This phenomenon has been unsettling me for a while: modern games where the narrative gives the player a sense of urgent and impending doom, but the gameplay not only doesn't reflect the player's impending doom, but turns it into a source of power without even any downsides. We all don't expect time limits in a post-Fallout world (devs even patched out the double secret time limit), but this is something else.>Pillars 1Oh no, your very soul is being torn apart! You're going insane! You'll die soon! You have to quickly find a remedy, or else!Just kidding, go fuck around doing side quests for six months, Here's some AoE combat abilities to leech health from your enemies, buff yourself, and debuff enemies.>CP77Your shit's fucked up, dude, you're dying and your brain's being overwritten! You've got a few weeks, tops. Go, and quickly pursue these flimsy leads and desperately hunt down a cure.Just kidding, go fuck around doing side quests for six months. Here's a whole new stat tree with OP abilities to magically make enemies explode EMPs out of their perineums, and to overclock your cyberware to do random new shit it didn't used to do.>BG3Ruh roh! You have an alien parasite in your head that's going to turn you into a monster! You have no idea how you're going to wriggle your way out of this mess, but make sure you make Marvel quips about it, and use it as a flimsy pretext to team up with an unlikely rag-tag band of random infected retards! Gobbo witch doctors? Sure, that sounds like a perfectly viable and plausible cure.Just kidding, go fuck around playing a gay romance simulator for six months. Oh, BTW, actually, what if you took even MORE tadpoles and shoved them in your brain? Wouldn't that be cool? You'd get a bunch of new psionic powers, with absolutely no drawbacks! The game won't even recognize if you abstain from tadpolemaxxing. Oh, BTW, someone has to go full illithid to finish the game because, uh, just because, okay.
>>3888023>We all don't expect time limits in a post-Fallout world (devs even patched out the double secret time limit)What do you expect then? The only thing you can really do is add back in a time limit, which no one wants, or remove all side quests and only let people do the main story, which no one wants. Even Skyrim does this with Alduin raising dragons and destroying the world, but you can go sidequest forever. What would your solution be?
>>3888023Pacing like this was an issue back in BG2, it's not a new problem.
>>3888023This phenomenon has been unsettling me too.I played Final Fantasy 1 recently, and I was shook to my very core as I noticed that the kidnapped princess was still unharmed, after I had spent days battling imps.
>>3888023>>Pillars 1>Oh no, your very soul is being torn apart! You're going insane! You'll die soon! You have to quickly find a remedy, or else!try playing the game before voicing your uneducated and unasked for opinionsthe dude you are meeting to ask questions has lived to old age with the same condition
>>3888023Open world games are the worst about this. RDR1 there was a clear sense of urgency for John to get his family back as soon as possible meanwhile you can spend 100 hours fishing and collecting bounties.
>>3888094Yeah and BG3 too has an excuse as to why you are immune to the tadpole if you play it for more than 5 mins.Actually it is IMPOSSIBLE to even remove the tadpole as you learn after a while.The only one in the list that's valid is CP77.
>>3888060>What would your solution be?Write a story that doesn't suck.Or modify your shitty story to make sense.E.g. in CP77 there's no reason why V should be dying in a matter of days.Make it a matter of months.Problem solved.
It's called suspension of disbelief in a video GAME, OP. It's not anyone else's problem that you're too autistic to pull it off. It wouldn't even make sense to put a 'meaningful' time limit on gameplay because most RPG day-night cycles advance significantly faster, so realistically you'd have a lot more time to actually stop and look at things or drive around as the character than you do as the player.The only problem with CP2077 is probably the line where Vikor says 'few weeks' and not 'few months' and that's probably about it really. While you as the player are overpowered as fuck and can speedrun anything, the roleplay in-game V actually needs the eddies from every side-gig for food, rent, guns, ripperdoc checkups, armor, bribes, etc.
>>3888101>E.g. in CP77 there's no reason why V should be dying in a matter of days.He isn't dying in a matter of days though. Vik literally tells you that you have a few weeks at least, but he's just guessing. You end up having like 6 months total by the end of the game. There's never a point where they say you only have a few days to live.
>>3888094>try playing the gameYou're asking too much of a shitposting /v/tard to actually play any vidya in this day and age
>>3888113>HeFound the Plebeian. Female V is canon, chud.
