Do you change your choices on replays?

[StaceyPowers]

When playing a game where you have a lot of plot-altering decision points, do you usually change your choices on replays, or do you make a lot of the same choices repeatedly?

If something doesn’t go the way I hoped, I will often try changing my choice to see if it leads to an improved outcome. I also sometimes will change my decisions just to see what will happen. But often I wind up making the same choices every time, because the other choices just don’t feel right (in situations that are clear-cut to me, anyway). Changing them out of mere curiosity breaks my immersion.

What about you?

[Executor Akamia]

If I take an option that got me killed for some reason, I tend to avoid that option in later playthroughs. It otherwise depends on what my goals are.

In games with a morality system like Fallout or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, I tend toward heroic options, with a pragmatic bias. If I'm feeling like playing a villain for a given playthrough, I'll obviously choose more villainous options, but those moments are rare for me to the point that I've never actually played a bad guy in an RPG of any sort. The only game that was able to bring out my inner supervillain was Stellaris, believe it or not, and that's primarily when playing with AI or as civilizations where heroism isn't an option. (e.g. civs with the Fanatical Purifiers, Determined Exterminators, or Devouring Swarm civics) Why does it come out with AI in particular? Because the game seems rigged to produce empires that hate me for existing no matter who I'm playing as, and simply having the bigger stick isn't always enough to keep them off my back; I have to actually control them in some capacity to get them to leave me alone. Failing that, I just end up having to destroy them outright.

Edited April 22, 2019 by Executor Akamia

[skyfire]

I do change the choices and also change the options with the characters. And some of the time level change to hard and normal or so. This type of change also often affect the outcome of the game overall if you ask me. 

[killamch89]

Depending on the character's philosophy, their choices are always different and not two characters I create will ever make exactly the same choices for the same events in-game. I've created "villains" with good intentions but horrible execution of such intentions and I've also created "heroes" whose arrogance and self-righteousness causes him to make some questionable decisions. My characters are usually very complex (just like myself) individuals.

[kingpotato]

Yeah I mostly take the same decisions or paths (unless the previous path was boring). I always wanted to make different decisions or be the "Bad guy" but it just doesnt feel right. 

[killamch89]

39 minutes ago, kingpotato said:

Yeah I mostly take the same decisions or paths (unless the previous path was boring). I always wanted to make different decisions or be the "Bad guy" but it just doesnt feel right. 

I always enjoy creating an agent of chaos because I don't have to be good or evil all the time.

[StaceyPowers]

On 4/22/2019 at 2:40 PM, Executor Akamia said:

I tend toward heroic options, with a pragmatic bias.

That sounds very much like my preference as well. Though it annoys me when my party members (and the devs who wrote them) have clashing ideas with mine in terms of pragmatism.

[killamch89]

On 4/27/2019 at 4:48 PM, StaceyPowers said:

That sounds very much like my preference as well. Though it annoys me when my party members (and the devs who wrote them) have clashing ideas with mine in terms of pragmatism.

Heroic options are so boring -_-. Join the Darkside 😈 - slaughter the NPCs - all of them! Even your followers (I'm not going to lie, I have used my followers as test dummies for some of my spells, resurrect them and then rinse and repeat). Needless to say, my followers aren't very trusting of me...

[StaceyPowers]

20 hours ago, killamch89 said:

Heroic options are so boring -_-. Join the Darkside 😈 - slaughter the NPCs - all of them! Even your followers (I'm not going to lie, I have used my followers as test dummies for some of my spells, resurrect them and then rinse and repeat). Needless to say, my followers aren't very trusting of me...

Usually I just use hated NPCs for testing spells. LIke in Skyrim, if I get a cool new ability to try out, I head to the Thalmor Embassy and kill everyone there. Or Markarth. I love wiping out Markarth.

[TheSteelyardDweller]

i try every option i can at least once though once i find out the consequences/changes i just go back usually to whatever makes the most sense to me. but i am too curious not to try them all!

[Bravosi]

In some cases, only playstyle. But in Skyrim I couldn't force myself to play for the empire, I feel disgusted. Always pick stormcloaks!

[StaceyPowers]

On 5/13/2019 at 1:05 AM, Bravosi said:

In some cases, only playstyle. But in Skyrim I couldn't force myself to play for the empire, I feel disgusted. Always pick stormcloaks!

