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The significance of the drunkard in the Core City zone

Trashos

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
In the "Recover Tunneler" quest for Gorsky, you have to go to a location in the Zone of Core City, where you basically do 4 things:

1) Deal with a drunkard who blocks your way next to a chasm.
2) Deal with the partying Zoners next to the Tunneler.
3) Deal with the caged Faceless. (important for further developments in DC, too)
4) Fix the Tunneler.

I never paid much attention to Step 1, it looks to be a random opportunity for some role playing, since you are offered various ways to deal with him. That is probably the case.

However, today I got this weird idea that there may be a deeper gameplay purpose behind the presence of the drunkard. I am not sure, however, I may just be seeing things that are not there.

So my question to you is: Do you see any deeper purpose for his presence? I will end this post here hoping for interest, and I will reveal my idea in a few days.
 

Trashos

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
if you deal with him peacefully he will return favor in deep caverns

Interesting. I didn't know, because I always kill him.

I have killed him in my current playthrough too. I need either a detailed rundown of what his role is in DC or a a way to look for him in youtube let's plays.
 

Trashos

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
I will give you guys Monday, and I am going to reveal & analyze the idea on Tuesday. OP has warned you enough that the idea is a bit far-fetched, but hopefully some of you will still find it interesting or entertaining.

Teaser spoilers below (2nd spoiler is quite significant):
My idea connects Step 1 to Step 3 (see OP).
My idea connects Step 1 to Step 3 via a known psychological effect.
 

Trashos

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
All right, here it comes. Today we are going to be talking about the principle of "Commitment & Consistency", as for example has been described in Cialdini's Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. According to this principle, people love to be consistent either because they think consistency is badass or because their brain is shut down and they are on autopilot. This principle is used, for example, in deal-making, where one side tries to get the other side to say "yes" a few times before asking the actually important question (where again "yes" is desired as an answer).

- Have you had your coffee yet?
- Yes.
- Great, we can start then.
- Yes.
- All right, can I borrow your pen for a minute?
- Yes.
- (here comes the important question) So... will you invest in my business?
- (on autopilot) Er... yes, OK.

I am exaggerating a bit for clarity, but you get the point of the principle.

What does this have to do with Underrail's drunkard?
In Step 1 of OP, you meet that obnoxious drunken prick blocking your way next to a chasm. You try to plead and reason with him, but he is just being a dick about it. You have various options of dealing with him, but let's say that he just gets on your nerves and you kick him into the chasm.

In Step 3, we have a very important encounter with an injured and caged Faceless. You can open the cage and let him go, and even give him bandages to heal. Another option is to break the cage's chain and let him fall into the chasm and die. Even if you do not know it yet, your choice affects developments later in the game (in DC, in particular).

But that is a caged and injured creature, and it is very easy to see him in a positive light and let him go. However, the Principle of Commitment & Consistency states that now there is a higher probability of letting him fall into the chasm, just because you kicked the obnoxious drunken piece of shit into the chasm as well.

On Saturday, I kinda felt an urge to kill the caged Faceless, even though I knew it was the wrong approach for my plans. I was trying to understand where that urge came from, when I thought of the the Principle under discussion here. Maybe this was not done on purpose by the developers, but who knows. They seem to love reading nerdy stuff.

TL;DR: The Principle of Commitment & Consistency raises the probability that you treat the poor caged Faceless in the same manner that you treated the obnoxious drunkard.
 

Goromorg

Savant
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
278
That wouldn't suprise me at all TBH, Styg is a God-Emperor-tier troll after all.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
thats.... not how it works.

for one thing, those two things dont happen right after one another.
 

Trashos

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
for one thing, those two things dont happen right after one another.

In the example I used above to present the Principle of Commitment & Consistency, things indeed happen one after the other. However, I was just trying to present the Principle in the simplest and briefest way possible (and by that I do not mean that I did the best job possible- maybe I didn't). But things do not have to happen one after the other in the general case.

For example: Let's say that I ask you to sign a petition that our municipality needs to pay more attention to environmental issues. You agree and sign the petition. TWO WEEKS LATER, my business partner Joe comes to you and tries to sell you an environment-friendly device. The fact that you have signed the petition raises the probability that you buy this device. This is actually a marketing strategy that businesses and governments use sometimes. Even if 2 weeks have passed, we are still operating under the Principle of Commitment & Consistency.

Naturally, the time distance between the steps cannot be infinite, otherwise the effect weakens too much. The question then is whether Steps 1 & 3 in OP are too far apart or close enough. I believe they are close enough for the Principle to matter and affect some players.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
In many psychological theories like this one, the effect size often appears and disappears depending on environmental variables. Confirmation bias, for example, does seem to pretty clearly happen in some circumstances, but there remains little evidence of it in others. Which isn't surprising.

Signing an environment-friendly petition and then buying an environment-friendly device, by the way, is very different from saying "drop the guy" and then 20 minutes later saying "drop the guy". For it to be the same mechanism, you'd have to have someone say "I sign the thing" then two weeks later they're more likely to say "sign the thing" to some unrelated petition. For the environment example the mechanism is different. And any experiment showing this effect would have to conclusively rule out the possibility that the person just likes the environment. But the way you apply this to the Faceless example, you're going by the "Yes Yes Yes" example - and then assuming this holds for, what, 30 minutes? 1 hour?
 

Trashos

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
Tigranes, you are raising good points that I initially wanted to include in my original analysis. Eventually I didn't, because I tried to keep it brief. But I am saying this to let you know that I do appreciate your objections and questions.

