The Illusion of choice is games.

comput3rus3r · May 12, 2018

It's so frustrating to play a game that gives you a choice between two things that actually have the same consequence. Or worse yet it pretends to give you a choice when it doesn't. Like the first pokemon game I played. Where I was home and My mom said somebody had left me A pokemon and asked me if I wanted it. "yes or no" so i said no. and she's like "what? I don't think you heard me correctly" and asked me again. this was her infinite response if i chose no so what's the point of giving me a yes or no question if you won't take no for an answer.

Later I ran into a group of guys who wanted to free the pokemon from the slavers who captured and force them to fight each other. I wanted to join that group but that wasn't an option as they were the arch nemesis in the game. I turned the game off and never played another pokemon again.

Even though Skyrim was a fun game I hated one point where it wanted me to kill somebody in cold blood. There's was an NPC assisting me on this mission (i don't remember if he was the one wanting me to do it or he was just there to assist me) but I didn't want to do it. So i tried killing the NPC instead and even though I had Godmode on he was unkillable.

I think the reason that Dragon Age Origins is on of my favorite games is because there are so many choices that change the outcome of the story that it warrants several playthroughs unlike the 2 sequels which were full with the illusion of choice. I don't understand how they can make such a great game and then ruin their next to versions of it.

comput3rus3r · May 12, 2018

I had to add another choice to the poll as I realized nobody would vote if i hadn't.

Uiaad · May 12, 2018

When designing games you have to sometimes limit things or else you end up creating a never ending branch of paths for a player to follow. There have been a number of games ( their names escape me right now ) where you're presented with the option to either start your quest or not ... and if you chose not to your dumped back to the main menu or back to the OS.

I can think of a couple of games where some options allow you to end your adventure there and then. Suikoden 2 is the one that instantly springs to mind. Part way through the game you and your sister are staying at an inn with the rest of your party and she comes over wakes you up and asks you if you want to run away from everything. If you say no you continue on with the adventure and blah blah blah ... if you say no however that is where your story ends. You run away and live your life quietly in obscurity never knowing what could have happened if only you had pushed on.

Another thing people usually moan about is unwinnable boss fights. Again there have been ones that subvert this too. Tales of Destiny has an 'unwinnable' boss fight right near the start of the game but he is actually beatable and if you actually manage to beat him the game ends there credits roll aren't you proud of yourself.

comput3rus3r · May 12, 2018

uiaad said:
When designing games you have to sometimes limit things or else you end up creating a never ending branch of paths for a player to follow. There have been a number of games ( their names escape me right now ) where you're presented with the option to either start your quest or not ... and if you chose not to your dumped back to the main menu or back to the OS.

I can think of a couple of games where some options allow you to end your adventure there and then. Suikoden 2 is the one that instantly springs to mind. Part way through the game you and your sister are staying at an inn with the rest of your party and she comes over wakes you up and asks you if you want to run away from everything. If you say no you continue on with the adventure and blah blah blah ... if you say no however that is where your story ends. You run away and live your life quietly in obscurity never knowing what could have happened if only you had pushed on.

Another thing people usually moan about is unwinnable boss fights. Again there have been ones that subvert this too. Tales of Destiny has an 'unwinnable' boss fight right near the start of the game but he is actually beatable and if you actually manage to beat him the game ends there credits roll aren't you proud of yourself.

I understand the challenges for making games with choices. Just don't pretend to have choices it's what I'm saying. The examples you gave are actually good implementations of choices because they actually have outcomes. I'm ranting on those "choose what to say but they all really say the same thing" games. In one of the Zero Time Dillema games at the very beginning you have to choose a coin toss and if you guess right you win the game at the very beggining. That's really cool. I think Farcry 5 has something like this where if you side with the villain at the beginning the game ends lol

Uiaad · May 12, 2018

Far Cry 4 had it too where you could just sit around 15 minutes and the game would end ... really do like that short of shit.

But this is the thing, giving the player the illusion of choice is better than giving them no choices, it makes them feel like they have some input on what is going on in the story or atleast make them think about what's happening.

comput3rus3r · May 12, 2018

uiaad said:
Far Cry 4 had it too where you could just sit around 15 minutes and the game would end ... really do like that short of shit.

But this is the thing, giving the player the illusion of choice is better than giving them no choices, it makes them feel like they have some input on what is going on in the story or atleast make them think about what's happening.

I think I know what you mean. but it only works on the less intellectually gifted. Kind of like the illusion of choice in society; do you want to be ruled by the left hand or the right hand (democrats or republicans) while both hands belong to the same master.
Thank God he gives us choices with consequences or freewill. I guess there's nothing like real life lol

danabnormal9000 · May 12, 2018

Human has choices in real life, they think they have control of the choices. But it's just an illusion. Everything is pre-determined. What they choose requires inputs. But they have no control of the inputs. Wait, is this life is even real?

Uiaad · May 12, 2018

comput3rus3r said:
but it only works on the less intellectually gifted.

I'm guessing you're one of those guys that say at every opportunity " well my IQ is XXx so I must be right" ...

Hey if you like branching pathway go play a visual novel, where the complexity of the actual game play is reduced so that a multitude of stories can be told. We have had game developers before that have promised branching paths, player and world aging and that developer was the biggest bullshit artist on the planet of course im talking about Peter Molyneux. If that man told me it was raining I would have to go outside to check. but i'm getting side tracked. Obviously we didn't get what he promised with fable or many other of his games and why ? The bigger the scope of the game, the longer it's gonna take to make. The longer it takes to make, the more money that has to be ploughed into it.

