What developers say:

It's not. It's far simpler. Just look at all the merging of paths – it's like a telltale game. 90% of the "complexity" is:

OP, you are the kind of retard who can be impressed by a bunch of badly organized arrows, and that's awful. Reroll your life.

Why are you replying to me instead of the OP?

It's your image what shows how retarded OP is.

Nah it would require more complex writing to jump from one middle circle to the other than simply following down set paths without the option for deviation to other major paths.

You realize those charts are wrong, right? It's actually this.
Behold, every Bioware game ever made

sugoi

It definitely is not.

Almost all of them get annulled sooner or later, meaning your decisions didn't really matter much. In the second graph, while the structure is more simple, your decisions matter much more than in the first.

The first graph essentially portrays a Telltale game like TWD. The second one would be Fallout: NV, I guess? Neither one of them is particularly excellent in this regard, but the second graph is clearly superior to the first one.

So if the lower graph is not good enough, can someone show me a PROPER graph of a better alternative?

I mean the upper graph is clearly retarded and not nearly as complicated as it looks, and OP is a faggot as per usual.
However, I'm curious if a better choices/consequences graph exists than the classical tree shaped graph.

It's not that simple, but here's a less jewish version of the first graph anyway. The original has extra points for no reason, and goes in random directions to make it seem more complex.

Content is the most expensive thing to produce. Any meaningful choices that dictate where the players go could mean producing an entirely different area with writing, music, sound effects, voice acting, level design, enemies, environmental art and so on. A lot of companies aren't willing to spend those resources on something only 25% of players might pick which is why choices become so arbitrary: they'd rather limit real choice and make all players go through the content they've made so a play-through is longer.

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user that just leads you right back to the prompt.

He's thinking about the mario rpg's, you are thinking about pokemon.

I was thinking about Golden Sun actually

ME:Andromeda is worse

Shouldn't that be more like:

Nice try, Goldberg

Can you give some examples, OP, of games which give the player authentic choices and ones which do not?

For me, the best example which comes to mind is New Vegas and Fallout 3/4.

killing caius cosades

Your best bet is text adventures

I hope you are underage, OP.

God, Golden Sun was the worst with that shit.
Why the fuck give me the choice to answer no if the asker is just going to tell you "too bad," then repeat the question ad infinitum until you give the 'correct' answer?

You could just fuck off from the temple at the begining and let the world burn.
A decision that would save everyone a lot of time since Saturos and Menardi were the good guys all along.

Pic related.

Even such graph is still good game design.
Especially when events during entire game will affect last decisions. Like killing dragon in Witcher 2. You can only learn who it is and what are you doing during Iorwerth route but still decision is same for both routes.

Only way to make it shit is making straight line without player any input and stuff already said in OP. However stuff in OP is just shit writing and not really problem with story structure.

Sounds like every telltale game

The harl hotler graph.

an actual representation of andromeda's story choices

…looks awfully jewish

Telltale games formula is the worse. They always say that your choices matter but everytime you use the silent option the other character says what you were supposed to say.

Is this loss?

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The shit is so on rails you can fail 90% of the QTEs and the game will just push you through the cinematic. Like they couldn't even bother with extra animating.

Oh man, that takes me back.

Just give 3 options for good/evil/secret endings and focus on the damn gameplay and bugs

but story and choice can be a part of the mechanics

I see it

we need to go further, reducio ad infinitum

Just imagine I posted the edit of that pic

Star Ocean 2 had more endings than humanly possible.
Also, fuck Welsh. Fuck everything that whore stands for.

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got it wrong, but it's that simple. There are two outputs from the first ellipse, two from the left, two from the right, and three from the top.

The faggots who clamor choices and consequences really should play visual novels or eroge that allow multiple paths.

