It feels like too many cases have ambiguous endings.

[[GRVTS]Fat Bastard]

So, I just finished the game and I just didn't feel very satisfied at the end of most of the cases. It felt like my decisions just came down to personal morals or a 'feeling' I get about some suspects.

Take gilded cage for an example. Two options, and both seem right. There is no way to get concrete evidence, or any kind of clue that would provide a clear choice. I know it might be cheap to just have a 'right' answer, but this is a detective game right? I'm solving cases, so naturally I'd like to be as thorough as possible and nail the true criminal with certainty.

This is a problem where the provided clues give lots of information, but the inability to be able to confirm the suspect with certainty kinda just ruins the feeling of solving the case.

Now onto the mother's love case. You get four options, and only one of them is correct, but the game likes to pretend that all of them are correct. This is annoying. It also makes things way too ambiguous when the answer is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ obvious!

[harlekinrains]

Agree - I'm midway through the game and I'm making this my midway feedback posting after more than 50 hours played (some of which was just exploring).

Whats immediately obvious in the longer sidequests, is that some of the stories were written to be ambigous pretty much towards the end, and then solved with a deus ex machina.

The quest that is fresh on my mind, and probably serves as the best blueprint for this concept is the "the first rule about fightclub is to never talk about fightclub" ( ;) ) questline.

When entering the sisters room - the flashbacks to the "women got beaten" case in Crimes and Punishments became obvious. (Same room structure in the house, ..) Sadly what also became obvious was, that the story was put last. Or to say it openly - nothing seemed like in service of the story. There were images on the wall that were duplicates, in the backyard there was a stupid minigame that made Jon happy - upstares theree was bird and stallion iconography for literally no reason. The foreshadowing was a painting that spelled everything out. The conclution (later, after a fighting interlute for no obvious reason), was a throw away item, Sherlock picked up, that served as deus ex machina to separate both suspects while the entire case was writen to be open (both could have done it the exact same way) untill the very end. Then a few chatskies were added that made it less likely for one of the two to have done it.

Compare this to the case in Crimes and punishements, it was based on, and everything falls flat. In crimes and punishments, the progresion had emotional beats. when the house became depressing, the garden opened up and first was lush and wonderfull, and the dog (dobby?) brought whimsy - and... everything flowed together servicing the story.

Chapter one often feels like the locations were designed first, and then the story was left open or ambigous as long as possible, an then something happens that makes one of the suspects more likely to....

While this might be better for suspense, the formula has become too obvious, because the narrative throughline almost never is there. Also the cases seem "thinner", much less flashed out with story detail. (I understand that you have many more of them this time around - but at least with main story quests and one or two of the optional ones, it would have been nice, if you hit the quality level you did before.).

With the excavation quest in Crimes and Punishment, when you enter the temple, it almost felt magical, and you were literally walking towards it, over water, increasing a sense of anxiety and wonder... In Chapter one, you hardly look at the key item you dig up, because its such an obvious mcguffin, to get the Professor away from that table - that most people wont even bother to look...

That coupled with a few cases, that either have been cut short, or where entire elements are simply droped from the storyline without an obvious explaination, when the deus ex machina enters, pretty much make sall of them worse.

Also the "chose what you think about a person" and both choices always becoming non sequiturs that both have to work somehow - almost feels like it ruins the game, because I bet the story artists had to write missions so both choices would fit. And somehow it shows. You seemingly cant get deep and gripping storylines that way. So change it. :)

There are smaller cases, that turn out to be better because of them being more able to service the story. The police investigations all were wonderfull for example, simply because they provided more story background.

The only other thing I will add is, that for exploration, I _need_ as in absolutely need, a first person view, thats not obstructed by a grainy blurry camera lense. I want to look at stuff, I want to be able to focus on stuff in first person. I want to explore assets in more detail - and I cant. For me this hurts the game so much, that its my number one criticism, even before the points made about the plot design on quests.

The open world is extremely wonderfully designed - but again feels unfinished and interaction design feels rushed. What about the book vendors that never have anything in stock. What about the treassure hunts, that are very well 'placed', but let you go to places, and then have you go back to them, because the item wasnt there, because you hadn't reached treassure hunt part 3 yet. Those could have been done better.

