Especially if someone decided to Google "what happens if I blow up Megaton" and realize that the whole town disappears except for 1 NPC that gets ghoulified in the explosion.
Goodbye side quests. Goodbye shops. Goodbye +1 strength bobblehead if you didn't grab it already.
Thats the biggest problem with moral choices in games. So often the bad guy option actively punishes the player without offsetting that cost with new opportunities.
Blowing up Megaton does all of that and gets you a ticket into Tenpenny Tower... which you could get anyway just without the free apartment.
Do I want a house behind multiple load screens or do I want an entire town full of NPCs, quests and shops where I can ALSO get a house behind multiple load screens (but less of them). No brainer.
Even Baldur's Gate 3 has this problem. Taking the evil route in Act 1 locks you out of the only merchant in the game that appears in all 3 acts, a ton of quests and some incredibly good gear. For no real gain other than getting earlier access to a companion.
>For no real gain other than getting earlier access to a companion.
You don't actually get earlier access to her now that she's accessible at all to good players. You just get a sex scene at the end of a party with goblins.
The benefit used to be free tadpole powers but now I think you actually get more by killing the goblin leaders.
Exactly. Which is why I really like morally ambiguous choices, I genuinely hate black and white good vs bad choices in games that market making choices as a big selling point. That's not making a choice it's just "make this obviously good choice or be an irredeemable dick for no reason"
Then you get something like ME2 with legion's loyalty mission. I'd say the choice in that mission is pretty morally gray, but the game has to straight up tell you which choice they decided is the "good" choice.
Or there's the "muddy water" approach like Fallout 4, where the Institute literally sends robots to kill people and impersonate them. If you try to remove these robots, who have killed people and are working to betray the communities they live in, then that's the bad choice. You're supposed to support helping them all escape from slavery, even though many never express any objection to how the Institute uses them.
It comes off less "complicated moral situation" and more "everyone in the plot has head trauma"
I feel the same in Fallout 4. >!Spent 50 hours in game, find your son, think he's annoying, tell him "I'll see you in hell", shoot him the head, then nuke his facility.!<
I did. And I still do every single time I do a playthrough. There is just something so satisfying about being the cause of an entire town to vanish from the history books.
As an aside, The Walking Dead games by Telltale showed you stats at the end for how many people made significant decisions. I always thought that was cool.
I made the blonde girl stay in that one guy's house who has all the cyborg slaves.
There's like 3 people in the world who did that, and I'll never forgive myself after seeing her in thr end
Wtf, i just looked into this and i had never come across it in my two playthroughs!!! It seems to be at the beginning of the game and I was sure i fully explored the beginning area
I wouldn't mind seeing what path people went with most for their first playthrough of Fallout New Vegas. Between NCR, Legion, House, and Yes Man I imagine it's NCR, but there's a good argument for Yes Man as it's the solo ending.
Also I wouldn't mind seeing the percentage of people that did House first go lol
That’s got to be almost zero. It’s not even a matter of being immoral - you have to put up with a lot of characters who are just extremely *annoying* in addition to being evil for legion route. People who just like murdering npcs will mostly end up with the Yes Man ending, and a lot of dead NPC’s along the way. Almost the only times people go the legion route is just if they deliberately decide they want to see how it goes, and that isn’t on the first playthrough.
Yeah, I know. But especially if you're a new player you're likely to do that quest before even talking to House. And if you do that quest first its not too hard to get peace between the NCR and the Kings
I *tried* to get Barrett, I even followed a guide. Could never get him. I don't think I was even able to get Yuffie. My first playthrough I got Aeris; every subsequent playthrough I got Tifa.
From Mass Effect Trilogy:
The division between letting Ash or Kaiden die
Killing Wrex
Which squadmate died the most in 2's Suicide Mission?
Most popular romances
How many people sabotaged the Genophage cure?
Detroit: Become Human was really good with this sort of stuff. Amazes me how more games don't have a similar feature
EDIT: TIL these stats do actually exist!
Actually did ME1 just a couple years ago, didn't realize Ashley would basically make that decision for me at a certain point in the dialogue. Had to go back an hr or 2 on saves to prevent that dumb xenophobe from killing my boy. Needless to say, I let Ashley die.
She gets a lot better if you let her live, actually gets an arc. At least you can remember something about Ashley instead of the cardboard cutout that is Kaiden.
Yeah, Bioware published those for both the original and Legendary editions. Watching the ME sub cope with some of those stats is hilarious. The mental gymnastics so many of those folks go through when they see the official numbers and realize that the way they play, and their opinions, aren't actually popular with the larger player base is just fantastic.