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Pokemon name: Poo/Pooze/Delpooge
Feces Pokmeon
Type: Poison/Ground
Ability: Vile Smell: Attraction/Affection based moves will not effect this poemon

Games that advertise themselves as having Choice and Consequence™ generally have signposted, binary story choices where everything stops and you're forced to pick between one of two options in a menu.
It's better to have a game that simply takes your actions into account without involving a big flashing neon sign that says, "This is a choice!" and where the effects of your moment-to-moment in-game actions are what changes the course of the story.
It's the Deus Ex style of reactivity vs. the Mass Effect one. The former is infinitely better.
Embed related.

A button press in the last ten minutes of the game?

You clearly never played the original Deus Ex.

Play the original you daft fuck.

Fucking google.

that's putting way too much credit holy shit.
I would be fucking happy if stories were at least as "complicated" as the bottom one

Got you covered.

I'm still pissed off over Season 3

FUCK YOU TELLTALE. BOATMAN WAS THE LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS THAT WAS THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, INSTEAD YOU HAD TO BOW DOWN TO THE FUCKING JANEFAGS AND KILL OFF ONE OF THE BEST CHARACTERS

YOU BASTARDS

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Who cares about story anyway? I read books for that

The worst part was that there was no way to rightfully call Jane out on being a complete cunt, but still continue with her to the old supermarket. It was either go along completely with the bitch, or leave on your own.

Also how does season 3 handwave away the different endings from 2?

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Paper Mario TTYD has a choice to aid the villain which leads to a game over prompt

I'm pretty sure the writers themselves are Janefags. How else could one make a character and expect anyone to pick her over Kenny.

The fact that no matter what you do, Kenny dies eaten alive and Jane dies a martyr speaks volumes.

I did play the original. The endings are determined in the last section of the game, completely ignoring any previous actions undertaken by the player.

Sure, but there are tons of choices before that, some of which aren't even sign-posted. Being able to kill Anna in the plane, for instance. Or the fact that you can save Paul. Or the bomb planted on your helicopter.

It's kikes, you stupid faggot. Either pay attention or kill yourself for being complicit.

The best way to get dynamic gameplay isn't scripted quests but instead detailed underlying mechanics that have an effect on the game world. "Emergent gameplay" has become a buzzword but when done right it's the best possible outcome as no two play-throughs are the same.
My dream game is the Caribbean during the golden age of piracy with each islands economy effecting their prosperity and the actions of protectorate states.

This is the first graph after some rewriting.

THREE SLIMES APPEAR

metal.. gear?

Sounds like ending L.

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That graph is also pretty simple

Jews best game design.

if game's story isn't pic related then its trash
split story lines are fucking dumb

Huey, the autistic genius strikes again.

Guess

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It's Loss

How complicated the story REALLY is

…well yeah. The fuck were you expecting?! Twenty different full lengths games on the 3rd installment?

Thats hilarious.

I have to give Witcher 2 credit for having the balls to actually split off their game into two different stories from just one decision. They could have done it better but I do appreciate it.

Is that Shadow The Hedgehog?

Similarly, Super Paper Mario lets you decline to be the hero at the start.

Yes but throughout the game there's lots of little things that change depending on what you did or didn't do. Nothing that majorly alters the story but still, things like if you speak to someone in a previous mission you'll know a passphrase in the next one, or that one girl will show up waay later in the game if she leaves the hotel in the end.

No this is. Your path through the story is so meaningless to the ending it may as well be a swamp of "doing stuff".

Actual Shadow the Hedgehog flowchart I found, sorry it's small

Yeah in theory. But again, the journey has basically no significance to which ending you end up at.

Your dream game sounds just like Sid Meier's Pirates.

There's more to games than the endings.

Makes me wonder for all the praise this series got, did any fucking reviewers play through it more than once?

Underappreciated post.

I swear I see a standing person, with the left arm on their chin like they are thinking from looking at that image.

Are you from EA/Bioware's ME3 marketing team?

You suck at reducing graphs.

Was it to hard for them to code the wind going a different direction?

Just for the record, Choice & Consequence is a phrase that originated on the RPG Codex forums, and it's been somewhat of a rallying cry for good RPGs there. The RPG Codex boards are somewhat small but damn near every large RPG developer knows them, and their tendency to consider choice & consequence a must for any half-decent RPG has rubbed off on the industry.