>>3888121Imagine playing as a woman lol
>>3888063BG2 handled the “player ignores his quest to save the world to go fuck around doing random shit” cliche quite elegantly, I think. The early game opens up with the framing of “you need money to save Imoen, go do some adventuring to get money” so that the players natural actions are in harmony with that point in the story.Morrowind as well, you’re told “you’re some level 2 nobody. You need a reputation for your cover story. Go join a guild. Do some quests. Explore. Clear some dungeons. Make some money and learn about the world. Come back when you’re more skilled and experienced.” and set free to do just that.
>>3888023some stories are just not a fit for sandboxsloptime limits are good btw as long as they're tight enough to encourage replays
>>3888023>narrative gives the player a sense of urgent and impending doom,>fallout 3>need to find my dad>fuck around for 6 months doing sidequests getting money and loot>randomly find dad in a VR vault
>>3888357BG2 isn't as bad as some other examples, but it's still incongruous. The main issue is that you have a clear goal to work towards in raising money so you can go rescue Imoen, but even though it's possible to meet that goal with only one or two of the major quests for the chapter the game expects you to play as much of the content as possible (or at least, signficantly more than what it takes to raise the money you need). So you either leave to save Imoen as soon as possible and spend the next three chapters underlevelled and underequipped, or you intentionally put off going to rescue her while you fuck around doing all these other quests. Even if you do go to get her as soon as you raise the money, when you get back to Athkatla later in the game you should have even less of an incentive to do any sidequesting since by then you're missing a soul (but it's cool, because Irenicus' assault on Suldanessellar will take as long as you need it to take).Comparatively, Morrowind does it perfectly because there's no time pressure for you to come back to the main quest.
>>3888097>Actually it is IMPOSSIBLE to even remove the tadpoleSkill issue. Worked on my machine.
>>3888666>dagger>actually a shovelFucking leafs
>>3888668The dagger is there if you look closely, it's positioned so that it looks like it's sawing in half Shadowtart's hair that's clipping into the ground, naturally.The shovel just doesn't get a tooltip, because the devs inexplicably broke/downgraded the in-world tooltips compared to DOS2.
>>3888680>The shovel just doesn't get a tooltip, because the devs inexplicably broke/downgraded the in-world tooltips compared to DOS2.It's pretty baffling how simple things like that could be worse than DOS:2, especially considering how similar the game was in its earliest versions (like the overuse of elemental surfaces in the earliest versions of EA). Inventory management was also a step backwards.I was just making a joke, but I appreciate the serious reply
>>3888684Agreed on all points.
>>3888060>What do you expect then?Not using a narrative device that clashes with the game? For some reason that was my first thought rather than adding a timer (lol) or cutting all side quests.
>>3888094>the dude you are meeting to ask questions has lived to old age with the same conditionYeah but he did go irreversibly fucking bonkers, with the implication being that he's now messed up not just for this life but for all his subsequent reincarnations because it's his soul that got damaged. Though the game does drop the issue like, immediately afterwards. The interplay of motivations in early PoE did always feel clumsy to me: muh land grant -> wtf is wrong with me -> muh guy in a mask. It's like they originally planned multiple independent trails that would all lead the Watcher to the Defiance Bay for different reasons, but then made it so every PC gets them all, but they are all half-assed.