Turns out most players don't play FShep and don't play renegade; most players don't choose Kaidan as the Virmire Survivor, and most players don't kill Jacob for the lawlz. Turns out, most of the weirdly strong (and often pretty toxic) opinions that sub has are actually just loud minority opinions, whose proponents try to browbeat the rest of the fanbase into thinking the same way they do.
I feel like it's more than that just cus some people will do anything that has a quest marker associated with it. (I was one of those people on my first playthrough.)
I do feel its important to have detailed socio-economics breakdowns gaussian distributions and global heat maps on whether you pet cerberus after every run
or important philosophal questions on RPG like; Is Anime real?
Yes >No
My first time playing final fantasy tactics I immediately selected the option to focus on saving argath the first time you encounter him. EVERY other playthrough I've done I specifically stop button mashing just to make absolutely sure I don't miss the opportunity to make sure everyone knows that I don't care if he gets shredded. It would be fun to see how many times he was killed by mobs and players.
Just watched my gf play for the first time, she was so suspicious of everything that she shot the dog. It still escaped and ran off though…but never returned to help
You’d be amazed at the % of people who don’t even get past the first few levels of a game. Look at the % of players that have unlocked the first story achievement/trophy and it’s almost always less than half.
Payday 2 is like that
* Put on your mask (required to interact with anything): 85.4%
* Complete your first job: 80.1%
* Jump: 77.7%
* Reach level 100: 15.5%
For souls games I do enjoy the gameplay more than any story aspects, but watching the cutscenes on first playthroughs is mandatory imo. Any playthrough after and it's fair game to skip, although I still watch a lot of them because they're cool.
The choices from Fable, mainly the first game.
How many killed Whisper, Briar Rose, took the Jack mask, married Lady Grey vs figured out the crime, etc.
Curious whether more people saved Nightcrawler or Jean Grey in MAU. I remember trying to time it so we unlocked both cages at the same time and Jean just plumetted into the lava . . .
not exactly an RPG but i’d love to see that stats on some of the choices from the RDR2 side quests and strangers.
Like for example how many people killed the ex-slaver and how many people walked away
How many people blew up Megaton on their first playthrough?
That one will be low. In games with straight good/bad karma choices like that, the good option always scores really highly.
Especially if someone decided to Google "what happens if I blow up Megaton" and realize that the whole town disappears except for 1 NPC that gets ghoulified in the explosion. Goodbye side quests. Goodbye shops. Goodbye +1 strength bobblehead if you didn't grab it already.
Thats the biggest problem with moral choices in games. So often the bad guy option actively punishes the player without offsetting that cost with new opportunities. Blowing up Megaton does all of that and gets you a ticket into Tenpenny Tower... which you could get anyway just without the free apartment. Do I want a house behind multiple load screens or do I want an entire town full of NPCs, quests and shops where I can ALSO get a house behind multiple load screens (but less of them). No brainer. Even Baldur's Gate 3 has this problem. Taking the evil route in Act 1 locks you out of the only merchant in the game that appears in all 3 acts, a ton of quests and some incredibly good gear. For no real gain other than getting earlier access to a companion.
>For no real gain other than getting earlier access to a companion. You don't actually get earlier access to her now that she's accessible at all to good players. You just get a sex scene at the end of a party with goblins. The benefit used to be free tadpole powers but now I think you actually get more by killing the goblin leaders.
Yea, but have you considered Minthsras sex scene?
Exactly. Which is why I really like morally ambiguous choices, I genuinely hate black and white good vs bad choices in games that market making choices as a big selling point. That's not making a choice it's just "make this obviously good choice or be an irredeemable dick for no reason"
Then you get something like ME2 with legion's loyalty mission. I'd say the choice in that mission is pretty morally gray, but the game has to straight up tell you which choice they decided is the "good" choice.
Or there's the "muddy water" approach like Fallout 4, where the Institute literally sends robots to kill people and impersonate them. If you try to remove these robots, who have killed people and are working to betray the communities they live in, then that's the bad choice. You're supposed to support helping them all escape from slavery, even though many never express any objection to how the Institute uses them. It comes off less "complicated moral situation" and more "everyone in the plot has head trauma"
Just one of the many reasons I couldn't finish that game.
I definitely did. I don't think I saved it until my third or fourth playthrough.
