Why are all the other psychonauts so incompetent?

[Rednax]

I haven't beaten this game yet, but so far i've been basically saving the day as a 10 year old solving psychological problems that people i've barely met have by fighting their nightmares and doing simple puzzles.
Whats the inlore reason for this? can't they just get a bunch of psychonauts ( i mean, the HQ is filled to the brim with them ) and bruteforce it?
Or are the other psychonauts only able to use their psychic powers to clean the windows and mop the floor?

They are like:"Ford Cruller is our hero, but he is crazy now so f*ck him, he's on his own, we are not gonna fix him.
We don't have the mental capabilities of a 10 year old novice psychic to fix him.
We need an really young outsider with a small door to do all this psychic stuff for us.
That poster on door with the brains shaking hands, symbolizing our members psychally working together to solve each others mental problems?
nah, we don't do that here.
You got mental problems, then isolation it is baby".

[Jesse4060]

You're helping these "people you've barely met" get through their personal issues in a sense, problems they can't get through themselves. I suspect the reason no one's tried to help out Ford is because, well, no one at HQ really knew where he was before Raz brought him back. -And if they did know, then they probably thought his condition was unfixable given just by how damaged it looks.

[Gorlom[Swe]]

They are chores, that turn out to be important.
It is not that noone else can do them, it is that they simply don't flag on anyones radar. Except for the dentist, but you were a full team bruteforcing that one.

[Dragon Master]

Raz is basically working under the radar here.

As seen with Hollis' mind, meddling with them can have dire consequences. It makes sense that a fully trained psychonaut and responsible adult would not go digging through people's minds to try and "fix" them to be how they want them to be. The danger is far too great for abusing power by doing that.

Sasha even goes out of his way to take Raz to the collective unconscious in order to teach him that important lesson.

Raz, as a 10 year old kid, however, with literally only 3 days experience doing this sort of thing and no real proper training, being instructed by Truman to try and fix Ford to prepare for Maligula and Raz interprets that as Truman not trusting anyone, has no such qualms. He'll jump into people's minds to advance the mission.

He does, however, now use a lot more restraint when doing so, unlike the Thorny Tower Asylum patients or Hollis because he now fully comprehends the damage that can be done.

[Sheriff Vegas]

i fully agree that this was super jarring and weird in the first level, but it definitely gets better with time. stick with it!

[WeissRook]

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

Raz is basically working under the radar here.

As seen with Hollis' mind, meddling with them can have dire consequences. It makes sense that a fully trained psychonaut and responsible adult would not go digging through people's minds to try and "fix" them to be how they want them to be. The danger is far too great for abusing power by doing that.

Sasha even goes out of his way to take Raz to the collective unconscious in order to teach him that important lesson.

Raz, as a 10 year old kid, however, with literally only 3 days experience doing this sort of thing and no real proper training, being instructed by Truman to try and fix Ford to prepare for Maligula and Raz interprets that as Truman not trusting anyone, has no such qualms. He'll jump into people's minds to advance the mission.

He does, however, now use a lot more restraint when doing so, unlike the Thorny Tower Asylum patients or Hollis because he now fully comprehends the damage that can be done.

Truman's instructions there are... shady as well. It comes out near the end.

[Kerrack]

Short answer: Because it's a videogame and they aren't the player character.

[Zixinus]

1. Raz is willing to mess around, exploring and just entering random minds while the adults are doing their actual jobs (Foresyth has an organization to run) or trying to solve the problem their own way (Sasha and Mia holing up in their office). Sometimes the issue isn't that the problem requires competence, ability or laziness but just that he is willing to try stuff. He is also willing to go up and down the entire area just to see what turns up.

2. Ford is actually willing to try and put himself together and so do the others more-or-less. It is very likely that beforehand, Ford just didn't want to try anymore. With a few exceptions, all the minds Raz enters he does so with their permission, so these people actually want to fix themselves but are struggling to do it on their own.

3. Raz is remarked to being surprisingly powerful and learns fast for his age. This was remarked in the previous game.

4. Plot reasons that I won't spoil, only Raz is trusted with information that allows him to act or just stumbles across stuff.