>>3888755ngl your post reads like it's half-arsedPoE story hooks aren't particularly strong or anything but they are alrightNaturally if you half-arse skip most of it and then proceed to come to retarded conclusions based on what you made up instead, the result might not make much sense>yeah but like at the start of DooM why is the doomguy fighting the mobs all alone instead of just calling in the army to deal with the demons? It doesn't make any sense REEEI see no point in discussing retarded head-canon partially because you are probably going to skip my arguments and just argue with self-constructed strawmen
>>3888755>Yeah but he did go irreversibly fucking bonkers, with the implication being that he's now messed up not just for this life but for all his subsequent reincarnations because it's his soul that got damaged.Sure, he went crazy, but not overnight. The point is more to show you what will eventually happen to you if you just try to ignore what's happening to you instead of dealing with it. Whether his soul is permanently damaged or not is up to interpretation; you can say that you think it is or that he's just unlucky. Regardless, that's more a consequence of his awakening to have two prior lives who are in complete conflict with each other, which isn't a real concern for the PC.The motivations for your character always seemed pretty simple and straightforward to me. The land grant doesn't really have anything to do with Defiance Bay, and neither does first finding out you're Awakened unless you count people telling you that's where most of the animancers are - I thought it was a neat way of introducing it to the player early before its importance to the narrative becomes clear. It's basically ooh, free land (this is just a reason for why you're on the caravan beyond "you just are") > wtf is wrong with me (Gilded Vale) > better find out what's wrong with me from this Maerwald guy (Caed Nua) > now I know what's wrong with me I should go investigate further (Defiance Bay)
>>3888357>quite elegantly>you ehhh... like need A LOT of money to get directions, like trust me we'll help you, just give us the money>ehhh... you know what? we will actually help you for somewhat less money>thanks for the money dude, ehhh.... this is wild man, you know? but wouldn't it be cool if we approached you and asked for money because we actually need help from you to deal with a rival faction? HA-HA!>ehhh.... like really dude we NEED your help, like man you are literally the only one who can deal with our problemsasking for money to offer you a service only for the whole thing to morph into "help us baalspawn you are only hope" is so fucking stupidthe first time I was so mad I stopped playing for a month
Kingmaker fixed this with their time limitYou only have a limited ammount of time for the main quest or it fails so you cant just go around doing side quests all day but the time limit isnt so strict that you cant do anything elseIts restrictive enoug to force you to do something
>>3888777hilariously enough KM "solved" the mechanical part but instead forgot about telegraphing the narrative urgency XD
OP here. I guess no one read the OP, because no one has discussed the phenomenon I brought up.To be explicit: it is not the age-old genre cliche (older than most posters on this board) of "The hero takes a lengthy break from his incredibly important quest to save the world and fucks around doing random shit like rescuing puppies, collecting 20 sunflowers, playing card games, and delivering postcards for poor children". It's a bit silly, but it is what it is, and everyone expects it at this point, to some degree. Players like having side quests and other optional activities available, and players dislike having countdown timers before they get a game over.What I'm describing is when the game's narrative frames the character's motivations by imposing some deadly affliction, be it going insane, impending and imminent death, a horrific disease, etc, and then says "You must find a cure! This is horrible! Bad things will happen to you if you don't find a cure!" and then instead of the game's mechanics encouraging this in some fashion, the developers actually do the inverse, and treat the character's problem as a beneficial source of power with no drawbacks. They gain extra powers, abilities, stat boosts, etc, such that the horrifying and deadly problem the character is experiencing is actually a net boon and the character is better off for it. This is a relatively recent phenomenon, and I specifically chose the three examples I picked in the OP because they were the three games that made me recognize this pattern.
>>3888953That is an observation you have made.
>>3888023Why did shows such as Twin Peaks and Riget (Kingdom Hospital) fare so well and become such cult classics?They boiled everything down to simple concepts; good vs evil for example. Every character is an archetype and there is no unnecessary muddying of the waters except where character arcs requires it for the narrative. The room is cluttered, nothing is clean and it only makes sense to their own deranged hoarder brains.It's why Zeldashit and Mario did so well too, in part.
>>3888953>game hasn't even started>the player hasn't made a single choice>The Hand of God strikes the PC with an affliction that will penalize the player mechanically, progressively worseJee I sure wonder why nobody is doing that?it's almost like it's literal dogshit gamedesign and the opposite of funbut hey what do I know, you know what OP?you should go ahead and make that game, *surely* everyone will like it
>>3889096I raised a contradiction for the purpose of discussion and analysis.>The Hand of God strikes the PC with an affliction that will penalize the player mechanically, progressively worseWhy is it that you would take one potential resolution to this contradiction (likely the least-satisfying one), and then project it onto me, as if that's what I'm suggesting? Sounds like a failure of imagination on your part.Personally, I think the issue is the entire narrative framing of "Oh no, you're going to die, you must do X!" is lazy and uninspired. It will inherently be at odds with the mechanics of the game, for several reasons, as has already been pointed out. Come up with better plot hooks for why players should give a shit about the story, other than the most ham-fisted and clumsy.
>>3888023The typical WRPG player will have a melty if he doesn't get to get his money's worth by doing 100 hours of chores for NPCs.
