@MahatmaDagon It occurs to me that even if the MC loves the spouse from the start or comes to love the spouse eventually, that does not mean that the MC wants to have a child. There could be various reasons for not wanting a child even with a spouse the MC loves. Such reasons could include knowing the prophecy that applied to the MC’s mother and not wanting to run a similar risk, (for a female MC) not wanting to be pregnant for 9 months, believing that the MC’s family line should end in as much as possible, or simply not wanting a child.
It also occurs to me that if the MC tries to copy Hilltown’s temple at feeding the hungry, some MCs might prefer to do that without involving the Temple in the MC’s land. The last thing MCs on bad terms with the Temple would want is to have the poor and hungry grow used to looking to the Temple for aid and all while the MC is covering the bill for it. Instead, the MC could perhaps detach militia from the MC’s army to handle distributing food to the poor, or the MC could just pay even more to hire civilians to handle it. Even if feeding the hungry without involving the Temple further worsens relations with the Temple, it might improve the army’s morale to be actively helping those who need aid.
Perhaps I could’ve worded my previous point better. It doesn’t become a standard heroic fantasy by the end, it feels like it’s was hijacked by characters from a standard heroic fantasy. Daedros and his gang doesn’t follow lordly medieval politics logic, they follow heroic fantasy logic. Kill all the lords in the west and become the king of the west so you can unite everyone under your banner to defeat the evil beings from beyond the stars.
And furthermore, it’s not a question of believing them. The fact that they believe in such things has resulted in major stuff happening in the world. Treating them as psychos does not invalidate their actions or the effect they have on the game.
To refine my analogy, imagine you’re playing crusader kings and suddenly dragons show up, and you’re left wondering if you happen to have left the wrong mods on. It’s a similar case in this situation, only now you’re left doubting the author’s chops.
That’s basically another way of saying “Hijacked by characters from a different story.”
This begs the question of… why? Why do you want to piss off the people paying you like this?
Just to clarify, this is not a good thing. Having your plot hijacked by a last minute antagonist that seems to have jumped out of a completely different genre does not a good story make.
It’s significantly more than you’ve interacted with Daedros, and, more to the point, you have interacted with them in your capacity as a lord and as such have a much greater idea of what makes them tick, on top of all the other information you can gain on them. In contrast, having Daedros pop up with his betrayal feels like one of those twists M night shyamalan used to put in his movies, one that is there just so he can say that there’s a twist ending.
To be honest, I’ve never felt it was gratuitous or forced. Admittedly, I’ve never managed to get everyone to vote for me as king, but the people I do manage to get on my side always made sense.
Furthermore there are alternative outcomes to that debate. Supporting Lord Dullis is not entirely unappealing either. He offers you a position as marshal for your support, he’s proven himself a decent ruler, and if he does get uppity, you’re still an uberduke who rules the biggest chunk of the western peninsula.
And then Daedros and his merry band of lunatics appears and renders all of it moot.
The point is that deciding the king through the summit makes sense and is connected to your previous actions. Daedros suddenly hijacking the story is not.
I’ll be honest here, someone who hates the political side of things really shouldn’t be playing a game about being a medieval lord ruling a piece of territory. Of course, there should be ways to cut the politics short if you’re dead set on playing as a brutish lord type of character.
Add “So they know it was worth it” to the end of that quote.
But, to answer your question:
My intention was not to piss people off. My intention was to evoke feelings of dread and surprise similar to the ones I experienced when watching or reading some of my favorite pieces of fiction. I will always remember The Eclipse on Berserker, a sudden turning point that was merely hinted beforehand and killed almost every known character, scarred the MC for life and changed the status quo completely.
Yeah, I dunno, I can again come to the point about the way the game is made. You can interact with Daedros once if you marry with House Dullac, you can learn about him from spies, you can get hints from some characters about him as a person and that there’s something strange about him, you get pieces of info about the Triple Chalice hidden throughout the game, you might put the clues together and learn that he was behind the stuff with the painting and the Mulligan brothers…
But I get that you don’t deal with him personally beforehand in most cases. I think the question that poses is: Would it really make that much of a difference if you did? Would an “obligatory” scene where you interact with him once in the “capacity as a lord” change your feelings about the ending?
Because I don’t think it would, I think this might even be a minor complaint considering the other things you didn’t like about it. But if I’m wrong, it could be a starting point in trying to make things better, which is better than nothing.
It was not that the person didn’t like the political side of things, it’s just that he didn’t feel it was well done/organic.
Adding my voice to the discussion here: I don’t think the betrayal at the end came entirely out of the whack. There were plenty of hints sprinkled nicely throughout the game to pick up on the fact that something nefarious is going on.
Hints like the name drop of Triple Chalice organisation when we visit Dullis (in the form of painting), when an assassin takes a run at PC in the “bastard brother event”. More importantly, a lot of information about them can be gained if one chooses to go Ehael & ask ‘Helen of Streams’ in a vision about them.
So no, the conspiracy was always afoot, hints are there to be discovered, information available about them if one focuses on uncovering it. I rather like this aspect of the game.
Coming to medieval politics & heroic fantasy aspect of the game. I believe that both of them are present in the game and drive the story forward.
