Do your choices really matter?

[Strategy Informer]

A lot of games claim that choices really matter but all you get is a different ending or a dialog path change.. So how does your choices effect things?

[LHGreen]

This is a video game. Nothing you do here really matters. There's only so much that video games can do to create a fulfilling sense of agency, so don't let your expectations run wild, okay? Now, keeping that in mind, your choices do have impacts, ranging from minor to major and everything in between, on the things that happen throughout the game. But there's almost no indication as to which choice has what kind of impact, so in that regard it's actually pretty accurate to real life. A seemingly minor choice can (unfortunately) have a major impact on your capabilities throughout most of or even all of the game, because sometimes you're the only variable in the event. A huge decision could turn out to simply change which of two or more routes you take to ultimately get to the same outcome, because sometimes you're NOT the only variable in the event.

And you often don't even realize what you changed, at least at first, and sometimes you don't realize it at all until a subsequent play-through where something you changed has turned out slightly or even massively different. Some of the changes are specific to one or two of the four basic paths you can take through the game, so you may never even encounter what you changed, which incidentally is also frustratingly accurate to real life. Sometimes this feels forced and/or stupid, and sometimes it actually forced and stupid, and there are plenty of aspects where they didn't take full advantage of the opportunity to really change things like they maybe could have. But there's also quite a few aspects where it works really well or even brilliantly, much more so than other games where they only claim that choices matter.

So, it can depend a lot on what you do, and your mileage may vary by quite a bit. It's not some huge revolution in how "choices matter" can or should be done, but it is an outline of, or a few steps in the right direction toward, or a lesson in, what a major overhaul to the "choices matter" concept could look like.

[Doombringer]

Conquest choices affect the areas you visited in the conquest. (as well as reputation)
Act 1 choices determine which main quest path you end up on (Disfavored, Scarlet Chorus, Rebel, Anarchist)

A lot of options are gain favor/neutral/be rude and gain wrath, or gain favor with one faction and gain wrath with their enemy.
Some options/talents are gated behind having enough rep with a certain faction.

You can end up killing/chasing off all the other party members.


Honestly as far as 'choices matter' it isn't that much different from other RPGs (aside from 4 different main quest lines instead of 1).

[LHGreen]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

Conquest choices affect the areas you visited in the conquest. (as well as reputation)
Act 1 choices determine which main quest path you end up on (Disfavored, Scarlet Chorus, Rebel, Anarchist)

A lot of options are gain favor/neutral/be rude and gain wrath, or gain favor with one faction and gain wrath with their enemy.
Some options/talents are gated behind having enough rep with a certain faction.

You can end up killing/chasing off all the other party members.


Honestly as far as 'choices matter' it isn't that much different from other RPGs (aside from 4 different main quest lines instead of 1).

You're leaving a few things out. Quite a lot of things, actually, depending on how specific you want to get, but just speaking generally, only a few things.