Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@Dusk Well, you are posting this in the “unpopular opinions” forum, but I hugely disagree about The Witcher III. I think it’s one of the few games that makes choices interesting and with real consequences. It doesn’t fall into the BioWare trap of presenting obviously good and obviously bad choices - which isn’t any kind of choice at all. Instead, you are asked to do your best to make choices consistent with the character and setting and, above all, live with those decisions. If we all knew exactly what would happen every time we made a choice, we would all make the same choice every time. I think you’d enjoy The Witcher a lot more if you didn’t see every choice as a “win or lose” dilemma - it’s just about doing the best you can, and living with the consequences.

@Krull But what you said is exactly my point. Providing choices by "gambling" is not really meaningful or impactful. I like to compare it to a Tabletop RPG Paladin falling from grace just because his PLAYER didn't realize he was doing something wrong because of a miscommunication. The whole idea behind choices is that you are fully aware of what each choice entails, and you are willing to make a judgement which outcome is better - BUT, this is difficult in video games in general, not just for the Witcher. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good game, I just don't think priding itself with "meaningful choices" is anything more than a slogan that has nothing behind it really.

Edit:
I will also cede that sometimes knowing the outcome of a choice is might sometimes disrupt narratives. But again, that's not the point. I'm not saying games should feature MORE of those (though I am in favor), I'm just saying that the idea that these choices are anything but poorly disguised gambling is... meh.

@Dusk I take your point - and understand your frustration - but I also find players being constantly presented with “right” and “wrong” choices is, frankly, boring. In your tabletop RPG, the paladin might not like having fallen from grace - but they will have a more interesting story if they take that outcome and run with it. If you only got the outcomes you want - and expect - then why cede control to a gamesmaster or designer at all?

Of course, despite my saying all that, I’m still a big fat hypocrite who will reload a save because I didn’t like the outcome of a particular decision I made. However, I did that far less often - maybe twice in 150 hours - with The Witcher III. I made all the worst decisions on the play; I made horrible decisions with the crones... Where I feel CD Projekt Red gets it right, though, is that very few outcomes are outright good or bad - there is nuance. I enjoyed it a lot more when I just decided to suck up my mistakes and make the best of whatever outcomes I got. If you see it as a gamble, I get that - but that’s closer to real life anyway. And it makes a far better story.

@Krull Again, that's on the premise that the only two options are gambling or obvious "right" and "wrong" choices. I can think of many instances, Witcher III included, in which the you were fully aware of what you were doing, fully aware of the consequences and had to pick whatever your morality/personality dictates even though there were benefits and drawbacks to either conclusion.

In regards to the Paladin example - yeah, sure, some people would roll with it, but no one would ever say that this is fair - you don't expect a maximized intelligence spellcaster PLAYER to be an extremely intelligent person and nothing prevents the mumbling shy person to roleplay being a charismatic Bard, so why would you punish the Paladin for something the Player clearly didn't understand? It's like playing with someone who doesn't know the rules.

Also, I will point to my example that optional love interests are basically the most prevalent option of a true "meaningful choice". If you, as a player, get to assert your agency and preferences on the world while the game allows it to you and changes your experience based on a premise you agreed on while playing, no one changes the rules halfway. If you get to assert your agency and preferences in an inconsistent ruleset - yeah, great, that's real life, but again, not "meaningful choices", gambling.

The Gamecube controller is quite overrated in my opinion. It is a good controller, don't get me wrong, but I would prefer the design of any current-gen controller over the Gamecube one (except joy cons). I really don't like the button placement and the sizing of the buttons, however the grip is fine. Also, imo it is not the definitive smash controller. Sure, it's good for smash but the Switch Pro Controller is way comfier and no matter how much I practice with the gamecube controller, I always play better with the Pro Controller. That might just be from how much I've played with the Switch Pro Controller.