>>3889122>Come up with better plot hooks for why players should give a shit about the storydo you mean "characters" in place of "players"?I'm installing a game because I already want to play a game, I as a player don't need any "plot hooks" to play the game or get into a dungeon.also still better than>boo-hoo your person assigned as a friend got kidnapped and you need to rescue herNah, miss me with that gay shit, she was irritating and I don't want her backI just want to go do something else>NOOOO!!! you have to save her, you just have to OK? That's the main story!
>>3889149>do you mean "characters" in place of "players"?>I'm installing a game because I already want to play a game, I as a player don't need any "plot hooks" to play the game or get into a dungeon.Both. It’s framed that way in terms of why the character cares about the plot, but also indirectly as to why the player should care about the plot, as it relates to our avatar, the character. Otherwise, if the player doesn’t give a shit about the plot, then why even bother with the main story, aside from “it’s there”? Why not just fuck around and explore and adventure? As you yourself point out here:>Nah, miss me with that gay shit, she was irritating and I don't want her back>I just want to go do something else
>>3888710Almost every game uses a narrative device that clashes with game. You wouldn't have a game otherwise. FF15 you're on a rush to get the weapons to stop an invading army, but you can drive around with the boys and go camping like there isn't an issue. FF7 Sephiroth is going to summon a meteor and destroy the world, but I can spend days breeding chocobos and becoming the worlds best jockey. If you have any game where the objective is to stop something bad/save the world, which is the majority of games, there's going to be conflicts like that unless you make it on rails with 0 sidequests, which doesn't make a game fun.
>>3889149>friend got kidnappedThen there's>ancient evil awakensOP noticed a new thing and is mad about noticing
>>3888761>I see no point in discussing retarded head-canon partially because you are probably going to skip my arguments and just argue with self-constructed strawmenWhat is your fucking problem nigger?
What the fuck is this twerp crying about?
>>3889170>Almost every game uses a narrative device that clashes with gameWell you can try to write around it. Morrwoind did it, your first main quest ends with your contact telling you to fuck off and explore on your own. Kingmaker had time limits (generous ones) and a lot of time after present crisis was averted for player to explore. BG2 have it as you are thrown in world to collect cash. BG1 have urgency until Helping Hand Inn and then it is up to you to decide what's next. So it can be done, but devs don't give a fuck about providing player with reasonable breaks in main quest to encourage exploring.
>>3889268For morrowind I would say it only makes sense until you start the main quest. It's just as weird becoming horator, uniting the great houses and then stopping to join the thieves guild.Kingmaker is what I was originally talking about people hating time limits. They changed it for WOTR because almost everyone complained how annoying it was.
>>3888357Morrowind did it excellently, it's true. You are no man of legend, but you can become him. Similiar to 'chosen' undead.
>>3888953I'm going to be nice here despite me thinking that it is more or less the same thing. There are a lot of ways to do RPGs but there are only a few that keeps retards and faggots happy.People mentioned Fallout 1's timer since it is both narratively strong and well implemented. Even back then the secondary timer was essentially removed reducing the impact of one of your decisions. The timer not only gave the story a sense of urgency but it taught the player not to waste time in the world map and try to finish all your business in town. People thought the 2nd timer was unforgiving but you could argue that it didn't go far enough. The idea was the towns closer to the Master were the first to fall but only Necropolis will fall in game and the others are only in the epilogue.Going back on the point of retards and faggots. Retards are the vast majority of the player base while faggots have the reach and influence. They aren't mutually exclusive. When the hobby is still niche, there was no need to cater to retards and faggots since it hasn't caught their interest yet. This is why definition of an (C)RPG is so broad to the point of uselessness while what is "acceptable" is so arbitrary and narrow. It took a long fucking time to make turn based combat acceptable to the masses. Then we have this:>>3886870>An RPG does not require combat in order to be interestingCombat has been a staple of RPGs since the beginning yet people are using commie gobbledygook like Disco Elysium like it has proven the point.Games like Wizardry have some mechanics that are toxic to the retards and faggots. For example, the characters have an age stat which both encourages and punishes a more reckless playstyle. Resting (saving) advances the character's age but so does revivals and especially revivals from ash. Going to your observation, there are games that explore having your character become weaker as the story progress but they aren't popular for obvious reasons. -cont
>>3889709Fallout 3 invalidated your character's death via a DLC. Fable let you save your dog via a DLC. Amazing Spiderman 2 gives you the "Anti-venom suit" which is just the venom suit but "good". There are possibilities for interesting mechanics but they get in the way of the play forever & get everything power fantasy of the Retards. Whenever you want to break the mold of the restrictive expectations of the Retards, you need to build a lot of "good will" with the Faggots. Disco Elysium isn't even well implemented yet it is treated as a proof of concept. You don't see much people trying to fill the niche left by mainstream RPGs.