Sorry i'm right off on a tangent now what were we talking about again right player choice ...

The perceived choice from a player makes them want to push forward though the game and find out what gonna happen. The player obviously have another choice and thats stay in the status quo and wander around as much as they can without pushing the story forward or just do nothing or just shut the game off and go outside.

comput3rus3r · May 12, 2018

uiaad said:
I'm guessing you're one of those guys that say at every opportunity " well my IQ is XXx so I must be right" ...

Hey if you like branching pathway go play a visual novel, where the complexity of the actual game play is reduced so that a multitude of stories can be told. We have had game developers before that have promised branching paths, player and world aging and that developer was the biggest bullshit artist on the planet of course im talking about Peter Molyneux. If that man told me it was raining I would have to go outside to check. but i'm getting side tracked. Obviously we didn't get what he promised with fable or many other of his games and why ? The bigger the scope of the game, the longer it's gonna take to make. The longer it takes to make, the more money that has to be ploughed into it.

Sorry i'm right off on a tangent now what were we talking about again right player choice ...

The perceived choice from a player makes them want to push forward though the game and find out what gonna happen. The player obviously have another choice and thats stay in the status quo and wander around as much as they can without pushing the story forward or just do nothing or just shut the game off and go outside.

I get no satisfaction with the illusion of choice. My point is that some people will not realize that it is an illusion.
I'll check out some more visual novels as you suggested however as I stated before Dragon Age Origins did it amazingly well.

comput3rus3r · May 12, 2018

danabnormal9000 said:
Human has choices in real life, they think they have control of the choices. But it's just an illusion. Everything is pre-determined. What they choose requires inputs. But they have no control of the inputs. Wait, is this life is even real?

We have choices and consequences. If everything is predetermined why don't you go rob a bank and then you can tell the cops it was pre-determined so it's not your fault.

Cyan · May 12, 2018

It's ingame specific (not talking about real life choices, when playing a game. Another post maybe)
Choices are great, specially if it's options. (let you choose text display speed, language, etc.)
As for choices in the story, it depends how much it affects it. I often don't like it because I fear I'm doing something wrong, and I might miss lot of things, or the good ending etc.
it's great to have multiple ending, I just don't have time to replay the game over and over anymore ;___;

sometime, choices are missing.
For example, I played the Detroid demo, and wanted to save BOTH the kid and the droid. I got him/it to trust me at 90%+ and he save the kid ... just to be killed. My choice was to save the droid too, but the devs decided otherwise. There's no choice where you can really achieve what YOU chose.
the choice you had on screen was "make him trust you" not "lie to him blatantly about trusting you" .... see ? wrong way to present the choices. I got mistrusted by the devs myself. I don't like that demo/game anymore. I didn't even try the other possibilities/routes/choices.

comput3rus3r said:
We have choices and consequences. If everything is predetermined why don't you go rob a bank and then you can tell the cops it was pre-determined so it's not your fault.

not being your fault, doesn't mean you're not guilty. You were forced to do it, now the consequence is jail.
if you see it like you had a choice, and this is the choice that was chosen for you, then it means another you had the other choice chosen for him (multiverse) and a different consequence and story.

not sure this is going where I want. I should have kept it game related.

comput3rus3r · May 12, 2018

Cyan said:
It's ingame specific (not talking about real life choices, when playing a game. Another post maybe)
Choices are great, specially if it's options. (let you choose text display speed, language, etc.)
As for choices in the story, it depends how much it affects it. I often don't like it because I fear I'm doing something wrong, and I might miss lot of things, or the good ending etc.
it's great to have multiple ending, I just don't have time to replay the game over and over anymore ;___;

sometime, choices are missing.
For example, I played the Detroid demo, and wanted to save BOTH the kid and the droid. I got him/it to trust me at 90%+ and he save the kid ... just to be killed. My choice was to save the droid too, but the devs decided otherwise. There's no choice where you can really achieve what YOU chose.
the choice you had on screen was "make him trust you" not "lie to him blatantly about trusting you" .... see ? wrong way to present the choices. I got mistrusted by the devs myself. I don't like that demo/game anymore. I didn't even try the other possibilities/routes/choices.

not being your fault, doesn't mean you're not guilty. You were forced to do it, now the consequence is jail.
if you see it like you had a choice, and this is the choice that was chosen for you, then it means another you had the other choice chosen for him (multiverse) and a different consequence and story.

not sure this is going where I want. I should have kept it game related.

I get what your saying. As far as the bank robbery comment my intent was to show that there are indeed choices in life and he doesn't rob a bank because he doesn't want the consequences of that choice.

In Detroid become human i think they meant to mislead you to make it unsettling when the droid gets killed anyway. Maybe to get the player more invested in what's happening within its world. However since i'm not into Trans humanism i would say that a robot cannot be killed, it can only be destroyed since it's not alive. Part of the trans humanist agenda is to get people to feel emotional towards non living machines.

The Illusion of choice is games.

Do you like choices that have meaning in game?

No.

I'd rather be guided in a linear story.

I like for games to choose what I want for me.

All of the above.

Rofl

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