The real answer: because it's a story about a kid and it is very difficult to write a story about a kid solving real problems if the surrounding adults take strong initiatives and competently solve the same problem. It can become night-impossible where it's an open-world adventure game where the player drives the plot, so the adults have to take a blind eye and let the kid roam around.

[WeissRook]

Originally posted by Zixinus:

1. Raz is willing to mess around, exploring and just entering random minds while the adults are doing their actual jobs (Foresyth has an organization to run) or trying to solve the problem their own way (Sasha and Mia holing up in their office). Sometimes the issue isn't that the problem requires competence, ability or laziness but just that he is willing to try stuff. He is also willing to go up and down the entire area just to see what turns up.

2. Ford is actually willing to try and put himself together and so do the others more-or-less. It is very likely that beforehand, Ford just didn't want to try anymore. With a few exceptions, all the minds Raz enters he does so with their permission, so these people actually want to fix themselves but are struggling to do it on their own.

3. Raz is remarked to being surprisingly powerful and learns fast for his age. This was remarked in the previous game.

4. Plot reasons that I won't spoil, only Raz is trusted with information that allows him to act or just stumbles across stuff.

The real answer: because it's a story about a kid and it is very difficult to write a story about a kid solving real problems if the surrounding adults take strong initiatives and competently solve the same problem. It can become night-impossible where it's an open-world adventure game where the player drives the plot, so the adults have to take a blind eye and let the kid roam around.

Well, Ford isn't really willing to, it's more that after the process is started, he just rolls with it. That's all part of the plot. Once you heal Ford's mind, you find out why it was fractured in the first place, and it's because he literally did it to himself and on purpose. The only reason he goes along with it is because "Truman" says it's required for finding out who the mole is.

[Zixinus]

Originally posted by WeissRook:

Well, Ford isn't really willing to, it's more that after the process is started, he just rolls with it. That's all part of the plot.

He isn't enthusiastic about it, but does get a reason to do it (Maligula's threat looming over him) so he is willing. Note how Ford was able to throw Rasputin out when he wanted to. If he didn't want Rasputing poking around in there, he could have done that again or told him to stop again.

[BAI GAMING]

This was one of my complaints about the original game, where everybody was even more useless. It's really just for gameplay reasons. They show you the other intern psychonauts all using their powers quickly near the beginning of the game and that's it. They don't have the budget to show them all using their powers for the entire game, and they don't want to drastically change the gameplay formula from the original title.

[WeissRook]

Originally posted by Magic Balls:

This was one of my complaints about the original game, where everybody was even more useless. It's really just for gameplay reasons. They show you the other intern psychonauts all using their powers quickly near the beginning of the game and that's it. They don't have the budget to show them all using their powers for the entire game, and they don't want to drastically change the gameplay formula from the original title.

I mean, the other interns were all off on their original assignments (and that's if they didn't just foist them on you in the first place), so outside of, like, the mental pirate radio station, they didn't even use them until they were brought in on 'the plan'. And I think that's the main thing in this game, no one was in on 'the plan' except Raz, and Raz was instructed to not tell anyone. Sasha was trying to dig info out of Loboto's mind the entire time. Milla was actually actively scanning for activity to try to hunt down the mole. The only other main Psychonauts we see were either running the entire operation, "comatose", or isolated in the second half of the game for reasons of their own.

[Runic Tunic]

I mean, if you take the time to look over everything, it makes sense. The other Psychonauts aren't so much "incompetent" but that Raz hasn't been properly trained yet, so while the others do what they need to do, Raz tends to go off on his own without telling the others what exactly he's up to.

Raz is also quite literally one of the most impressive psychics to date, despite his age. Since the first game, it's emphasized by everyone at some point that Raz shows an abnormal level of skill and aptitude for developing his skills. He manages to complete an entire training program in a day that would take others weeks or months to do. Even in Hollis' class, the other interns are weirded out by how Raz interacts with thoughts, which is much different from what they were taught. He's different. He's a Prodigy. So of course he's going to excel in areas that most others would fail or not even attempt to do.