>>3889709Does it? How does age work? Are there other rpg or survival games with age? I know of fable. Haven't played it though. Maybe ocarina of time, too.
>>3888023The NWN2 expansion Mask of the Betrayer did your dangerous evil superpower that is going to kill you really well, at least if you're embracing it. It both limits and endangers in ways you really want to remove while also being a cool and edgy set of powers. It's just some annoying busywork if you're being a goody though.
>>3889753Are there other dlcs good, too? I played nwn2 for a while and disliked the main campaign. Was worse than the nwn1 campaign. The first module was OK, the rest was, well, yuk.
>>3889749I explained it in the post. Going back up to rest (save) ages your character thus overtime your character might getting stat penalties when they level up. Your character dying and being revived greatly ages them per attempt more so if it from ash. Overtime your character becomes too "old" to revive.
>>3889755The other one by the original devs (storm of zehir) is a completely different kind of campaign with totally different goals that has no connection to the main campaign. It's really hurt by how shitty the core NWN2 of RTwP D&D 3.5 is but campaign design wise it's pretty damn good and will make you wish someone would use it for a proper full party CRPG sometime. The one by a third party dev (mysteries of westgate I think is the name) I never finished, just a bit too amateurish.
>>3889769You ever play Sid Meier's Pirates! ? It has aging that weakens you and makes the game harder to the point of it becoming impossible to progress in several ways and your campaign is ultimately limited. The 2004 remake even makes it effectively impossible to beat the "main quest" over a certain age because the final boss becomes invincible against your weakened character. It's just an alien design philosophy at this point.
>>3889749Tabletop DnD used to physically age you after every haste spell wore off. And there were penalties to physical stats in old age. Couldn’t run your warriors too hard for too long or you start eating permanent penalties.
>>3889769So traveling takes weeks and months?>revive comes with penaltyHuh!>>3889771Nwn with a party would be awesome, but devs suck bad. The bg3 editor seems complicated, so we don't have a single useful story mod.>>3889773That I know, except haste. Very good, so this mighty spell comes with a price. Maybe something like mental age or soul age or whatever. Then again, could be uberstat fast, if many magic spells scale with it.>permanent penalitiesLike what? That I didn't know. Injuries or what kind of penalties?
>>3889268Devs only care about career and this means to bootlick managers. Just look up how larian is managed. The fools who worked first for larian now have hundreds of people under them and won't stop terrorise junior devs.
>>3888784Well, other than multiple unmissable NPCs explicitly telling you what the time limits were, multiple times in a lengthy dialogue explaining the problem and the time limits to you.And the journal entry with an active timer counting down the days.And the urgent message that reaches you with weeks to spare, recalling you to the capitol to deal with the problem on time.
>>3889814https://datadrivengamer.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-not-so-basic-mechanics-of-wizardry.htmlMy point is games did try to marry mechanics to story before by making it more like an RPG instead of making more of something else. While you have people refusing to actually give a workable definition of an RPG, it is very common for people to say that certain mechanics are "outdated". Again, it took a really long time to rehabilitate turn based combat.
>>3889814>Like what? That I didn't know. Injuries or what kind of penalties?2nd edition DnD effects of aging, summed total:Middle age (45 for a human): -1 STR, -1 CON, +1 INT, +1 WISOld age (60 for a human): -3 STR, -2 DEX, -2 CON, +1 INT, +2 WISVenerable (90 for a human): -4 STR, -3 DEX, -3 CON, +2 INT, +3 WIS
>>3889814>So traveling takes weeks and months?No, I think that time moves non-linearly. I assume the idea that the "age" is affected by stress and the idea that sleeping away your boo-boos doesn't just take one night of sleep.>>3890100>CHA is the only attribute not affected by ageWhat is the idea that the increase of your social status offset you getting less hot?
>>3890132That same edition:>The Charisma (Cha) score measures a character's persuasiveness, personal magnetism, and ability to lead. It is not a reflection of physical attractiveness, although attractiveness certainly plays a role.
