100%. Games like CoD MW2 or Battlefield 4 simply don't carry the same long-term cultural significance as the original Fallout (or, honestly, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines). There's a reason Tim's games get taken seriously by actual academic papers (whereas games like CoD or Battlefield are typically only mentioned when talking about Cultural Imperialism, lol).
Thanks for the therapy session today Tim. I've read about ambiguous grief. It needs to be spoken about more. The things we don't yet have a vocabulary for can be difficult to explore, or even discover.
So that feeling of despair when you realize that you're locked out of the other romance option just by being nice to Alenko and listening to him even if he bored you is called Ambiguous Grief, good to know! ahah
Hey Tim, thanks a lot for your thoughts! I experience this feeling a lot when an RPG group fizzles out, which frequently happens in online tables. Recently, after a two-year-long campaign, the DM had a radical change of schedule, and the adventure had to be canceled. I loved my character so much and wanted to see his story unfold, but unfortunately, I'll have to settle for a headcanon epilogue for him. Regarding cRPGs, I do feel it with Arcanum. I really want to experience that world again in a sequel. But I don't think it will ever happen. One can hope, though! Cheers!
Just finished playing through Cyberpunk 2077, and they very much hide/twist the consequences of your decisions, but in a way, you kind of sign up for that by choosing to play a dystopian game. It's almost like they weaponized this "ambiguous grief", in a way that enhances the role-playing experience rather than take away from it But it's more like an evil genie twisting your wish: you still get what you wanted, but everything *else* goes wrong, and you end up regretting that wish.
Some causes of ambiguous grief are infertility, termination of pregnancy, disappearance of a family member, death of an ex-spouse, a family member being in a state of cognitive decline due to dementia, and video games.
I think you are trying to be clever or ironic, but you are saying truth. Grief comes from any source of loss, and loss is experiences when you are attached to something (even a video game) and then it's no longer there. In psychoanalysis it is called melancholy, and it's not the romantic melancholy that is closer to nostalgia bit the clinical pathology of modern times called depression.
@@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898 That's good to mention. We truly can get attached to anything. Unrelated, my goal is to be attached to things under my control.
This made me think, and Deadfire did the absolute best job of avoiding ambiguous grief of any video game I’ve played, while also being heavily thematically drenched in ambiguous grief 😅
We used to call this "ambushing the player". It's something juvenile DMs and juvenile writers do. You want consequences but you want the consequences to be appreciated at the time the player makes the decision. Tim you are a wise DM and thus also a wise game designer.
Thanks Tim, now I know what it's called 😅 Had this feeling multiple times in my favorite RPGs. Worst is if some seemingly unimportant choices early in the game restrict the main storyline outcomes.
Funny thing is this literally happened to me while playing Outerworlds. I was playing as a character who was going to set everything to right as best he could even if it meant extreme use of force. Like a Punisher style thing. I heard the stories about Sublight and didn't care for their "benefits" I also heard you can "kill anyone" in Outerworlds so I went ahead and did that. I destroyed Sublight on the Groundbreaker without causing a commotion. No one else was upset and I went on with my life I only to find out later it shut off a companion quest. I had no way of knowing that so I had to reload from like 10 hours prior. Once I finish that mission I will take out Sublight.
Reminds me slightly of the "leveling problem" in Oblivion, whereby, unless you kept your endurance high, enemies would end up becoming much stronger than you.
It's a thin line between telegraphing and spoiling a game experience. I've seen examples of a blunt attempts to telegraph something, for example when character literally tells about every possible consequence of player choice and *wink-winks* at what could be done in conversation which feels so artificial and instantly breaks immersion.
Ambiguous grief is when someone is not able to properly mourn the loss of the death of a loved one because they have died at war or have been kidnapped. This is something else.
Hearing you say "I'll never work on Fallout again" just breaks my heart. Maybe i should have guessed it as a fan but its just how that goes right? As a younger guy who grew up playing f3 and new vegas and 4, and liking them all (New Vegas always was my favorite). I went back and played Fallout 1 back in 2020 (as a gifted game from my older brother) and just so fell in love with it to the point i think it would now be my favorite Fallout game. Always appreciate your talks Tim, much love.
