanical problem than a problem of development philosophy or a purely commercial consideration re. catering to filthy casuals. The advent of voice-acting has meant that you can't have as much C&C in games as you used to. It's a trade-off between the greater immersion of good voice-acting versus the possibility of having tons and tons of branching dialogue when it's just text.

Parallel with that is the greater realism as well. When things are abstracted, you can represent more; when things have to be realistically represented graphically, it's a huge burden on the studio in terms of getting enough artists and assets made. Yet of course greater realism is also very attractive and immersive too.

Another related thing is that team size gets unwieldy because of the above problem - unless you have really top notch management. Games in the past were made by "mannerbund" - small hunting parties (so to speak) of enthusiastic guys. You can get a lot more done that way. But when you have multiple departments with hundreds of people, communication becomes more difficult. You don't have that sense of flight you get with a small, tight team, where sometimes hardly a word has to be spoken and everyone knows what to do (while at other times you can have raging arguments as well, and nobody's offended because everyone's hunting the same prey, so to speak).
 

Carrion

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The problem of fake choice came from the Bioware design choice of giving the player options to "express themselves", but that would always lead to the same impact. It was created not necessarily to be "fake", or even to save resources because players don't play games more than once, but to have player expression in mind - "roleplaying". The concept of expression here, as elsewhere, essentially means something that allows individuals to affirm their identities ; essentially you can "be" your character this way, but it has no impact beyond what you believe of your character. What your character is or isn't actually matters very little in traditional crpgs. Expression has very little place in Fallout - only world reactivity. Either your character "is" something, or acts certain ways : you are what you do. It's a metaphysical issue, man.
Yeah.

I'm not necessarily against Bioware-style "false" choices per se, like being able to say the same thing in two or three different ways, or being railroaded into a specific outcome regardless of what you choose. Some flavor can be good every now and then, but problems arise if all of your supposed C&C is just surface-level stuff like that. Bioware's magic tricks got old pretty fast, and when you could see past the facade the whole supposed C&C aspect pretty much fell apart. There are games that do a much better job with illusion of choice, though. Deus Ex has a fairly limited amount of C&C, but the surprising ways the game presents it makes it seems more reactive than it actually is. In DX you don't always even realize that there is a choice, which makes it all the more impactful when the game actually reacts to something you did, whereas in a standard Bioware game you're bombarded with "choices" that ultimately don't seem to matter in any meaningful way. DX is elevated by subsequent playthroughs whereas a replay of a Bioware game just makes it obvious that the emperor is in fact butt naked.

A game with an ideal amount of impactful choices would be hard to develop. If you keep giving meaningful choices to a questline, the number of possible outcomes is increasing exponentially.
Not every choice needs to lead to a new branch, though. You can have choices that cancel out some previous choices, consequences that are the result of a dozen little decisions you've made on the way, purely mechanical C&C that makes use of the game's systems like character disposition or faction mechanics without requiring much in the way of handcrafted outcomes, and so on. The Age of Decadence brand of C&C requires a fuckton of work and would indeed be unimaginable in a large-scale game, even one with a gigantig budget, but it's not the only way to go about it.
 

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