>>3888023I think it's just best avoided. Don't write stories like that to begin with, if you're going to make a free-roaming game.You could have time-limits on individual quests, with fail states that influence the world. But over-arching time limits are a bad idea without rails.
>>3888953People did read your OP, the problem is you listed games that impose a time limit of weeks or more and asked why you're allowed to do side content. I'm well aware of the issue in gaming writing where "OMG the world is ending! Better stop and do this random shit!" but the games you listed either involve stakes that aren't *that* high and immediate or have narrative justification for the lack of mechanical time limit.As others have said, Cyberpunk never says you're dying soon, you have weeks at minimum, plus however long it takes you to finish the game, then six months after that. I would say that with the fast pace and cutthroat nature of life in Night City, it's completely plausible to complete most of the side content in a month of game time... if the timescale weren't artificially increased.V is living in a modern city with cars and internet, there's no need for a day to pass in like 30 minutes of ingame time.Pillars especially makes it clear you have PLENTY of time before you actually go insane, and depending on your past lives you might have even more time than Maerwald did since unlike him you didn't rape a lady, die and immediately reincarnate as your own bastard son who torches the native village. The risk of eventual insanity and possible soul damage is a long-term narrative push for the player, the short term is just "what the fuck have I awakened to? What do these machines do and why do I remember them so clearly? Who is that guy in the mask? Why do I remember HIM?"
>>3890389>Not only doesn't reflect the player's impending doom but turns it into a source of powerBeing a Watcher IS a special power, just one that can induce insanity later in life. It is NEVER described as a simple disease, it's a sixth sense that includes making you able to remember past lives. Maerwald is insane because the lives he happens to remember are a life where he raped his own mother, then a life where he hated his former people and spent his entire life persecuting them. He isn't insane just because he sees ghosts.>>Pillars 1>Oh no, your very soul is being torn apart!No, it isn't. Awakening does not cause spiritual entropy, plus the ghost animancer in Gilded Vale TELLS YOU your soul must be particularly whole and strong for you to have survived the spirit wind in the prologue.>You're going insane! You'll die soon! You have to quickly find a remedy, or else!Again, no. Maerwald's fate is your EVENTUAL FATE if you don't find some way of reaching inner peace and quieting the visions. You have years, DECADES even, before you start remembering that time you died giving birth to yourself or something.>Just kidding, go fuck around doing side quests for six months, Here's some AoE combat abilities to leech health from your enemies, buff yourself, and debuff enemies.Yes, because one: see above.Two: this is a medieval kingdom, shit just TAKES TIME and the game literally could not work on a short timescale because you'd drop dead on the hike to the next city.Three: You have these powers because AGAIN, being a Watcher means being able to see and manipulate soul matter on a more fundamental level than anyone else. You're basically psychic, being able to feel everyone's emotions is going to eventually fuck your brain up, but until then you can leech energy and fuck with people's heads. Where's the issue?Baldur's Gate is the one I won't defend, not because I don't think it can be but because I didn't play it and I like to think I have some kind of honor.
>>3889268>devs don't give a fuck about providing player with reasonable breaks in main quest to encourage exploring.In BG1 the main quest have you looking for the bandit camp. You can easily roleplay all the exploring and sidequesting as cleaning up the sword coast from threats.
>>3889772>hame has a mechanic that makes it impossible to beat>it's an alien design philosophy for reasons unbeknownst to man
>>3890389>People did read your OP, the problem is you listed games that impose a time limit of weeks or more and asked why you're allowed to do side content.No. You clearly didn’t read the OP, or the post you’re responding to.I am not talking about “the game says the world is ending if I don’t hurry, but there’s no time limit and I can do random side quests!”I am talking about “the game says the player character has some affliction that will harm him if he doesn’t hurry and find a cure, but actually the affliction is purely beneficial and gives the player powers, boons, statistical boosts, and new abilities, with absolutely no mechanical downsides, tradeoffs, or penalties”I don’t know how I could possible state this any more clearly. This thread has drastically shaken my already precarious faith in the ability of modern 4channers to read written text and comprehend its meaning.
>>3890390>He isn't insane just because he sees ghosts.In fact, one of the more profound but subtle questions the game attempts to confront about reincarnation is the question of whether it's possible for an eternal soul to become a better person, even if death wipes some / most / all of your memories in between. Was Maerwald driven mad by awakening as a Watcher? Or was he always a madman? And will he always be? And this is a question that runs through the entire plot from start to finish. It's the question that the gods were explicitly created to address and which Woedica apparently has a pessimistic answer for - which is why she sends Thaos to meddle in mortal affairs, among other actions.