Whats extremely wonderfull is the lived in feeling of the worlddesign and the different design languages of the districts. After some time in the middle of treasure hunt part 2 I could literally look at the image, and intuit where it would be (building design, waterfountain feature, telescopes probably pointing towards the sea, a churchtower having the same features as the tower in the picture, so the tower in the picture probably is in the same district...) that stuff was insanely well done, so bravo.

Also character design and character background design still carries this game. (More than story this time -) its still a staple and very strong.

Thats all I have so far. But listen to the OP, the point he is making is a very, very good one - change the requirements for plot design back to where plot comes first. And then the other elements develop in service of that - it makes for a much deeper and meaningful experience while solving the cases. The way its handled in many hases in Chapter One it is a regression.


If you cant do it for all cases, thats fine, but at least for main quests plus 2.

Also the loop of get somewhere, then fight for no reason, also became old very quickly, another puzzle or two instead of always those fights would have gone a long way.

And I actually enjoy the fights, I do them voluntarily, several times, whenerver I come across a bandid hideout again - its just that the narrative progression doesnt always call for a fight - but the designers thought, its time for one, because of the gameplay loop... It feels... "sandboxy" in a bad way. A little more diversity would have gone a long way.

Dont get me wrong, I'm still loving this game, and I will play through it no matter what - but.... Crimes and Punishments was better... :)

[[GRVTS]Fat Bastard]

Well you clearly put way more thought into your post then me. I was just frustrated that so many of the cases I solved had terrible conclusions!

It got to the point where I just rushed to the end of the story to conclude this game. I was so tired of the game giving me this crappy cases! The conclusion to blind dueling? Sister murdered her brother because he was an abusive monster, so obviously the good option is to let her go. I mean come on!

She's a murderer, and the girl in Sirens song is a serial killer! I'm suppose to pretend that letting them go is satisfying? Pat myself on the back saying "Well I let the killer go, but it's fine because they were also victims"? That is as far from a satisfying case as a can be in my mind.

Yeah I could have just sent them to prison anyways, but then Jon gets all bummed and acts like I did a bad thing.

[Commodore]

I actually liked the ambiguous endings because it forced you, the player, to think through the case beyond just the deductions the game spells out for you. When I compare to Crimes&Punishments, that game felt ridiculously easy and it was always very obvious what the correct answer was.

My issue with Chapter One is the lack of high quality cases. The first one is fine as a tutorial, but is quickly forgettable. The third main case, with the painting, was interesting but straightforward so didn't offer a deductive challenge. And so remains Gilded Cage and Sacrificoal Lamb as the two big cases (and Mother's Love to some extent, though it's easy to know which ending is the correct one: you don't cut someone's throat to save them from drowning, you do for an allergic reaction and the game even says so).

For Gilded Cage, I accused the bosun cause her bruise was on the right arm while Swift's bruise was on the left arm, and only a right arm bruise matches the crime scene, not to mention the bosun's knife which is an uncommon type of knife and it's unlikely Swift would have bought one instead of a regular utility knife.

As for Sacrificial Lamb, that one actually pisses me off cause I'm convinced that Klaus is the murderer, but since I can't accuse him I went with Kurt because he's the only one who would have been wearing robes before the altercation (thus the bloody robes) and then needed to change into new ones. Both other suspects, even if they had worn robes to cover themselves from bloodstains, would have no reasons to disguise themselves after the fact to leave a room to which they were allowed access to already. Still, I think Klaus is deranged and killed the victim only to then call Sherlock and seem him fail at figuring out the truth.

[[GRVTS]Fat Bastard]

Originally posted by Commodore:

My issue with Chapter One is the lack of high quality cases. The first one is fine as a tutorial, but is quickly forgettable. The third main case, with the painting, was interesting but straightforward so didn't offer a deductive challenge. And so remains Gilded Cage and Sacrificoal Lamb as the two big cases (and Mother's Love to some extent, though it's easy to know which ending is the correct one: you don't cut someone's throat to save them from drowning, you do for an allergic reaction and the game even says so).

For Gilded Cage, I accused the bosun cause her bruise was on the right arm while Swift's bruise was on the left arm, and only a right arm bruise matches the crime scene, not to mention the bosun's knife which is an uncommon type of knife and it's unlikely Swift would have bought one instead of a regular utility knife.