So, how, exactly, do they do real 'meaningful choices', since you basically don't like any of the ways any game does them .... ? Given it is, in the end, just a game, I'm not sure how much better it'd even be possible to do them

@BruceCM I can think of a few instances games got choices right or half-right at least so it's definitely possible, here are some:

Dragon Age Origins - What do to with the Elven Keeper? What should you do with the mages? Should you help the Elven couple get hitched even though he is weak? Should that Dwarven kid spread the Chantry's teachings amongst the Dwarves even if it may cause a civil war?
Dragon Age 2 - The entire Mages vs Templars thing in the end. You need to determine your outview: are the mages victims or terrorists? are the templars oppressors or just? Nevermind that the game actually did nothing with the dilemma it presented, but the dilemma was there none the less.
Still on Dragon age 2 - Killing or not killing Anders. Completely up to your morality and views, no wrong answer here.
Persona 5 - The entire gameplay loop itself is just a huge choice mechanic, that's why it's addictive. How do you spend your day? Who is important to you? Who do you not care about? Even though it is a JRPG, it even presents you with like 6 endings (1 of them True, 1 of them Good, so... another choice).
Tale of Wuxia - pretty much the same as Persona 5 gameplay loop, and some choices too.
Call of Cthulhu and Sinking City - Endings, you need to decide what's the best course of action due to what you know - this time, there are no RIGHT answers.
Banner Saga - does this sometimes, I specifically remember the ending of the Banner Saga 2, but won't spoil it.
Fire Emblem Three Houses - the entire secret 4th route is a conscious choice you have to make, if you manage to uncover it.

Other games that do that but I can't think of specific examples from the top of my head - Witcher III to extent, Mass Effect, etc.

Again, I'm not saying it's completely not there, I'm saying the other choices are just filler gambling. I would prefer if games had more choices that are meaningful and based on your own morality and personality.

Oh, OK, I've hardly started Dragon Age Origins, @Dusk .... I have finished the Banner Saga Trilogy, so I know about those choices & there are some tricky ones Your idea of 'gambling' does seem to be most real-life decisions, though, so people want games to have choices like those, too....
I think it'd be impossible to do any game with choices in ways everyone liked, since there's some who'd want to have all the info & everything but others, more like me, who'd think too much of that wasn't actually good

@BruceCM I can get that. I just like games that make me think, really, and I think more choices should reflect that. See, 2 of my favorite games are Fire Emblem and Persona, and those are pretty linear and not rife with choices - but their narrative is deep, it presents real dilemmas and provide commentary. Besides, I'm a sucker for symbolism lol.

Edit:
Oh, and besides, sure, there is plenty of room for gamble choices, but nobody should really market them as "meaningful", more like "added replay value".

Or 'realistic', @Dusk .... I got the 'best' ending in Witcher 3 1st time, without looking any of that up or anything, so I don't feel like any of the choices in that game was really a 'gamble', even if there wasn't always as much info available as you might like to have We'll see if they manage to do even better with Cyberpunk 2077, as that's even more suitable to grey areas, tricky decisions, back-stabbing & double-dealing, with limited actual info & all the rest of it

@BruceCM Most games don't require you that much effort to understand their main choice points and their consequences. 'Realistic' is okay, again, not 'meaningful'.

I heard great things about Cyberpunk 2077, and also heard some good things about the new Baldur's Gate. I sure hope they can take the writing of choices up a notch.

So, most real-life choices aren't meaningful? Or you feel like you usually have enough info on those? Because I certainly don't! I'm really not sure where you get your idea of 'meaningful' from, then? It doesn't make much sense to me, sadly .... It proves how it'd be impossible to do game choices in ways everyone would appreciate, though! But games do continue to develop all these themes, so I imagine they'll at least get better at them all

Real life choices are meaningful because they affect your life. Choices and narratives in contents are meaningful when they present you with something meaningful you can take to your life. It's simple, and it's relevant to any kind of content you consume. Video game presenting you with the option of going to dinner with family of farmers only to have your companion murdered by them? well, it might help the overall narrative of the game but I wouldn't precisely call it "meaningful". A video game calling you to act in judgement and decide who is the better man, what values are more important...
That's calling you to think. Same with literary works that provide complex and multi layered characters and conflicts. Again, not saying ALL choices should be meaningful, but games shouldn't try to market meaningful choices if they have so few of those.

@Dusk I think a choice that ends up with my friend being murdered is meaningful. I mean, how much more meaningful does it need to be? Maybe you just don’t like that form of storytelling in games. I struggle to see a better reward for making choices than how The Witcher III does them. Not every move you make can be tied to the main narrative - not sure any video game has a narrative team and budget big enough to manage that - but the way The Witcher III presents these little vignettes Of story alongside the choices that affect the final ending is possibly the richest compromise I’ve seen.