Which is another point to keep in mind: Raz, the agents, and the Psychic Six/Seven are the most powerful psychics in the story. We're exposed to them a lot, so it's easy to see their abilities as the norm, but in reality the average psychic user is probably more like Raz's father; He's psychic but it takes a lot of time and training to get halfway decent at it. And even then he's not going to do the kind of stuff Ford Cruller can do.

Take all of this and combine it with this game's huge emphasis on the dangers of forcing change in someone, and it makes sense why there's little in the way of brute forcing everything. Especially since most of those we help are the most powerful psychics in the entire organization and actively isolated themselves from others.

If none of that satisfies you, there's also the fact this is a game that's more about telling a story than following perfect sense in every regard. Gotta keep the protagonist busy and engaged some way or another.

[Zixinus]

Raz does things also because he's a dumb kid that overestimates his abilities by not asking for permission or not showing any new clue to a competent adult. He is told not to and sometimes he just stumbles upon clues or things to do without consulting an adult first. Consider that Raz WAS doing what the other inters were doing: his assignment and he just stumbled upon the thing that pushed the story forward. Then found something else to push the story forward.

The other interns were also not aware of the crisis or didn't consider it their problem, so it makes sense that they would go off and amuse themselves however they could. There was no world-ending crisis (until there was).

But again: this is an inherent problem with writing a story where a kid handles a serious threat and there are competent adults around. If the adults demonstrated competence, found the stuff the kid finds (or the kids go straight to the adults when they stumble upon something) or listened to the kids or thought of doing what the kid does doing, there wouldn't be a story with the kid. Protagonists require agency and when there are adults around, it's difficult to give a kid agency without contrivance.

[Kerrack]

Originally posted by udUbdaWgz:

Originally posted by Kerrack:

Short answer: Because it's a videogame and they aren't the player character.

👍🏻

On the other hand, Fabricated Microanalysis is funny stuff to read.

Pathologic is the only example I can think of where NPCs in a videogame will actually go around solving their own problems whether the player interferes or not.
Admittedly they're terrible at it and you end up with the bad ending if you try to rely on them to take care of things, but it's certainly interesting that they actually have a degree of agency within the world.

[Dragon Master]

Originally posted by Runic Tunic:

Raz is also quite literally one of the most impressive psychics to date, despite his age. Since the first game, it's emphasized by everyone at some point that Raz shows an abnormal level of skill and aptitude for developing his skills. He manages to complete an entire training program in a day that would take others weeks or months to do. Even in Hollis' class, the other interns are weirded out by how Raz interacts with thoughts, which is much different from what they were taught. He's different. He's a Prodigy. So of course he's going to excel in areas that most others would fail or not even attempt to do.

Adding on to what you said.

Raz was able to do it without any instruction at all, once he knew it was possible.

Norma and the other interns seriously underestimate Raz at the beginning, and when Norma tries to tell Raz how mental connections work in the most condescending way she can, Raz interrupts her and gives an explanation for the ability and then does it, and all of the interns were surprised that Raz not only did it but he also did it on his first try, without any instruction at all, in addition to the way he did it.

Hollis left some stray thoughts in the classroom because she didn't think any of the interns could make her change her thoughts or her mind, and I doubt she read the reports from Milla or Sasha about what Raz can do from Whispering Rock or the Rhombus of Ruin. She had no idea who Raz was when they show up and she had to run everything and assign the interns mentors while dealing with a mole.

It's even made apparent in the first game that Raz starts out at a remedial level in the first game and that he's behind all the other campers because all he can do is double jump and hit things. Sasha is surprised when he learns that Raz doesn't know how to levitate in the Brain Tumbler experiment and says that he didn't know Raz was at such a remedial level.

Sasha said he never met anyone with such solid mental defenses in someone so young in the opening of the first game and Oleander says he's armored like a tank. In Rhombus of Ruin they speculate that Razputin's huge mental defenses were what protected him from the psilirium poisoning everyone else experienced.

Raz is a prodigy, probably a literal one in a million.