Love your channel Tim. As someone wanting to finally delve into and work with game dev and game design, a lot of what you say is priceless wisdom. Something I've heard recently: "Gamedev doesn't have that many veterans, as many people fall off the industry too early..we need to value our veterans, inspire and motivate them to share their wisdom with the younger generations." Keep'em coming!
I found that ambiguous grief or "missing out" happens more often on the early runs of the game. This has actually made me replay the game so I eventually got that thing. Maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing.
You should be satisfied and gladdened by your career. You have brought joy and excitement to many people, whether or not they know who you are. Good luck with your retirement. Perhaps consider a small personal passion project or book.
This was a great talk. I'd like to push back just a little to say that there can be benefits to grief (both ambiguous and unambiguous) as well. Realizing you will never be president can lead you to acceptance of what you *have* achieved and bring peace to your current situation. It can also renew enthusiasm for other goals you may have. All this to say that its good to try and telegraph points of no-return if you can, but that unforeseen consequences can also leave a positive impact on a game. The beauty of video games includes the existence of the reset button. Getting to the end slides and realizing that your choices had consequences you didn't intend can be a huge motivation for starting a new play through. Suddenly realizing that your character build is ineffective or poorly planned can be motivation to try a new build or spend a little time increasing you mastery over those character systems so you can avoid pitfalls the next go around. And you can go too far in trying to avoid ambiguous grief, which can result in bland character systems, uninspired story writing, and a lack of meaningful choice in general. As with most things, striking a balance seems to be key.
I think the issue with Fallout is the amount of space between each major encounter leads to players feeling disconnected from the plot. I've been thinking about Far Harbor a lot recently and part of why it has stuck with me for so long is because the relatively small locale of The Island allows the player to connect with its inhabitants through their troubled relations making it more satisfying to come up with a solution.
F4 is amazing. And the team went out with one hell of a bang with Far Harbour and Nuka World (what if there was a place with all the zip of nuka-cola). Then after we got f76 (lol utter trash, a mper without npcs, can you say cashgrab?) and starfield 76 (a boring travesty, seriously what are they thinking). It feels like gaming industry died and a necromancer has raised it as a zombie. What was once more beutiful then Helen of Troy is now a walking dead zombie and they think we dont see it? Sad thing is many dont. So they can keep making trash. It reminds me of the Seinfeld quote when they are selling the show to NBC. The executive says why am i watching it? And george resonds "because it is on tv". I feel these new games has that response. Why should i play these trash games? Because they are new (on tv). Nah not good enough for me.
This happens in Dragon's Dogma all the time. I do a couple story quests and suddenly I've "failed" a side quest for not doing it first... or better yet, a side quest becomes stuck in my quest log because I got locked out of a special area in Witchwood after not doing another side quest! I had to learn to embrace the ambiguous grief and stop reading the wiki for every mission so I could enjoy my first playthrough! (I love this game).
Tim, you might not have won all the awards you desired or became the president but you made some of the most amazing games out there, inspired generations of gamers and brought countless hours of enjoyment into people’s lives. Very few people can say that about themselves. I personally finished Fallout more than 30 times: :) As for the grief - yep, have this feeling as well. Really hate the feeling that I miss on something important (even if it’s just an item in game) because of a decision I made earlier. Really dislike that in games.
started feelikg like that about game industry after finishing Mass Effect in 2012, the grief of what became of gaming industry and the games i wanted to play will never be made... As someone who grew up on late 90s games and grew to love games in 2003-2007, i realized that around 2008 AAA studios stopped creating trends and started to follow what works. I wanted to play new things, not what i played before :( Mass effect 3 was end of that era, last bastion in the dark, Bioware was dead and everyone wanted to make their call of duty, make another assasins creed2 and it was not getting better, on the contrary Untill my brother came with idea of making our own games recently and me starting to learning programming at 30, i was honestly disappointed with where gaming industry come to. Now i try to ignore the garbage that keeps coming out and hope i will learn to program properly so i can start playing(and making i guess) games i always wanded to :)
I feel lucky here because ive gotten the games ive dreamed about (f1, f2, f3, NV, F4, Arcanum, Warhammer total war 2 and the tools to mod them to my hearts content). Sure it would be sweet with an Arcanum game that was in 3d and as good as f4 or NV. And ofc another awesome fallout game but if it never happens then i still got ALL my dream games and made them into what i wanted them to be. So much entertainment they have given me and keep giving.