Signing an environment-friendly petition and then buying an environment-friendly device, by the way, is very different from saying "drop the guy" and then 20 minutes later saying "drop the guy". For it to be the same mechanism, you'd have to have someone say "I sign the thing" then two weeks later they're more likely to say "sign the thing" to some unrelated petition. For the environment example the mechanism is different.

Not necessarily. Here is how it goes: When you sign the petition for the environment, a small part of your brain commits to "I sign the thing" as you say, and another small part of your brain commits to "I care for the environment". When my business partner Joe visits you, he tries to take advantage of the latter part, while he does not care about the former part. It is still the same mechanism, though.


And any experiment showing this effect would have to conclusively rule out the possibility that the person just likes the environment.

Joe does not care about that, he only cares about statistics. If some more people buy the device due to the trick, then the trick worked (to some extend). Also see below.

But the way you apply this to the Faceless example, you're going by the "Yes Yes Yes" example - and then assuming this holds for, what, 30 minutes? 1 hour?

Good question. I do not know and nobody knows for sure. In the real world such things are usually measured by trial & error. In principle, we *could* measure whether the drunkard of Underrail has an actual effect on the Faceless' fate by running an experiment: two large test groups play two versions of Underrail. One test group plays a version where the drunkard exists, and the other test group plays a version without the drunkard. We then measure if there is a statistically significant difference in the fate of the Faceless in the two cases.

Since noone is going to run that experiment, I have to resort to "I believe" statements, I am afraid.
 

Sheepherder

Augur
Joined
Feb 4, 2014
Messages
657
Not pushing him and going around is extra 3 load screens. Fuck that.
Also, if you approach the map through the area transition which triggers the drunk, there's a chance for a random encounter with a stealthed knife mugger. He spawns right near the area transition so you can't spam Enter to start combat as it's on cooldown. RIP glass cannon builds.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
Tigranes, you are raising good points that I initially wanted to include in my original analysis. Eventually I didn't, because I tried to keep it brief. But I am saying this to let you know that I do appreciate your objections and questions.

Signing an environment-friendly petition and then buying an environment-friendly device, by the way, is very different from saying "drop the guy" and then 20 minutes later saying "drop the guy". For it to be the same mechanism, you'd have to have someone say "I sign the thing" then two weeks later they're more likely to say "sign the thing" to some unrelated petition. For the environment example the mechanism is different.

Not necessarily. Here is how it goes: When you sign the petition for the environment, a small part of your brain commits to "I sign the thing" as you say, and another small part of your brain commits to "I care for the environment". When my business partner Joe visits you, he tries to take advantage of the latter part, while he does not care about the former part. It is still the same mechanism, though.


And any experiment showing this effect would have to conclusively rule out the possibility that the person just likes the environment.

Joe does not care about that, he only cares about statistics. If some more people buy the device due to the trick, then the trick worked (to some extend). Also see below.

But the way you apply this to the Faceless example, you're going by the "Yes Yes Yes" example - and then assuming this holds for, what, 30 minutes? 1 hour?

Good question. I do not know and nobody knows for sure. In the real world such things are usually measured by trial & error. In principle, we *could* measure whether the drunkard of Underrail has an actual effect on the Faceless' fate by running an experiment: two large test groups play two versions of Underrail. One test group plays a version where the drunkard exists, and the other test group plays a version without the drunkard. We then measure if there is a statistically significant difference in the fate of the Faceless in the two cases.

Since noone is going to run that experiment, I have to resort to "I believe" statements, I am afraid.

I appreciate that. I think the point is that all of those things you say could be true, but it's equally plausible that there are other explanations. E.g. we cannot in fact claim that the signing trick worked, unless we show that there is still a significant uptick in signing rates even for people who don't give a shit about the environment. E.g. by running another experiment where you ask them to sign something completely unrelated, or by screening the participants and checking that they hate trees. You have to isolate the effect that you're looking for from all the confounding & mediating possibilities. It's only after that process that there's scientific consensus and people like Cialdini can break it down for people outside the field to digest. (At least, that's how it's supposed to work.)

So for the Underrail example, we need something more to assume that the Yes Yes Yes effect we see in face-to-face rapid-fire communication holds for someone doing video game dialogue trees over 30 minutes. Even beyond time, the interaction situation is entirely different and you lose the pressures of nonverbal communication dynamics. I think a good social scientist says there, no, we can't assume it's happening here until we do those tests. I'm no psychologist, so I don't know what kinds of tests have been done on this face-to-face.

Now, I would bet $100 Styg had no such intent here, but we do see other video games try to pull such psych tricks. There are mobile games for little kids where the on-screen characters look sad and start crying if you don't click through the pay-to-win button, for example.
 

epeli

Arcane
Joined
Aug 17, 2014
Messages
719
Now, I would bet $100 Styg had no such intent here

I also believe Styg wouldn't do that, but he does very little dialog writing. Trashos' idea doesn't sound completely out of question coming from the game's writer, PhrygianDominant/Stef. (He doesn't post on codex)

But honestly, if I had to guess? Pushing the drunk into abyss serves a different, vaguely related purpose. It introduces the gameplay significance of the environment art to the player: there's a deadly drop here, and you can interact with it in some ways. It shows you what would happen if you were to also drop the faceless. So it really does give the player the idea, but pushing that drunk probably isn't (intended to be) enough to make players commit to repeating that behavior.
 

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