There was something that bothered me about dialogues ... and it bothered me a lot, even tho i wasnt exactly sure what was it ... but i believe i finaly cracked the nut, even tho i must admit it took me a while.
There is no middle ground, we are moving from extreme to extreme, never stop in the middle ...
Few examples:
- Arabella (
yup, this again) ...
> shes basicaly sentenced to death ... i mean Kagha clearly said that she want her locked up until ritual is compelted, and anyone who will be inside the Grove and not a Druid after ritual will be finished, will be killed.
> or she can go without any punishment.
Suggested middle ground:
Spank her ... or demand her parents to do so, and refuse to leave until they do ... or demand that they punish her somehow ... since concidering her tone while she say "mom please, im allright" she didnt seem to take any lesson of this experience. :-/
Feel free to let her parents get angry on us, in other words include consequences ... for us, and for her.
- Meli (the Tiefling kid who stole the idol from one of Aradin's companions)
This one isnt actualy *that bad* bcs there are possible satisfying outcomes ... if you play your cards right ... but if you dont ...
> you can support the child right from the start, Barth get nothing, child is prefectly safe and his crime remain hidden ... the problem is, the child starts roast Barth quite too much, so our Tav would need to be blind, deaf, stupid and ignorant all together to still believe he just helped the inocent child ...
That isnt necesarily a bad thing ... i can imagine several of my characters who would either not care if the child is guilty, or would took his side anyway ... but what if you wish to play Lawfull Good Paladin? Striking a child is bad ... but leave thief without a punishment is potentialy even worse ...
Suggested middle ground:
Add there some option to say that we still want to know whats going on, and that we meerely were trying to avoid the violence ...
Of course, if we will find out that the child indeed stole the locked, there should be consequences ... again.
- Marina Brothers.
> This example belongs more to that topic about choices and consequences ...
But same as it is with Arka ... no matter what we do, they allways end up dead ... even if we rush into swamp before them and kill every-single-being there before they even enter it, Hag included, once we get out, we find their corpses.
I mean, technicaly they may have trigger some trap ... but still. :-/
- Astarion ... first encounter.
> When you first meet him you have 3 dialogue option ... wich all leads to same outcome > you accepted his apology. The only existing alternative is attacking him with other party member before you accept it, or attack him yourself after.
Suggested middle ground:
Allow us to attack astarion back ... or at the very least punch him in the face ...
In ideal world, when he bow and apology, we would have option to atempt to break his nose and then mockingly bow and apolgy, just as he did ... wouldnt even mind to start with negative attitude from him honestly.
- True soul Nere.
This one is quite weird, bcs as far as i remember (
and yes, maybe i should have replayed it again before start writing this topic) your options are either side with Nere and betray Duergars ... or let him side with Duergars and betray you ...
Again, not exactly against his character ... basicaly i like he acts this way, it fits him well ...
But some middle ground is once again missing here ...
Several of them actualy:
I mean Nere is True Soul ... and Duergars we are talking about are loayal to to the Absolute ...
But we are True Soul aswell ... and therefore we should have option to Persuate their comander to follow us instead, bcs the Absolute allready showed that Nere have lost her favour, when he ended up behind that cave in ...
Then there is that Duergar elder who dont give a shit about the Absolute and all he wants is Gold ...
Nere promises him to pay after he kills us ...
Why cant we point out that all Nere give him so far was empty promises ... or even better counter that offer? We can offer him all Nere Gold, instead of just their payment ... we could even outbid Nere offer, and offer them double instead ...
And we KNOW that he would accept that, bcs that is exactly what he do, if we agreed on this betrayal before we saved Nere ...
You start seeing the patern here?
You can allways ignore what is happening to you or kill the one who is reponsible, no matter how extreme that would be ... nothing in between.
Please tell me, is that all just my imagination?
Or Larian indeed forget that there should be option C? (And sometimes even B.)
Have you encountered any other situations where you felt like you have no actual choice?