And i agree that the industry is now putting out garbage. Which is a mystery. Never been a larger industry, tech is more advanced, teams are huge. But what is made feels like boring plastic.
thats because back then games were made to be played, by people that played games and liked games. Now games are made to make money Inovation is for suits that call the shots something untested and unknow, and they fear the unknown
Kinda ran into this in FNV. I had a great headcanon for my character and went through most of the game developing it. Then I get to the DLC, and I believe it was Lonesome Road that tacks on a backstory to the Courier, completely countering the headcanon I had been building up to that point. Had to take a long break from the game before I could finish it.
I never felt like or heard anyone complain that the choices in Fallout had unfair or annoying results so it's a surprise to hear that you feel it is a design issue. Playing the game was such a joy, with the atmosphere and world building and enjoyable characters and heroic story, that it seemed like a huge benefit to be able to replay it again and again to see what different outcomes you could make happen. What you are describing is only an issue in games where you're only going to play through the story once because it's not worth going through the tedium again just to get different results (looking at you Dishonored). The great thing about Fallout is that the choices are easy to choose. You either kill someone or you don't. There aren't situations where you want to make a choice like "take the no violence option for this mission" but you fail because your gaming skills aren't good enough to get past all the guards without drawing aggro and being forced to kill them. This is why a game like Alpha Protocol is better than Deus Ex Human Revolution. The choices are easier to make.
I believe Brazilians have a word for this that is integral to their culture called “saudade” it is a sense of loss over something or someone that never will be and might never have been.
Mr. Cain: I’m grateful you, your games, and your videos exist. :) thanks for sharing. (Also: I hope if you want to, you get to work on fallout again, in some capacity)
Tim, your games have brought me more joy than any Triple A, 100 Million Dollar title. Fallout was the original common ground when I met my partner, and then we both got hooked with Outer Worlds. You've had your hand in fandoms that inspired an entire generation of role players and artists
Such a bizarre complaint to me, because as near as I can tell the whole point of what people are considering RPGs is not being able to finish things. Every RPG I've played, it's like.. ok.. I have to get into this door, but my lockingpicking skill isn't high on this character so... I just can't get into the door. I have to start another character if I want to be in that building. Whereas a good RPG, IMO, would say... Ok. My lockpicking isn't high enough, but maybe I have a really high explosive stat and I can blow the lock. Or maybe I have a really high sneak stat, so I could shadow someone in there. There are multiple ways to get into the room without having to unlock that door. But almost NO RPG's do this. Often when it comes to the lockpicking argument specifically, this is mitigated by the fact that whatever in that chest or behind that door is a random crappy reward anyways, instead of making it important to have a lockpicking skill for something. Oddly enough, Fallout 76's silos are actually pretty good at giving you multiple ways of getting through the silo, and yet rewarding you for having high enough lockpicking and terminal hacking to skip major portions of it. And I consider Fallout 76 a less than average game.
I think part of the problem with Starfield the newest game from Bethesda is that it is too afraid to let players make decisions they will regret. It's been a problem for a lot of Bethesda games to some degree, but it is a huge problem in their newest one.
That one quest in the Witcher 3 with the spirit stuck in the tree comes to mind. It isnt clear that if you save this spirit that the village will die or the consequences for the children or the Barons wife. I read all dialogue and explore completely but that outcome took me by surprise. Felt it didnt have to have so much outcome behind each choice and for it to be so ambiguous
Yes!!! I've found myself frustrated with games exactly for this reason, especially some of the quests in the Witcher 3. I felt it in the Outer Worlds too, specifically the first planet, if you side with the deserters. I knew that the leader of the deserters hated the mayor of Edgewater, but I assumed that she would at least take in some of the other townsfolk. She didn't and her reasoning made sense, but had I known that that's how it would have ended up, I wouldn't have chosen that path.
It is posible to sell a vídeogame idea? Im working on a project, developing a Demo and a Game Design Document, and I want to know if it is posible to sell or present my idea to a AAA company. I know it may not be the best option, and also not very normal, but I want to know if it is posible. If it is, ¿what should I do? ¿Should i try to make also the script and everything i can?