Making alliances with other lords before Sielcner invasion, choosing whether to support the king or not, events happening in the Eastern corner of the empire, Eastern Bargaining Brotherhood & it’s nefarious purposes are all there to highlight the medieval aspects of the game.
Now, just as prominently, the heroic fantasy elements are present in the game from the begining itself.
It started with the masacre of village of Emyria at the hands of mad man from the isle of Dagoria, it was followed up with the fallen star event & the coming of abyssal spawn with it, PC gaining a legendary sword (should one choose to make one), the chance to go to Ehael & discover a much more nefarious conspiracy which even starts to overshadow the medieval politicking that’s been happening in the foreground, all the while this existential threat loomed & grew in shadows.
PC is the prophesised hero: This fact wasn’t first discovered at the betrayal at the meeting of lords at Stargaze tower. Rather, it can be discovered much earlier if a high social PC corners Meybuk about the veracity of letters the existence of which cousin Wlvanaar first brought to light.
Meybuk answers a lot of questions about PCs role in this heroic saga (according to him atleast) & so does ‘Helen of streams’.
And the culmination of the medieval politics happens with defeat of Lord Noyedas Sielcner & other lords of the peninsula dying at the hands of Triple Chalice conspirators. Thus, began the fight for humanity in earnest since the abyssal spawns are already present in the garb of holy priests behind the most powerful institution of the continent (the church) & god knows how many more are on the way. In that sense it did seem a lot like the journey of PC as hero of this fantasy, which began in the first installment of the story (this game) & which is gonna pick up steam in the next chapter of this saga.
(Hope you folks didn’t mind the rambling nature of post)
When i was sending militias to kings end i was able to send 600 of them probably more if i choose to but the problem there was i only had 160+ militias is that a bug?
Was that right when deciding what to do about Lord Noyedas’ invasion? It might be because I originally didn’t had a way to convert troops, so you would always have lots of milita. I’ll try to find it and fix it.
For me the betrayal felt just … right, which sounds like a bit like a contradiction. I “liked” how powerless I felt in that situation, and how alone. That’s the purpose of a scene like that. I “liked” that it was Jenneth. I was distrustful towards everyone so naturally I was distrustful towards her as well. But she was still the person I warmed most to, out of various reasons, so her betrayal was just the right amount of bitter disappointment.
This:
worked for me. In general it’s probably a good idea to not listen to people too much when they give input about your story. This is why it’s always a delicate affair to show unfinished work to others who may not mean well with you.
Oh, and I don’t know if this was a bug or on purpose, but I played the game twice and the first time around my cousin came to me very early and as a result I found out about my heritage very early, like in the first few days or so. It felt a bit like it wasn’t supposed to be like that, but Idk what triggered it. The second time I played the heritage storyline happened much much later.
Ultimately, my dislike of the ending comes from me much rather preferring to keep with the king debate to it’s conclusion over the betrayal by someone unknown that ends up happening. Failing that, I’d much rather the betrayal comes from someone I’ve grown to known over the game and have a reason to suspect might pull off something like this rather than someone of whom you’ve only heard off in passing and traded maybe 2 lines prior to this point. To use your berserk analogy, part of the reason why that worked so well is because Griffith was a prominent deuteragonist prior to that point, and his slide towards darkness has been a thing that was put some major focus on. The extent of his betrayal was shocking, but the fact that he might try something like this was not.
Or, to put it another way, if Jenneth was the primary plotmaster behind the betrayal, and it was properly set up that this was a thing that she might try to do at some point, I’d probably be more on board with it.
@TeamCorvid Thanks for the report, I also found that bug myself while playtesting. The marriage he was referring to is his own, to Lady Nellasha. Should be fixed already.
I kinda like that, makes people “oh, so the heroic guy on the cover is actually the villain?”
-When a female MC who married and killed Noyedas and was a lover of Lodka is deciding if she will continue the relationship the option “I refused Prince Lodka’s advances, but kept secretly seeing Vradnir” appears even if Vradnir is dead.
-During the same playthrough, in the Summit when Lord Dulsen asked the MC how things are going and I responded with “Good now that Noyedas is dead” the following message appeared: IF YOU EVER READ THIS MESSAGE WHILE PLAYING, PLEASE INFORM THE AUTHOR SOMEWHERE.
-When talking with Lady Sessanah and she asks the MC if she knows any secrets of Lord Dulsen, one can respond with “What do you offer in exchange for that information?” but the following page is blank of her response, only showing the options to answer her.
As for the story side of things I still think that if the MC had a child with Noyedas there should be an option to try to claim Sielccia in their name since the child would be his rightful heir, and unlike going to war there isn’t an option to lay claim to his former lands in that path. Also maybe it could be brought up during the summit, the MC may not be able to prove they have Sielc blood but it is a fact that the last member of House Sielcner, (and as far as everybody knows the last remnant of Sielc Blood) is her child, maybe to convince people to vote for her or to try (even if unsuccessfully) to get an extra vote as their regent.
I forgot to “kill” him as a lover there. Should be fixed now.
Those things were all related to your particular playthrough. Since the game wasn’t considering what happened with Sielccia, there was “domino-like” effect which triggered that warning.
I fixed it and followed your suggestion of adding an option about trying to use your child’s claim as a way to rule Sielccia.
