It feels like NPCs in side quests are too nice and reasonable

[Ancalagon_Blacktalon]

I've done pretty much all the side quest content and it generally feels like all the NPCs are super nice and reasonable, which removes a lot of tension and also is very unbelievable. It's one thing when you're opposed to someone or something and you come to understand their point of view but stay opposed to them, but it's quite another for everyone to always come to agreement. Sometimes people just can't agree, and the game seems to really want everyone to all get along. It's made a lot of the side quests boring for me and something that I find myself speed-reading through more and more often. I was wondering if it was only me.

IMO too often games fall into the exact opposite end of this spectrum. I think one can like, count on one hand how many quests don't end with the quest-giver and/or their friends betraying you in Skyrim, or dying for arbitrary reasons. Because it feels like the writers can't imagine the player being okay with splitting loot or not being the leader of a faction. Fallout 4 was like this too, and Witcher 3 to a similar extent, even though yeah, the logical thing is to not turn on the literal demigod/person with a nuke/monster hunter and get immediately turned to giblets.

[Sjol]

IMO too often games fall into the exact opposite end of this spectrum. I think one can like, count on one hand how many quests don't end with the quest-giver and/or their friends betraying you in Skyrim, or dying for arbitrary reasons. Because it feels like the writers can't imagine the player being okay with splitting loot or not being the leader of a faction. Fallout 4 was like this too, and Witcher 3 to a similar extent, even though yeah, the logical thing is to not turn on the literal demigod/person with a nuke/monster hunter and get immediately turned to giblets.

I'm all for people not challenging the god-killing character, but they're also way too understanding with other NPCs. It's a little too "power of friendship" will fix everything. Things work out too easily and side quests always seem to wrap up with things being better than they started. A lot of powerful people try to fix things and make them worse instead or even more common, make them different but just as bad.

Amazing diplomats exist in real life, too and cannot necessarily bridge the differences between people that built up over literal generations. People aren't reasonable a lot of the time and history is replete with many instances of people sticking with their side at the detriment to the whole.

While I don't expect for the protagonists to spend 7 months real time working out trade deals, I do expect more friction. The number of complex problems we've solved with a few minutes of work breaks my suspension of disbelief more often than not. That's not good story telling if you're in the story and you realize that this isn't how people actually behave. Again, this is mostly about the side quests instead of the MSQ (though that's had more problems recently).

I remember when we got to Ondo Cups after having drained their ocean and thinking about how reasonable they were about the fact that we did it and how we still haven't fixed it. I'm not talking about betrayal. I'm talking about obstinance and disagreeableness. One can chose not to agree to help others without aggressing on the god killer.

[Burmecia]

IMO too often games fall into the exact opposite end of this spectrum.

This is my experience too.
I think grimdark for the sake of grimdark is banal af.
No point, no meaning, wow!
But each for their own. If this is your or anyone's favourite way to catharsis - now that angle I can actually undertstand, even get behind sometimes.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Sjol]

This is my experience too.
I think grimdark for the sake of grimdark is banal af.
No point, no meaning, wow!
But each for their own. If this is your or anyone's favourite way to catharsis - now that angle I can actually undertstand, even get behind sometimes.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think my and, by the accounts of a few others on here, issue is that the game introduces grimdark material, but then NPCs don't behave in a way that's even remotely realistic. Half my town is dead, my husband is dead, our neighbors are dead, but "everything is going to be okay". If the game is going to have such high stakes and injuries to the populace at large, shouldn't the people we meet be more messed up?