Also, he's wrong that type 2's goal is replayability. Type 2's goal is more like "consequences for the sake of having consequences." It's what happens when you pursue C&C as a checkbox and goal unto itself, rather than recognizing how it's supposed to mesh into the gameworld to improve the quality of gameplay. Moreover the Mass Effect examples are things we generally wouldn't even think of as C&C in the first place. There is simply no good reason not to do loyalty missions, so it's not much of a decision.

Videogame reviewers are complete shit these days, dude. They don't care about gameplay. They're as passive and brainless as they come, so they mostly rate it on graphics and whether it has a story.

You can have that in normal CoC as well.

Fallout 1 being the primal example, everything you did in the game leaves an ending, and the ending of the game is the combination of all choices you made thorough the game.

I see that as kind of a copout. It's a way to ensure the appearance of consequence without actually having to do any work to account for consequences within the game.

How the holy fuck is that a cop-out?
What the fuck does this even mean? You choose the choices, now reap the consequences.

I think a big problem is that Devs want you to be able to do all the content in a game at once. They don't want to lock off content to players if they're not doing that path so everyone can do everything. It's like you're playing an RPG as some lawful good paladin and some necromancer asks you to help him raise an army of the damned. Logically you should tell him to go fuck himself and put a mace in his face. But modern games will just add the quest to your journal. Skyrimjob was bad for this. I wanted to try and actually play a character so I made Olaf Olafsson, chaotic good, dual wielding berserkerlord. I got to Riften and everyone was like "omg the thieves' guild is ruining our town.” So I get my axes, find out where they are and go axe crazy on them. Half of them are immortal and they manage to chase me out whereupon the townspeople attacked me for attacking the people they just said we're ruining their town. And this is just how modern RPGs are, either you do content or you ignore it.

It's the difference between Deus Ex style choices and Fallout style choices. In Deus Ex, if you ask Jaime to spy for you, he gets you a killphrase you can use in your fight against Gunther. It has no impact on the ending and if you ask him to come with you instead of spying you get an upgrade canister. In games like Fallout where choices are played as a slideshow ending, a similar choice would net you an extra scene at the end of the game but have no actual impact on later gameplay. That's what I mean. It's an overly simple example but it explains the concept. One is a choice with a consequence in the game. The other is a choice with a consequence in the story, more specifically the ending. The latter is boring and in some ways is just a way to get out of making sure your choices impact the game world directly.

Obviously not all of Fallout's choices were like that. The game was huge and had plenty of impactful choices that went beyond slideshow credit sequences. I'm not ragging on Fallout, I just don't like the idea of, "All of the choices give you an extra slide in our ending Powerpoint presentation but nothing else."

Nonsense, in Fallout you make choices and you get immediate results as well as long term results.

Example: if you side with the sheriff, you will get the sheriff help in that particularly gangster boss fight. But you will also know that happen to the sheriff and that town in particular.

It's a superior system in general compared to the shallow ass Deus Ex choice.

Skyrim was particularly dogshit about this because it pretended to be good in this regard. Basically, Skyrim is a lie. Witcher 3 never pretends that you can be anybody but Geralt, doing Geralty things. Skyrim says you can be anybody but doesn't actually let you.

That was pretty effective with that one character who gets shot literally two seconds after the prompt pops up.

This is precisely why I put in that part that said, "I'm not ragging on Fallout and I know it had game-impacting choices." Fallout doesn't entirely rely on ending slideshows. It's the general idea I have a problem with, not Fallout's specific implementation. It leads to shit like how Fallout 3 was supposed to have a trillion different endings because of permutations of the ending slideshow. I just think it encourages effort on the wrong parts of game development.

This is why I've said that New Vegas has one ending. People always sperg out when I say this, but that's because they are thinking of New Vegas as an interactive film, rather than a video game. The principle applies to many other games, but it's worth highlighting New Vegas as an example of this because people tout it as everything that Fallout 3 should have been but wasn't.

