Quillon
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2016
- Messages
- 5,241
I became interested in Sawyer after I watched his GDC talks way back when, particularly the one about choice conflict. Some of the relevant/key things he said in that talk were:
f.i; You are role-playing an agressive character who intimidates people to achieve a goal and face a challenge that can only be achieved via being a diplomatic character. So you'll either behave diplomatically or shoot yourself in the foot by not doing so and get a worse/the worst outcome of that situation.
Define an expression range(x number of dispositions in PoE's case) and support it throughout the game. If you don't define it, you'll let the players down by allowing them to be, let's say Cruel & Deceptive but inconsistently. He says the latter way of doing it makes it mostly cosmetic; sometimes players would get something out of it but most of the time players are gonna get screwed.
Yeah, everything he'd said sounded right. So why did the 2 games he has directed since then failed narratively?
My short answer is: Defining the said "range of expressions(10 different dispositions in PoE)" and not being able to fully support them.
So the range of expressions/dispositions is everywhere in the PoE games, we keep getting points towards one of the dispositions in nearly all conversations but reactivity for them are spread far too thin. To me there is no difference between aligning towards dispositions in PoE games and choosing "how you say the same things in different manners" in Mass Effect Andromeda. Player expression is far too overrated by Sawyer and whoever's responsible for MEA. At least in MEA we know that we won't make a difference by using different manners to accomplish the same goal, but in PoE we're led to believe we'll get consequences for behaving in certain ways, and the consequences are, again, spread too thin, ultimately aren't compelling, makes the expressions/dispositions COSMETİC which is the very thing he didn't want them to be.
So how FNV was much more successful narratively with the Speech/Win button? Because the player expression is what's in our heads; it isn't what is written on our character sheets. Because Choice & Consequence is far more important than HOW we make that CHOICE. If we make a choice in FNV we're getting the consequence more often than not; little or big, sooner or later but in PoE, it feels like/we're led to believe that we're making choices in every conversation and when we see the - spread too thin consequence - of our many, many "choices", guess what, its just how an NPC responds to us; won't lock us out of anything, won't give us anything special, ultimately flavor, cosmetic, whatever... If an NPC won't favor me initially cos I wasn't "honest" enough, I almost always have another stat check to accomplish the same thing anyway. Players are not allowed to fail narratively (too) I guess :D
I could probably go on, but will have to think for it but I'm lazy.
tl;dr defining the range of expressions is cool and all but you(Obs) didn't have the resources to make it compelling. Focusing on C&C and not bothering this much with how players make the first C would have been much better for RPG games of this caliber.
There is also that Deadfire having far too many under-explored themes thing that I've been thinking and that current writers are shit thing that you'll say.
Choice conflict: Doing(Saying) the "right thing" conflicts with being the the "right character".
f.i; You are role-playing an agressive character who intimidates people to achieve a goal and face a challenge that can only be achieved via being a diplomatic character. So you'll either behave diplomatically or shoot yourself in the foot by not doing so and get a worse/the worst outcome of that situation.
The right character: Any character that falls within our supported range of expressions.
Define an expression range(x number of dispositions in PoE's case) and support it throughout the game. If you don't define it, you'll let the players down by allowing them to be, let's say Cruel & Deceptive but inconsistently. He says the latter way of doing it makes it mostly cosmetic; sometimes players would get something out of it but most of the time players are gonna get screwed.
The Assertion: Planning avoids choice conflict: When all ways are validated ways and a clear response/reactivity spectrum consistently reinforced in the narrative, player benefits and character roles align.
Yeah, everything he'd said sounded right. So why did the 2 games he has directed since then failed narratively?
My short answer is: Defining the said "range of expressions(10 different dispositions in PoE)" and not being able to fully support them.
So the range of expressions/dispositions is everywhere in the PoE games, we keep getting points towards one of the dispositions in nearly all conversations but reactivity for them are spread far too thin. To me there is no difference between aligning towards dispositions in PoE games and choosing "how you say the same things in different manners" in Mass Effect Andromeda. Player expression is far too overrated by Sawyer and whoever's responsible for MEA. At least in MEA we know that we won't make a difference by using different manners to accomplish the same goal, but in PoE we're led to believe we'll get consequences for behaving in certain ways, and the consequences are, again, spread too thin, ultimately aren't compelling, makes the expressions/dispositions COSMETİC which is the very thing he didn't want them to be.
So how FNV was much more successful narratively with the Speech/Win button? Because the player expression is what's in our heads; it isn't what is written on our character sheets. Because Choice & Consequence is far more important than HOW we make that CHOICE. If we make a choice in FNV we're getting the consequence more often than not; little or big, sooner or later but in PoE, it feels like/we're led to believe that we're making choices in every conversation and when we see the - spread too thin consequence - of our many, many "choices", guess what, its just how an NPC responds to us; won't lock us out of anything, won't give us anything special, ultimately flavor, cosmetic, whatever... If an NPC won't favor me initially cos I wasn't "honest" enough, I almost always have another stat check to accomplish the same thing anyway. Players are not allowed to fail narratively (too) I guess :D
I could probably go on, but will have to think for it but I'm lazy.
tl;dr defining the range of expressions is cool and all but you(Obs) didn't have the resources to make it compelling. Focusing on C&C and not bothering this much with how players make the first C would have been much better for RPG games of this caliber.
There is also that Deadfire having far too many under-explored themes thing that I've been thinking and that current writers are shit thing that you'll say.
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