I feel the same in Fallout 4. >!Spent 50 hours in game, find your son, think he's annoying, tell him "I'll see you in hell", shoot him the head, then nuke his facility.!<
I did. And I still do every single time I do a playthrough. There is just something so satisfying about being the cause of an entire town to vanish from the history books.
I read that as “megatron” and wondered what telltale esque transformers game y’all are playing.
I did. I just wanted to see what would happen ngl. I haven't played the game through a second time yet
Came here to type this exact thing.
The anticipation is palpable.
As an aside, The Walking Dead games by Telltale showed you stats at the end for how many people made significant decisions. I always thought that was cool.
Detroit Become Human has the same thing.
I made the blonde girl stay in that one guy's house who has all the cyborg slaves. There's like 3 people in the world who did that, and I'll never forgive myself after seeing her in thr end
Life Is Strange, too.
How many times did Geralt visit crippled Kate’s
How many people *didn’t* throw the baby in the oven?
The Owl in Zelda - "Do you want to hear what I said again?" How many times Yes was selected vs how many times No has been selected.
Oh my god I hated that pal for this
Opened the barn door in BG3 😭
Also how many offered to join in.
Was sad they weren't interested.
Wtf, i just looked into this and i had never come across it in my two playthroughs!!! It seems to be at the beginning of the game and I was sure i fully explored the beginning area
If memory serves, it's above the goblin village which also leads you to the phase spider cave
North eastern part of blight town yes, I think the interaction disappears if you've progressed into goblin camp a bit, might be wrong
How many people have died from angry chickens 🤣
How many people threw the baby penguin off the cliff in Mario 64
Yes
I wouldn't mind seeing what path people went with most for their first playthrough of Fallout New Vegas. Between NCR, Legion, House, and Yes Man I imagine it's NCR, but there's a good argument for Yes Man as it's the solo ending. Also I wouldn't mind seeing the percentage of people that did House first go lol
I'd like to know who went Legion on their *first* playthrough, so I know who to avoid.
That’s got to be almost zero. It’s not even a matter of being immoral - you have to put up with a lot of characters who are just extremely *annoying* in addition to being evil for legion route. People who just like murdering npcs will mostly end up with the Yes Man ending, and a lot of dead NPC’s along the way. Almost the only times people go the legion route is just if they deliberately decide they want to see how it goes, and that isn’t on the first playthrough.
I always go yes man, my character shall rule. Hell, I'd give House a shot if it didn't mean ending the brotherhood and the Kings.
You can keep the Kings around. You have to do the quest line and encourage the violence against the NCR. House likes them at the end then.
Yeah, I know. But especially if you're a new player you're likely to do that quest before even talking to House. And if you do that quest first its not too hard to get peace between the NCR and the Kings
I have to force myself to not go House every time.
Who people ended up with for the Gold Saucer date in FF7.
99% Barret.
I *tried* to get Barrett, I even followed a guide. Could never get him. I don't think I was even able to get Yuffie. My first playthrough I got Aeris; every subsequent playthrough I got Tifa.
Always go for the boobs.
I have nothing so I'm going to say what difficulty everyone chose and how many times they died on average in any given difficulty
From Mass Effect Trilogy: The division between letting Ash or Kaiden die Killing Wrex Which squadmate died the most in 2's Suicide Mission? Most popular romances How many people sabotaged the Genophage cure? Detroit: Become Human was really good with this sort of stuff. Amazes me how more games don't have a similar feature EDIT: TIL these stats do actually exist!
Bioware have published a lot of theirs over the years. I remember seeing it in the Mass Effect sub. You should have no problem finding that info.
I didn't mean to kill Wrex! Almost 18 years later and I still feel like a monster
Actually did ME1 just a couple years ago, didn't realize Ashley would basically make that decision for me at a certain point in the dialogue. Had to go back an hr or 2 on saves to prevent that dumb xenophobe from killing my boy. Needless to say, I let Ashley die.
Young me liked Ashley because she was hot. Older me hated her because she is xenophobic.
https://x.com/masseffect/status/1420036454042857472
I don't trust people who don't make Ashley guard the nuke. Space racist dies every time...EVERY.TIME!
She gets a lot better if you let her live, actually gets an arc. At least you can remember something about Ashley instead of the cardboard cutout that is Kaiden.
Detroit Become Human was really good with a lot of things. I played it recently and... What a game.
