Side Quest Lore

[Asari5]

there are many, many side quests in this game. some of them are pretty interesting and influence the world / story just as much as the msq or they should but arent.

most of the times you see changes in diaogue or in two cases changes in cutscene.
and while thats already pretty nice it only scratches on the surface. changes in dialouge are so small and the cutscenes dont change the story either.

now, i get it. its a lot of work and not at all profitable to have two versions of the story.

now, what could be done otherwise?
handle everything as if its actually happened.
i mean even if you havent done alexander and omega shb still happend. in those cases its already handled that way.
but what is about gaia? it was great to see her in that one cutscene, but there could have been more. and more than gaia, whats about unulukhai, cylva and taynor? i really wanted to see them. its weird doing all that stuff in the 13th and also visiting the first without anything from those three.

of course, if suddenly a new character appears its gonne be weird for people who only do the msq. but it makes totally sense for every lvl 80 content being finished in the lore when your doing lvl 90 content.

what could also be done about that? add a warning the player might miss on background and lore information if they havent done this or that questline.
that seems to be a better approach than just making everything mandatory.
this way every player can decided on their own if they wants to do those sidequests for a more complete experience or if they wanna go through the msq a bit faster. even if they dont do it, they may remember the warning so they can put it together in their heads easier when they eventually do these questlines

examples:

crystal tower, give a warning in 2.55 and maybe in 4.55. as it is now it can be very anticlimatic for players going through the patch quests thinkinh they are almost finished and then having to do another 3-4h long questline.

manderville weapons, hildibrand is a long, long questline and not everyone enjoys it. as it is now people who want the weapons quickly have to burn through these quests. thats neither for the people who dont wanna do these quests nor for the people who have to be in a certain mood to be able to enjoy this kind of humor a great experience.
make the weapon line doable without the need to do hildibrand. simply put a warning before the weapon questline.

this system would allow for more depth and connections in this world

[Iscah]

handle everything as if its actually happened.
i mean even if you havent done alexander and omega shb still happend. in those cases its already handled that way.

Alexander and Omega are not exceptions to the rule, they're just special cases because of the time loop.

For most sidequests, the prerequisite to build on them is that they have happened here and now, and you're the one who has to make it happen.

But for Alexander and Omega to get integrated into 8UE Cid's time travel theory, the prerequisite is that the 8UE WoL did those things before their untimely death to Black Rose. If you haven't done them yet, then the other WoL could have done them in the period after the timelines diverge, so those elements are in play in the other timeline even if they aren't in yours.