Except if you arrest the other guy he very clearly says incriminating dialog. Gilded cage one.

Mother's love case choice is also obvious because Sherlock picked up the medicine, and that flashback was caused by him interacting with a teacup.

I can think through these cases too, but the clues you're given don't matter at all if those same clues apply to 1 or 2 more people.

[harlekinrains]

Originally posted by Commodore:

I actually liked the ambiguous endings because it forced you, the player, to think through the case beyond just the deductions the game spells out for you. When I compare to Crimes&Punishments, that game felt ridiculously easy and it was always very obvious what the correct answer was.

My issue with Chapter One is the lack of high quality cases. The first one is fine as a tutorial, but is quickly forgettable. The third main case, with the painting, was interesting but straightforward so didn't offer a deductive challenge. And so remains Gilded Cage and Sacrificoal Lamb as the two big cases (and Mother's Love to some extent, though it's easy to know which ending is the correct one: you don't cut someone's throat to save them from drowning, you do for an allergic reaction and the game even says so).

For Gilded Cage, I accused the bosun cause her bruise was on the right arm while Swift's bruise was on the left arm, and only a right arm bruise matches the crime scene, not to mention the bosun's knife which is an uncommon type of knife and it's unlikely Swift would have bought one instead of a regular utility knife.

As for Sacrificial Lamb, that one actually pisses me off cause I'm convinced that Klaus is the murderer, but since I can't accuse him I went with Kurt because he's the only one who would have been wearing robes before the altercation (thus the bloody robes) and then needed to change into new ones. Both other suspects, even if they had worn robes to cover themselves from bloodstains, would have no reasons to disguise themselves after the fact to leave a room to which they were allowed access to already. Still, I think Klaus is deranged and killed the victim only to then call Sherlock and seem him fail at figuring out the truth.

Then fill me in on your thought matches over blind guy shot victim, because he has a great sense of smell, and became a shooting champ, vs beaten women shot guy, because he wanted to sell her as a slave.

Oh, the ammount of thinking and philosophical delibaration that took, I'm sure in years to come, people will write books about that useless crap of stand in, because we couldnt be bothered to have any narrative plot.

The issue with bad plot design is, that you are not able to squirm yourself out of the problem with "but I had a creative mind, and the stuff I made up, made me think for yours" - thats not how story telling worked, not even in the time of ancient romans, or the high culture of greece, which this game loves to rip off endlessly to show that its cultured. A Mickey Mouse comic (refference more properly understandarble to europeans) had more of a narrative throughline, that "make your own story up, and feel great" simulator, because regardless of what you pick, you are never wrong - and if you are right, we threw in the conclusion 5 minutes before the ending anyhow, so have at it - and here you go, which of the two do you want to send to the hangman.

To which the answer is always NONE, because Sherlock and the Plot designer didnt do their job correctly and I feel bad sending a virtual character to the gallows, because the police is even more daft, than our main protagonist...

Again, because of character design, this stil kind of works. It feels engaging enough.
Except, that it doesnt.

Oh, and yes - I fully accept, that there should be throw away cases, otherwise that gamedesign doesnt work (too much effort to put into well designed plotlines, that also somewhat work in terms of ambiguity). But when even pulp novels in the past did a better job of hooking you in a fantasy, and all you get out of several quests is that someone REALLY, REALLY wanted everything to be ambigious to the point, where the conclusions dont make sense, or have any weight, but you are sentencing people to death over them? And its not even that, its that they are missing emotional payoff, heart, struggle. Its Mikey Mouse actor one with the great robe, and voice actor behind door one, or Mickeymouse actor two with the high ambition, and birth defect behind door number two. Both choices are correct, pick your participation trophy now. You are the worlds best detective - using your mind to make up conclusions that the game didnt deliver. (Despite maybe a spot on the arm being color, and not blood, so horray.)

Which I did, I just didnt find it very rewarding, once I realized, that that was either the management putting the narrative design last, or the storyboard artists writing it in.

But of course, with emotionally charged themes and art and suggestions of deeper meaning, that never, never ever payed off.

