Forced into joining the Lotless! Makes no sense!

[TheGameHoarder]

Played this game with a friend, and really enjoyed the experience, up to the point we had to choose the path, either joining the priests, either stand with the students to demand our rights for the collage or join Sophia and the lotless.

Throughout our playthrough, we decided that our characters story was one of accepting the system at play, we chose to have him believe in the righteousness of the Twins, and given our choices of sticking by our family's decisions we end up in the Capital pondering between the path of the Judge or the Priest, clearly being against the rebellion that was taking place.

When we see that we DO NOT MEET THE REQUEIRMENTS to stand by the priests (which we were looking forward to after having Brante see the vision of the destruction), we were abhorred to see that also our "skills" did not allowed us not even to join in the family laid path and were forced the only "non-skill" related path there was, and that is to join Sophia and her damned rebellion. This in the context of letting Sophia get walked over by the horses earlier on, letting her fend for herself when she was being hunted by the Arkanians, and refusing to help her get the lowborn professor out of the Capital. We literally did not want to do anything with her for this playthrough, yet here we were FORCED to choose to join her.

I mean it's a very important choice, I understand other choices being locked behind past events that you need to trigger or certain characteristics prerequisite on the character sheet, but this is A VERY IMPORTANT LIFE CHOICE, that even the game mentions as such, even the damn title points out to how important this would be. And what we are 4-5 points lower in all departments for any of the choices were we felt our character's past choices were making sense in directing him to.

Now we feel like we are playing with a character that makes no sense, contradictive and, literally had no reason to join Sophia, at all, none so ever. He avoided her/disappointed her always & always followed the call of the Twins & respect and love for family. He became rebellious out of nowhere and for no good reason.

This is a big fault to the game that we found and the Skill Tree Prerequisite for such an important choice is really unwarranted. The character, studies soo much to get in the College that not having enough Valor & Diplomacy Skills to let him at least chose to stay with the students to get in makes no sense.

At least have the logical choices that lead to him try for collage award enough Skill Points for him to achieve the Prerequisite for at least that choice.

But yet again the life choice shouldn't be this rigid, game talks about lots and predefined positions in society and you end up in the game basically deliver the same hopelessness in your NON "choice" of going with the Lotless. Wow poetic, but not fun. Makes our character feel mentally inapt, having to choose something that makes no sense for the dialogue trees we went and chose through.

[Dragon Master]

Well, did you and your friend play where you couldn't see your choice outcomes, which is the recommended play option? It doesn't really spoil the story, it only tells you if your wealth, reputation, and what skill goes up.

If you want to be a priest then you would have to build up your spirituality in chapter 2 and if you wanted to be a noble, you would need nobility. Lotless is for those who want to be something, or utterly lack the skills needed for it.

Wanting to be something does nothing for you if you lack the skills for that particular job,

[TheGameHoarder]

Well the point is that the narrative of choices we had strongly pointed to that or anything else but joining the rebellion. Doesn't matter right now we managed to destroy the Lotless from the inside, no thanks to choice.

As said, the narrative choices either don't offer enough points or simply are counterintuitive to what is actually happening around.

Yes we did a blind playthrough with all indications of what choices give hidden, because a good narrative leads to reasonable result if it's done well without turning this into a number's game.

[fedorkkk]

Not to criticize anyone's playstyle, but "the ironman mode" isn't actively recommended even by the game itself, less so for the first playthrough. Think of it as "ultra-hard" mode: it's fun to do sometimes, but it's risky to start with it. Part of the fun in this game is to see exactly what available options lead to and to make concious choices. That's what the "suffering" is: to know the dreadful price of your decisions.

Now, about the "Three Lots" scene. The best advice I can give is this: figure out who you want to be in the second chapter, "Adolescence" (that's kind of the point of this chapter, honestly). If you want to play as a nobleman, Nobility is raised by choices where you act with courage, honor and arrogance. If you want to be a Priest, choices where you delve into theological studies or act with kindness, empathy and eloquence raise your Spirituality. And choices where you defy expectations, misbehave or defy social norms raise your Ingenuity, which is important in the Lotless path.

Imo, it doesn't turn the game into a "number's game". It's simply a way to craft your character's personality with natural inclinations towards one of the Lots. E.g. if you were interested in theology and good with words from youth, naturally you can become a priest. And, if you did not pursue noble ideals (e.g. challenging school bullies to a "duel" of sorts), then why should you be able to become a nobleman? You lack not simply "points", but basic personality traits to do so. In this game, character stats and personality traits are basically one and the same.

[ZeroX]

A lot of choices are locked by prerequisites and skill checks, and those prerequisites were locked with prerequisites too.
At some point of the game I was just reading instead of choosing my path. It threw out my inmersion.