Yeah, Bioware published those for both the original and Legendary editions. Watching the ME sub cope with some of those stats is hilarious. The mental gymnastics so many of those folks go through when they see the official numbers and realize that the way they play, and their opinions, aren't actually popular with the larger player base is just fantastic. Turns out most players don't play FShep and don't play renegade; most players don't choose Kaidan as the Virmire Survivor, and most players don't kill Jacob for the lawlz. Turns out, most of the weirdly strong (and often pretty toxic) opinions that sub has are actually just loud minority opinions, whose proponents try to browbeat the rest of the fanbase into thinking the same way they do.
I have a feeling that only like 2% of Skyrim players actually killed paarthurnax for Delphine.
Same
Thieves guild, Dark Brotherhood, start over
I feel like it's more than that just cus some people will do anything that has a quest marker associated with it. (I was one of those people on my first playthrough.)
A man chooses…
I do feel its important to have detailed socio-economics breakdowns gaussian distributions and global heat maps on whether you pet cerberus after every run or important philosophal questions on RPG like; Is Anime real? Yes >No
Petting cerberus is for good luck. Always do it or the run is doomed
Anime is definitely real. A scientist told me so.
Anime has to be real. Miyazaki famously said anime was a mistake, and it can't be a mistake if it's not real.
Trick question animes exist so they are real but they are not REAL life
My first time playing final fantasy tactics I immediately selected the option to focus on saving argath the first time you encounter him. EVERY other playthrough I've done I specifically stop button mashing just to make absolutely sure I don't miss the opportunity to make sure everyone knows that I don't care if he gets shredded. It would be fun to see how many times he was killed by mobs and players.
How many people didn’t save the dog in RE4
What sort of foul human being doesn't get the dog out of the bear trap?
Just watched my gf play for the first time, she was so suspicious of everything that she shot the dog. It still escaped and ran off though…but never returned to help
It's kind of worth it to see her fight the troll later and ask for help.
Your gf is a monster
I’m not going to agree with you (but will upvote)
Percentage of people who skipped X cutscene. Imagine if 25% of players skipped the intro scenes of an RPG.
It’s probably higher
You’d be amazed at the % of people who don’t even get past the first few levels of a game. Look at the % of players that have unlocked the first story achievement/trophy and it’s almost always less than half.
Even unmissable achievements typically look like: - Launched the game: 92% - Completed the tutorial: 84% - Completed Act 1: 68% - Completed Act 2: 41% - Completed Act 3: 23% - Beat the game: 17% - Saw all three endings: 2%
Payday 2 is like that * Put on your mask (required to interact with anything): 85.4% * Complete your first job: 80.1% * Jump: 77.7% * Reach level 100: 15.5%
[удалено]
For souls games I do enjoy the gameplay more than any story aspects, but watching the cutscenes on first playthroughs is mandatory imo. Any playthrough after and it's fair game to skip, although I still watch a lot of them because they're cool.
How many players won Riku’s race in Kingdom Hearts 1 without resetting.
How may attempts before people beat sephiroth. Its been a long time but at the time I thought it was probably the hardest boss fight I'd ever done
The choices from Fable, mainly the first game. How many killed Whisper, Briar Rose, took the Jack mask, married Lady Grey vs figured out the crime, etc.
I really didn't like the nickname Farmboy so the attempt by Whisper to milk that for sympathy REALLY backfired.
BG3: How many people never get past act 1 because they keep restarting over every little bit of FOMO
Mission Vao. How many of you Dark Side players did the thing?
The way telltale games does it I think is perfect for all choice driven games.
The Landsmeet. That was peak Bioware.
Which of the four endings someone chose for the *Phantom Liberty* DLC of *Cyberpunk 2077*.
You can get an idea through steam achievements at least.
How many clips were reloaded vs rounds fired. I know I fire a shot then reload, quick save…. Probably at least three of us….
Times you killed Nazeem
Murdered civilians.
Fable 2: how many sociopaths didn’t bring back the dog (and rose).
Curious whether more people saved Nightcrawler or Jean Grey in MAU. I remember trying to time it so we unlocked both cages at the same time and Jean just plumetted into the lava . . .
NCR/Legion/House/Independent and as a side dish what became of The King's?
not exactly an RPG but i’d love to see that stats on some of the choices from the RDR2 side quests and strangers. Like for example how many people killed the ex-slaver and how many people walked away
I'd be interested to know which romance options were pursued on a first playthrough of Baldurs Gate 2.
how many people quit the game before finishing it
Tifa or Aerith (or Yuffie, or Barret, etc).
KOTOR 1/2 lotta choices light and dark equally enticing
How many players don't pet the cats/dogs/foxes in a game that has the mechanic to do it
How many players choose to run around without any equipment, and for how long?