Yes please. No reason why it shouldn't be in.

Yeah!

In my opinion RPGs should have consequences for actions. That was a big weakness of Oblivion, and to a somewhat lesser extent Fallout 3.

I'd just like to take this moment to quote a passage from the old Daggerfall manual:

Most computer gamers use the save game to maximise their playing ability. Anytime something goes wrong, they return to a saved game and replay it until they get it right. The final history of their game looks like an endless streak of lucky breaks and perfect choices.

Role-playing is not about playing the perfect game. It is about building a character and creating a story. Bethesda Softworks has worked very hard to make The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall a game that does not require players to replay their mistakes. All adversity can be overcome, excepting only the character's actual death. In fact, you will never see some of the most interesting aspects of the game unless you play through your mistakes.

If your character dies, gets locked in a dungeon, or some other truly catastrophic event takes place, by all means return to your last saved game and replay it. However, if your character is caught pickpocketing, if a quest goes wrong, or some other mundane mishap occurs, let it play out. You may be surprised by what happens next.

I have lived by this philosophy for some years now when it comes to games like TES and the GTA series, where there is always plenty of room for failure. Living with your mistakes and picking yourself up to continue through them and face the possible consequences are what give a person's save game file character. Another great example is in Deus Ex: you're presented with little mundane tasks and choices all the time, and if you overlook them you may not realize the full extent of your failure until hours later into the game. It's things like these that make the storytelling in video games truly rewarding.

So yes to both having more impacts on the world and to more of them being subtle or occurring later on.

awful idea ,i dont want to spent time on a character and then feel bad about a delayed consequences and restart a new character.

Of course.

I am undecided.

Yes, it can add depth/etc.

On the other hand, I know I was kind of depressed in FO:NV, to see that I thought I had done well by the communities & groups I helped, only to have the ending slideshow reveal to me that I didn't actually help them at all.


Gee, thanks - it's nice to play a game, get to the End (woohoo, you've succeeded!) and have that good feeling pulled out from under you. (Of course, it was a Fallout game, so a general lack of "happy ending" should be expected. But it was more than expected.)



Edit: and another thought - random twists, just for twists' sake, don't add "depth". They just add randomness. If there's no lesson you can learn, tactic you can discover, or some clue that there's actually more to your decisions than "Feed the poor, or be Evil [censored] Mwahaha?".... then it's just the designers screwing with you. Generic "Actions have consequences" isn't enough of a reason.

(in other words "I gave that beggar an apple. He went on to spree-kill 48 people because he didn't starve to death." isn't good plot, it's just silly.)

like i said not the best example. for that one they could have a dialogue where you listen to the bandits story and have to decide whether to believe him or not. you could have him lead you to the cave and it either turns out to be a filled with bandits lying in wait for you just to kill you or you indeed find his wife inside. id even like it if the game mixed it up so that in some games the wife was there and in other games he was lying. you would have to randomize the appearance of the bandit and even the location so that its not the same guy in the same spot all the time.

as for the decisions having a negative impact ...........well thats just life. i would find it refreshing if not every quest was immediate failure or immediate success. the phrase "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" exists for a reason. and sometimes even when we act out of pure selfishness we end up helping people anyways. if you end up cleaning out a goblin cave you going after loot you might stumble across some captives you could free.

@Stonefrog.........thanks for the quote from daggerfall. its an apt description of how games end. i remember missing some stuff from fallout 3 and new vegas on the first playthroughs. all it did was encourage me to do a better job the next time around.

Of course. It was well done in TW1, and I believe some sidequests in Oblivion too.

These two statements have nothing to do with each other. And the fact that a decision can have a negative impact isn't the issue, either.

• Negative consequences are fine. Just as long as we have all the information needed to make an appropriate decision when the time came. None of this "You helped a stranger. Haha, joke's on you, he killed an entire town." In a game, there is no point in being offered a choice if you don't know what the choices are going to do.
  
• Delayed consequences are fine too, as long as it adheres to the rule above.

Are you implying his opinion is inferior to yours because his explanation wasn't persuasive? I agree that a delayed consequence would piss me off to no end, considering how many times I had to restart a game due to bugs or finding out how the game works 20 hours in. Sure, opposing factions plotting against you is awesome, but when it comes to minor quests it could lead to more issues than solutions.

An RPG withou some unexpected consequences every now and then would be boring...do people honestly just want to grind through, "kill the rats, get reward" quests with no surprises again and again?

one of the reasons I love the fallout series is that the decisions you make have an effect and its not always what you expected..

whats the point of a story where you know what's going to happen?

I'm really on the fence about this. I like to know what I'm getting into, and need some sort of idea of what consequence I'm facing. Showing up later on in game could really mess with my overall plans. I am leaning towards yes, but I'm not ready to commit to that answer yet!