A Zelda Breath of the Wild designer, talked about that design concept once (gutukuru [sic!] or something similar). Its when you charge up places, or things with emotion or meaning, but only so much, that its skin deep, and then you have your main character still be a mute, with the emotional reaction span of a five year old.

This game does have better character design, but plotwise (narrative) - its style over substance. In Crimes and Punishments, at least that wasnt always the case.

[nikolaLTP]

It is the woman she admit it herself .

[harlekinrains]

Originally posted by nikolaLTP:

It is the woman she admit it herself .

Somewhat, yes. (She goes into motivation, and emotional struggle but afair doesnt outright admit it.) But most of that is conjecture. And to be known after the fact (accusation). The case is also designed to point you towards her as a culprit. Shes also the one sporting a paintstain on her dress. But missing that, the "narrative clues" that point you towards her - is a forshadowing painting, and an extremely badly done "have you seen something more at the casesite" (if you picked that the other guy is an important whitness). (There also are efforts of target pracrticing in her room, but knowing the lore of the club, that could have also been her brothers, with her being content to fix up the painting...)

And knowing how this game tries to slightly rewrite dialog, depending on what characterization you pick, I bet, some people could have chosen the other path and be perfectly happy with the 'solution'. (Bei it somewhat more unlikely, but so is a blind referee... ;) )

If there was a clever outline for what happened, f.e. why the painting in her room is called "the beginning (and the end)", I've cetainly missed it. Seems, that she got too worried over being sold as a slave (and being beaten) one day, picked up the gun, did target practice, then hoved it to the murderscene (by foot ;) ) and thats that. I think what I'm mostly missing is a clever setup and reward. (For deduction/investigating, but in the end the game just dripfeeds you the solution via the scent of a handcream. Which might actually be a setup, because Sherlock - again - asks a leading question to then get it confirmed by the whitness - thats the second time our master detective set himself up to be lied to just in the way he wanted to, to interpret that as proof. (He could have asked "what scent did you pick up" - but no he shoved the item under the blind persons nose, and asked him "was it this scent"? - to which the other person replied. Well - yes, it was, indeed. Thats goofy. Thats silly thats put there after the fact, thats not clever (the murder scene was an open space in nature...) - so why is the game basically reliant on that (and the paintstain) to point you to the culprit...))

Why couldnt you question the other guy that was present (no he is on deus ex machina ship, but a real swell guy, someone assures you), why was the resolve a deus ex machina (if it wasnt for the blind guy with the super smell). Why do I have to pick the outcome thats emotionally set up to be the correct one, and aside that - would a color stain on her dress put her at the scene reliably? No it wouldnt... So... yeah. Thanks for all the deus ex machina clues - but its not really that conclusive. Its obvious that the designers are pointing you that direction, yes - but...

The issue is not, that the game _doesnt_ give you the culprit in this case, its that the quest design has to make everything ambigous, to the point, where they write two likely outcomes, or the same outcome for both culprits (did it with this gun, bacause the duel was a chance, and because motive A, or motive B) and then resolves that by pushing outright stupid deus ex machina solutions in there - then making one of the outcomes more unlikely by adding hints to just how blind our referee was.

The issue comes in, when you expect good story telling outside getting your deus ex machina item presented on a silver tablet 2 minutes before the case ends. So while technically there was a somewhat identifyable culprit in this case - there wasnt a clever setup, it wasnt sherlock proving, that she was at the crimescene, the clues themselves werent conclusive - but the story artist then fixed that by adding the deus ex machina. And then wrote in an exposition piece after the accusation.

Thats storyteelling by having the management looking over your shoulder spelling out how it has to be designed 'to be gripping to the end', I guess. Or minus the management, and with more new talent on the storytelling front... ;)

[HEld]

i agree with the first post, long time sherlock holmes games fan..but what i dont like: no RIGHT solution to a case!

[Zombra]

I LOVE the ambiguity. The best detective stories, in my opinion, are the ones where the villain DOESN'T confess at the first sign of suspicion. And it never makes sense for them to scream their guilt as the police haul them away, either. Real criminals know to keep their mouths shut and demand a lawyer; and it's fascinating when a detective has to commit to a theory that makes sense to them, without a light shining from Heaven telling them they were correct.