I absolutely love Persona, but I don’t love the fact that content and progression can be gated behind your choices. There are character affinity storylines you simply won’t see if you haven’t picked the right options along the way - which usually means slavishly following a FAQ (ugh! why even play the game?) or doing a New Game+ (and who has time for that?). Generally speaking, I just play the game and accept that I might not see the full Sun character arc, or whatever. It’s a bit like accepting the horrible outcomes that you may get in The Witcher III. Just got to suck it up, and enjoy the ride.

@Krull Exactly my point. I gave up on the Fortune confidante too, but I was aware of the consequences. Besides, I mentioned that Persona does not pull this off as it is basically a linear JRPG, the choices mechanic in the gameplay loop itself shows how to combine choice with gameplay in a meaningful way - and it still, doesn't promote itself on that aspect. The specific example I introduced was a minor nameless character with no relevance to anything, no even portrait or anything (from a game I don't want to spoil). If it was a character with any relevance I would argue that it is relevant to the narrative the game is trying to advance, but as it was, it was a minor irrelevant hindrance.
Games might have great and interesting plots, and might be amazing all by themselves - there's no need to push a gimmick if the game does not really handle it.

My original point was that games are just not there yet when it comes to creating compelling and meaningful choices. Some old games might still feature the prominent element of meaningful choice still, but modern ones not so much. That's not to say games do not feature these at ALL, most RPG games feature at least a few (usually around 3-4), I'm just saying that's not something that deserves this kind of 'promotion' nor should be it accepted as the pinnacle of video game writing.

Games can have great narratives without meaningful choices. Games can have great narratives with great meaningful choices, so why wouldn't they?

I believe in the writers - they can do better than that!

&, if EVERY choice directly affected the main story, people would complain, too, @Krull .... Eh, when people praise a game like Witcher 3, they're saying it's better than most in whatever area & if they think it's even only a little better in some specific areas, it adds up to a lot better overall Now that game's been around awhile, we should be seeing others doing some of the parts even better!

Another unpopular opinion:

I don't get why people get so defensive over the Witcher. I love that game, I pointed out flawed logic in RPGs in general. XD

@Dusk You’re in the unpopular opinions forum! You can expect to have your opinions debated - that’s why we post them here.

To explain my motivations, I just felt picking The Witcher III as an example of a poor implementation of decision mechanics within games as... off. Because I literally cannot think of a game that has made players’ choices more interesting and meaningful without disrupting the gameplay.

I’m not sure what kind of decision structure you want in games. Visual novels do branching choices extremely well, but they are also very much gated as right or wrong decisions. Mess it up and you have to go back and pick something else. Which is a different type of game - and not necessarily what I want from a typical RPG.

I want choices to affect the game world in interesting ways, maybe even the gameplay in that I can lose companions (Fire Emblem, FFVI) or end up with a different partner (every BioWare game) and even change the ultimate ending - but I don’t want it affect the linearity in such a way that I have to reload my save in order to progress.

But we don’t have to agree. I’ve enjoyed the discussion regardless.

Halo is rubbish. That’s my unpopular opinion. I’ve already stated it here before, though.

@Krull
1. I specifically picked that as it is widely considered the epitome of video game storytelling, to point out that it even IT can do better.
2. I'm looking for the exact thing you just describe: element of meaning full in my gameplay (Fire Emblem, Persona) and preferably lots meaningful choices (like the few that are in the RPGs we mentioned). I'm pointing out that the writing can improve and deliver a game that is, let's say, basically the Witcher but with better choices, to follow up on the previous example.
3. Halo is crap.

https://www.ign.com/articles/the-last-of-us-part-2-is-the-new...

This article honestly pissed me off quite a bit. The current accessibility conversation in games is heavily biased towards people who have both grown up with video games and have disabilities, and IMO that's a narrow view to have. Accessibility does include gamers with disabilities, but it also includes children and the elderly. It includes people completely new to games.

The Last of Us 2 is a twin stick shooter without gyro controls. In my mind, that automatically gives it a maximum of a C for accessibility. Twin stick controls are innately inaccessible, because they require a lot of experience and practice to get good with. I honestly struggled with them until my late teens, even though I've been playing video games to some extent since I was a toddler. I still struggle to aim with them honestly. I had to play Uncharted all the way through on Easy mode, and still died a ton.

With that said, I don't think every game needs to be accessible. At some point, you have to choose between maximum accessibility or realizing your developer vision, and that's okay. Not everyone needs to be able to play every game. But don't go giving broad accessibility crowns to games that don't deserve it.