One side note*

While I agree with delayed consequences, some games that DO use this mechanic, and though none come to mind right off the bat I know I've played quite a few, they all have a tendency to make the connection that the initial choice has to the end result seem either completely arbitrary or so obvious as to take all the surprise out of it. When you get to those moments that change the game, you should get a feeling by the atmosphere in the game that your about to make a decision of at least moderate importance, without giving too many hints as to what might happen depending on each.

A good example would be Silent Hill 2. The important choices were obvious because they dealt with saving people. But the best ending didn't come from saving everybody, but certain individuals, and the endings each made sense with who you saved. It wasn't like in some games where you happen to skip one side quest that barely made it on your radar but you get the crappy ending, nor is it just "do everything" and you get the best ending. Something in between, real and tactile.

For me, it sounds like a great idea, but it would really depend on the situation. If i do something small, like steal from someone, i wouldn't want them coming back and ruining a quest. If i kill a person, then yeah i would LOVE to see someone come back and TRY to seek vengence. It would also depend on how many times this happend. If i make these types of choices that may have these consequences A LOT, then i don't want them coming back to me all the time.

But then again, thats karma :tes:

they do indeed go together. virtually everyone including myself reloads a save if they immediatetly see that they made a wrong decision. this is natural since people want to have the best outcomes later on down the road for example if you dont have high enough relations with your crew in mass effect some of them would die. or if you picked the wrong person for the wrong job. i loved the concept that they did that except for one problem. the last segment of the game was short enough that you could just redo the last mission and pick the guys differently until you figured out how to save them all. i would have found it much more gratifying in both a good way and also a "grrrr" way if you had sent them on certain missions early on in the game and didnt find out until later on whether or not they succeeded or failed or even outright got killed. a good video game doesnt always have to make you feel fuzzy and warm about your decisions.......sometimes the best moments are when you dont have a clear cut choice and no matter what you do someone will die.

i agree that enough information should be present to let you make an informed decision as long as it isnt so obvious that the game outright tells you what to do. if you have a stealth mission that needs to be done and you have a warrior, mage and assassin/thief guys then you should be smart enough to figure out that the stealth guy has the best change of succeeding and not dying. if you sent the mage and he ends up dying ...........LOL. stupid is as stupid does.

i dont want my video games to be the typical movie where the good guys ALWAYS make the right decisions and never make major mistakes. that is just boring and simplistic not to mention it removes one of the most important feelings that heros SHOULD have, anxiety. i cant remember the last time i was anxious about any decisions in morrowind or oblivion. this is a very big part of games like penumbra or amnesia or even resident evil (the good games not the last two craptacular titles). its missing in TES games.

Not having any idea what consequences random actions can have is a big issue with this concept.

If it's something no-one can figure out without reading a guide or FAQ, it's been done wrong.


(A rather extreme example is in Final Fantasy 12.... there are four treasure chests in the early part of the game, completely identical to the dozens of other ones you'll run into, nothing to distinguish them. If you open any of those four chests, a super-uber-awesome unique weapon won't be in a chest in an optional dungeon much later in the game. Uh...... right. :facepalm: )

This is what my problem with delayed consequences is about.

Pardon my stupid question but....I dont exactly understand what the OP means may someone enlighten me? On what exactly he means?

Knowing exactly what the consequences of all your actions will be all the time is unrealistic, and frankly boring...and it would lead to everyone making the same decision...you might as well have a linear game

a hint that the decision will have consequences further down the line and you need to think about it would be good though

bethesda aren't dumb enough to do something like your extreme final fantasy example

Oh, I know that..... like I said, it's just the most over-exaggerated possiblity.

Funny how I've seen a couple people here being advocates for consequences, but also would be ok with being able to reset perks.

I think the way they have the perk system set up right now is a good example of delayed consequences in the game and i like that the way it is. But as for delayed consequences for quests id say i prefer the consequences to be more immediate i guess, but i think it could be good to see delayed consequences maybe in two different ways.

Maybe they could be different between main quests and side/mini quests.

Main quests possibly having more sublte less harsh consequences such as a change in location or a change in person you have to meet etc,--- while the side quests could present more harsh consequences such as not killing a thief and him coming back with friends to try and kill you later, maybe rescuing some dude in a cave who puts in a good word for you sometime later and you gain some benefit.

Tbh i would be fine with the consequences either way, be it harsh in the long run or w/e. But i think it could be good to keep the main quests consequences more immediate and possibly have the smaller quests present unique delayed consequences.

EDIT: Reading that now my thoughts were back and forth a lot so it might not make sense butttt for me i would be fine with either delayed or immediate consequences either way they choose to do it as long as the actual consequence and the effect on the world is actually there.

Of course.

I would want to give some thought to why certain things happened.
Everything shouldn't be obvious.

Yes, but only a few.

What? No they shouldn't. The consequence shouldn't be immediately obvious at all. and when it eventually does happen, you have an "oh [censored].. I made a bad decision back there didn't I" moment, but you shouldn't be able to determine the effect in advance.

You can almost always make an informed choice, because more often than not, you know whether your actions are considered good or bad in the game's society.
I know what cause and effect are....