No matter what you do during the game, you end up in the Battle at Hoover Dam. This battle occurs in the same place, with the same NPCs, and you don't actually get to see any of its aftermath because it's played out to you in a slideshow. Different slides on a slideshow only make different endings if you ignore the fact that new Vegas is, first and foremost, a video game.

New Vegas is not a bad game because of this, it just doesn't have the multiple endings that people say it does. Now, it's still better than Fallout 3 in this respect, because in Fallout 3 you are railroaded into pressing the buttons on the purifier, whereas in New Vegas you can at least chose on whose side of the battle you fight.

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kek

Except my point is that Fallout's style of immediate result and long term results are the ways to follow.

if New Vegas has one ending then how many endings do Deus Ex have?

So a game cannot different have endings counting as different endings? Wut?

lol

Well, I concur, this game is just fucking boss at non-linearity.

I'm not sure how many more ways I can say, "There's not really any problem with Fallout's implementation of what I take to be a bad design philosophy," there are before you stop trying to argue me out of agreeing with you that there's no issue with Fallout's implementation of what I take to be a bad design philosophy. I said that all I want is for choices to have gameplay impact and not just credit sequence impact. We both agree Fallout did this. I don't give a damn if Fallout also includes ending slideshows as long as the choices have gameplay impacts.

Stop trying to talk me out of agreeing with you, dick.

But thou must.

I really don't agree with you because Deus Ex's implementation of consequences are flawed compared to Fallout.

It's archaic compared to Fallout even, and it's a bad idea to promote Deus Ex when Fallout has presented a better system way earlier.

You can care about gameplay without pretending you don't know what a fucking ending is.

I know something else that sucks.

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in the title, why is just the M red and nothing else

Quality posts. These anons know what's up.

We don't. It's allowed by millennial casuals who think Zelda is an RPG and think having one or two forks in a plotline is "lolsoimmersive"

That just nets you the "String of fate has been broken!" Messages. Now killing Vivec, on the other hand, actually opens up a hole new string of angles. The most fun I had in Morrowind was killing the Chim master and then getting wraith guard from Yagrum Bagarn

FTFY
the difference in nuPREY's endings boils down to different 10-second clips of the outside of the station and an identical post-credits (FUCKING LOL) "true ending" scene

call it "Hamburger Hepler's choice"

Its mongly the progression goblin

Why the heck has nobody come up with a replication of DnD's "theater of the mind" for video games?

Instead of pressing buttons you can base storyline decisions on stats that you change based on your actions, leading to checks for multiple factors and allowing for a lot more freedom. You could also theoretically create new randomized circumstances every new game based on those stats, lowering the probability of a player having the exact same story runthrough twice.

Silent Hill 2?

It's a spoiler. Play the game to learn why.

I see a sassy fat woman with her hands on her hips.

What are you talking about? "Theater of the mind" is just a term for playing D&D without a grid or minis for combat.

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jesus fuck user I'm dying.

Tweaked it a bit.

post the original pic

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OH FUCK I FEEL LIKE I'M GOING TO SHIT OUT MY SOUL

Holla Forums was a mistake

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cute/10

HAAH WAAW

Shadow the Hedgehog is a rare game that did choices and changing the game world trough gameplay the right way.
Try and prove me wrong.

To be honest, I thought it was Green and purple until you showed it.

git gud

This threads just keeps getting better. Is it just me or has this place went slightly up in posting quality and humor?

Random, non-topical shitposting threads seem to pull decent people out of the woodworks for some reason.

I can't forget GTA IV fanboys in regards to that.
They praise GTA IV for its "deep moral choices" because they're total plebs who've never heard of even the most basic 90s PC RPGs that have more sophisticated shit in them.

Your graph's all wrong, OP. It's more like this.

Thread redeemed.

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It's about fucking time.

I want games with lots of meaningful paths, too, but who the fuck is going to try that hard when they can make just as much money with a simpler product? Nobody makes games because they love vidya anymore - it's just a business. Minimum effort for maximum profit.

IM GONNA WRECK IT

Well, it only took about 4 days.

It's actually this.

go back to halfchan you unfunny memespouting faggot

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