>>3890431No, I do understand that your issue is with the nature of game narratives giving the player an affliction and having no mechanical implementation or having one that's outright beneficial. That's why I spent like 1500 words explaining how I didn't think Pillars of Eternity deserved to have that accusation.>The player character has some affliction that will harm him if he doesn't hurry and find a cureCorrect, but "hurry" in this context is that you *explicitly* have years at the minimum. I already explained that. You are not racing against parasitic consumption and replacement like in Cyberpunk or BG3, you are trying to make sense of your past life, resolve unfinished business, and find out what is conspiring behind the scenes as the man orchestrating these plots is the same hooded man who caused your awakening.>but actually the affliction is purely beneficial and gives the player powers, boons, etc with no downsidesAgain, I already addressed that, and the answer is being a Watcher is not explicitly an affliction. By the nature of what it allows you to do, it makes you much more likely to develop crippling mental illness, but on its own it is not going to hurt you.Again, Maerwald was very old when you found him and was constantly fighting with two of his past lives which were diametrically opposed to each other. His outcome is the WORST case scenario for what could happen if you don't find help within the next few years, and as >>3890573 said it's still ambiguous as to whether you're doomed to end up as bad as he did.>This thread has drastically shaken my faith in modern reading comprehensionYeah no shit, you stopped reading when I brought up something conceptually similar to the issue you described in the OP and ignored the multiple paragraphs explaining why I didn't think Pillars of Eternity belonged in the OP image.
>>3890607>1500 wordsletters, characters, whatever, it was a post limit and some change
>>3890431>use bad examples for your OP>people correct you because unlike you they actually played the games>REEEEEE you guys don't understandMaybe next time use some examples that actually fit, retard.
>>3890607Your post that I responded to was literally entirely discussing timelimits.>People did read your OP, the problem is you listed games that impose a time limit of weeks or more and asked why you're allowed to do side content. I'm well aware of the issue in gaming writing where "OMG the world is ending! Better stop and do this random shit!" but the games you listed either involve stakes that aren't *that* high and immediate or have narrative justification for the lack of mechanical time limit.>As others have said, Cyberpunk never says you're dying soon, you have weeks at minimum, plus however long it takes you to finish the game, then six months after that. I would say that with the fast pace and cutthroat nature of life in Night City, it's completely plausible to complete most of the side content in a month of game time... if the timescale weren't artificially increased.>V is living in a modern city with cars and internet, there's no need for a day to pass in like 30 minutes of ingame time.>Pillars especially makes it clear you have PLENTY of time before you actually go insane, and depending on your past lives you might have even more time than Maerwald did since unlike him you didn't rape a lady, die and immediately reincarnate as your own bastard son who torches the native village.>The risk of eventual insanity and possible soul damage is a long-term narrative push for the player, the short term is just "what the fuck have I awakened to? What do these machines do and why do I remember them so clearly? Who is that guy in the mask? Why do I remember HIM?"
>>3890618>My first post was literally entirely discussing time limitsYes, and there was a post directly below that discussing the nature of PoE's affliction and how it ties into the narrative and character progression.>Mad that I'm discussing time limitsYour original post describing the plots of the games ended each description with complaining that the game lets you fuck around doing sidequests for six months. Do you want to address time limits or not?
>>3890633The OP in question:>modern games where the narrative gives the player a sense of urgent and impending doom, but the gameplay not only doesn't reflect the player's impending doom, but turns it into a source of power without even any downsides. >We all don't expect time limits in a post-Fallout world (devs even patched out the double secret time limit), but this is something else.>Pillars 1: Here's some AoE combat abilities to leech health from your enemies, buff yourself, and debuff enemies.>CP77: Here's a whole new stat tree with OP abilities to magically make enemies explode EMPs out of their perineums, and to overclock your cyberware to do random new shit it didn't used to do.>BG3: Oh, BTW, actually, what if you took even MORE tadpoles and shoved them in your brain? Wouldn't that be cool? You'd get a bunch of new psionic powers, with absolutely no drawbacks! The game won't even recognize if you abstain from tadpolemaxxing.90% of the replies were about timelimits.