I agree it's not very "Holmesian" - in the Doyle stories, Holmes never had a shred of doubt about anything - but personally I find pass/fail decisions to be rather tedious in gaming.

[[GRVTS]Fat Bastard]

Originally posted by Zombra:

I LOVE the ambiguity. The best detective stories, in my opinion, are the ones where the villain DOESN'T confess at the first sign of suspicion. And it never makes sense for them to scream their guilt as the police haul them away, either. Real criminals know to keep their mouths shut and demand a lawyer; and it's fascinating when a detective has to commit to a theory that makes sense to them, without a light shining from Heaven telling them they were correct.

I agree it's not very "Holmesian" - in the Doyle stories, Holmes never had a shred of doubt about anything - but personally I find pass/fail decisions to be rather tedious in gaming.

They don't have to confess everything. My issue is the inability to have more options to find the real criminal.

Besides confessions don't seem to matter in this game since everyone takes Sherlock at his word.

[Zombra]

Originally posted by GRVTSFat Bastard:

They don't have to confess everything. My issue is the inability to have more options to find the real criminal.

That's fair. I remember Crimes & Punishments had a ton of supplemental information if you looked around thoroughly, well beyond just the bread crumb main path of clues.

[harlekinrains]

Might have missed something. Just saw the introduction sequence of Crimes and Punishments today, where a blindfolded Holmes "is trying to shoot at vases..."

Hrm... Ahm.. Coincidence? I think not. Several of the sidequests in Chapter one seem to hint a quirks that Holmes develops (in later Frogware games, or as a character).

The bee gang quest offers you a reward item that hints at "Mr. Holmes" (movie), the "First rule about Fightclub is.." questline hints heavily at the Intro sequence, where a blindfolded Holmes shoots at vases...

So maybe the second duelist in a certain questline, did exchange the bullets with real ones (fake ones on the floor), started shooting at the killer, hit him in the elbow, and blood also spattered on the stone in front of them. Then the murderer either killed him as well, or more likely, the accusation that he fled on a ship, because he feared for his life is correct. Who knows. (edit: Only one bullet fired from the murder weapon, and telegram he send to the club from the ship. He fled.)

Would make for a heck of a better story ending, than the other one. :) Didnt check endings, didnt replay it, just came into my mind, when seeing the Intro sequence of Crimes and Punishments again.

But then.... everything is designed to be ambigous...

Also saw, the "characterisation" (finding clues on the character) miniquest in devils daughter again, where some clues were fixed, and some were user selectable (A or B). Makes for a far better system imho. Because you are looking at the thing, while judging. The system where you decide inconsequuencial A or B on the whole person afterwards, seemed "off" to me. Like if THATs what caused the "endings too ambigous" thought to kreep up in the first place.

Sorry for the maybe slight spoilers, but as the game is so ambigous... :) Who knows if they are.. :)

(Might have missed something at the shooting club as well, because I cant remember the clues with the drinks and the glasses, and what the 'german secret agent' backstory implied, but they probably were fluff.. :) )

edit: Dried red paint on the sister was "on the wrong arm", but second duelist could have fired many bullets (he reloaded at some point..).

edit2: Red stain on the referees jacket becomes "from the red gelatine your club uses for bullets" if you accuse him as "main suspect" and "blood from kneeling beside the victim checking if they still were alive", if you choose "he is the main witness". SUPER. So this is fail less design by the devs, that give everyone a participation trophy, depending on a snap decision, that was wrong after reading five clues, and you decide on the character of a person. Got your participation trophy yet?

If the red dot on the jacket is from the gelatine bullet, it also is on the correct hand (spot where the stones were hit as well), and we've got our killer.

If the red dot on the jacket is blood - its more likely that he got that from checking if the victim was still alive.

Thats basically the decider in this case, and devs give it out situationally based on what you pick as a character description. Wonderfull. Thats story design thats open ended to a flaw. And leads to an entirely meaningless experience, because the "good story conclusion" has to be equally good as "the bad story conclusion", so gamer can get participation medal. Let the guy that decided that go from his/her management position, please?

Oh - must be a great gaming project, where the project lead make the plot writers develop two cases at the same time, entirely open ended, then converging based on the players decision. Make for so much EMPTINESS, while playing.