Eep, there you and I differ. I'd love to hear the alternate point of view though. I felt the Empire was the lesser of two evils. Why do you pick the Stormcloaks?

[kingpotato]

If the Stormcloaks win the civil war the Aldmeri Dominion and the rest of the Empire ( Cyrodiil ) will invade Skyrim and to be honest Ulfric Stormcloak will not stand a chance.
But if the Imperials win at least the war will be over. Not a fair ending but as Stacey pointed out its the lesser of two evils.

[StaceyPowers]

20 hours ago, kingpotato said:

If the Stormcloaks win the civil war the Aldmeri Dominion and the rest of the Empire ( Cyrodiil ) will invade Skyrim and to be honest Ulfric Stormcloak will not stand a chance.
But if the Imperials win at least the war will be over. Not a fair ending but as Stacey pointed out its the lesser of two evils.

Regarding the Aldmeri Dominion, Skyrim is probably screwed either way. But the Imperials are far better equipped to fend off the threat than Skyrim is on its own at this point, which is an unpleasant but practical reality.

Now, there are other factors to consider as well.

The way I see it, the evils stand thus: The Stormcloaks are racists. The Empire enforces a policy of religious oppression.

It was the specifics of the situation that made me decide the Stormcloak issue is the bigger problem.

There’s a point during Solitude quests where the queen asks you to take an item to a Talos shrine on behalf of the dead king. That moment made it evident to me that those involved with the Empire’s administration of Skyrim are not fond of the anti-Talos policy. Indeed, it seems clear to me that nobody was particularly keen on it—it was just the only option at the time to hold the Aldmeri Dominion at bay. As such, I would expect this to be a “lax” policy of oppression, enforced only at the minimum level to convince the Dominion it was being observed.

But the Stormcloaks’ racism? That’s coming from within, not being pushed on them from outside, and it seems to be embraced with enthusiasm, given the state of affairs in Windhelm.

The other trouble with the Stormcloaks for me concerns Ulfric’s actions in the Reach as described in “The Bear of Markarth.” That book makes it quite plain he was guilty of full-on war crimes against the populace. Even if I weren’t fond of the Forsworn, I would be troubled by that.

I tried to play neutral the first time, and was furious when Markarth got traded right into Ulfric’s hands during negotiations. As a result of all of the above, I end up playing Imperial now every time.

@Bravosi @LadyDay would love your thoughts.

[kingpotato]

On 5/19/2019 at 12:10 PM, StaceyPowers said:

Regarding the Aldmeri Dominion, Skyrim is probably screwed either way. But the Imperials are far better equipped to fend off the threat than Skyrim is on its own at this point, which is an unpleasant but practical reality.

Now, there are other factors to consider as well.

The way I see it, the evils stand thus: The Stormcloaks are racists. The Empire enforces a policy of religious oppression.

It was the specifics of the situation that made me decide the Stormcloak issue is the bigger problem.

There’s a point during Solitude quests where the queen asks you to take an item to a Talos shrine on behalf of the dead king. That moment made it evident to me that those involved with the Empire’s administration of Skyrim are not fond of the anti-Talos policy. Indeed, it seems clear to me that nobody was particularly keen on it—it was just the only option at the time to hold the Aldmeri Dominion at bay. As such, I would expect this to be a “lax” policy of oppression, enforced only at the minimum level to convince the Dominion it was being observed.

But the Stormcloaks’ racism? That’s coming from within, not being pushed on them from outside, and it seems to be embraced with enthusiasm, given the state of affairs in Windhelm.

The other trouble with the Stormcloaks for me concerns Ulfric’s actions in the Reach as described in “The Bear of Markarth.” That book makes it quite plain he was guilty of full-on war crimes against the populace. Even if I weren’t fond of the Forsworn, I would be troubled by that.

I tried to play neutral the first time, and was furious when Markarth got traded right into Ulfric’s hands during negotiations. As a result of all of the above, I end up playing Imperial now every time.

@Bravosi @LadyDay would love your thoughts.

If the Gods can hear us I would like to see a continuation of this timeline in Elder Scrolls 6, but the Elder scrolls series tend to be centuries apart.