I've experiences grief in games. When Lauritius went hollow in Dark Souls, when Aeris was killed in Final Fantasy 7, when Velvet decided to end it all in Berseria, when James did likewise in Silent Hill 2, when Veronica sacrificed herself to save her friends in Dragon Quest XI, with everything that happened every 15 minites in the Yakuza series... But that ambiguous grief you talk about, like items locked, quest lines that can be done, or soft-locking yourself, no, never. I've been soft-locked and locked, but it didn't caus grief to me. I don't see how it would.
An AG is why I dont play many RPG games, bc they are hard work n insane preparation to know what outcome this or the other decision will make. So at the end you will either waste your time n end up replaying the game or you will spoil the game for yourself if you know all the outcomes in advance. I dont know which one of these two is lesser evil.
I had this sort of "Ambiguous Grief" moment in my second playthrough of Mass Effect 2. I was doing a "Renegade" playthrough, but I hadn't committed to that immediately. Then, when the time came in the game where you can recruit Morinth, because of the way the Paragon/Renegade system worked, I couldn't possibly have sufficient "Renegade points" to recruit her. I must have replayed from previous saves five times before giving up and accepting that it was impossible. It was extra annoying since, during my first playthrough, I did a sort of "grey" playthrough and I had sufficient points to do whatever I wanted! After looking up now what happened to Morinth in ME3... looks like I didn't miss out on much. Seems like they completely abandoned that character.
I experienced this in Arcanum after finding out about a certain book in a certain locked barrel that's involved in a quest with a certain ogre that you meet only once during the course of the game, so if you missed out on the book, the ogre would never get his precious book. Made me restart the game...:D
You were very lucky to have had such a job tim where you could make fallout. And very lucky to have had such a team. And that you landed on all those ideas, made all those stories, citites etc (and ofc very hard work from the team). And we were very lucky to get the Fallout setting and games. It is incredible that your team made that game and how it has taken the world with storm (tv show incoming, i hope it is good). But what a setting you got to make. A setting that has resonated with millions all over the world for almost 30 years!
I sort of went through this in fallout 1 itself. So on my first playthrough of fallout 1, i reached New Reno. And some NPC got aggressive towards me so i killed it, got 5xp, then other NPCs got angry, now usually on killing those "Citizen" NPCs you dont get xp, but i did cuz they were junkies. So then i just kept on killing and eventually, i had killed the entire starting area of new reno, and no longer had access to the quests the first area of New reno offered. Ik this example isnt as serious but just wanted to share cuz i went through it in fallout
I felt ambiguous grief when I found out my 1 Karma score precluded me from being handed Power Armor by the Brotherhood in Fallout, even though I had saved their initiate and brought back that darned disc from the Glow, and that meant I had to kill just about everybody on the first level of their bunker to pry it from their cold, dead, power-armored hands :P
I've watched several videos now, and it seems he's really into wrpgs. I could never get into them myself, for stuff like this, such as Diablo 2. Needing to know all the mechanics and consequences before even starting the game, otherwise you brick out, and have to start over (yes noob gatekeeper Duriel), especially when it's not clear what you did wrong, just turns me away. Mass Effect's dialogue being really unclear at times, prevented me from wanting to get more than an hour or two in. Several choices left me with "That's not what I thought that meant!" Or the sidequests: "Hey, Commander, could you bring back some fetch quest samples from this planet?" "No, I'm chasing a space terrorist and everyone's been telling me I need to catch them ASAP. I'll do it later." "Oh, well never mind, this sidequest is just inaccessible now." (something I hadn't experienced or expected before).
Dark Souls FOMO was a major point of pathos in plays and replays. Very avant garde and it relies heavily on multiplayer community. If youre like me you missed out on that too because you run a fisher price dinosaur boomer desktop with no NVIDIA space age ultra gamer tech
Hey Uncle Tim, thanks for this! Like so many other gamers I've felt this often. Yet, I know that sometimes we come across gamers that do really interesting things. I found Death Standing to be one of those games; maybe not original in every individual element but taken as a whole felt completely different from anything is ever played. What did you think of that genre and what were done times this happened for you?
It could be a train wreck but I think it might be cool for you to collaborate with one of the groups making mods like Fallout Miami on a quest or something like that. It would probably make their year.
Nice video, just one minor grief of mine at 6:25 : I always want to play a frontline wizard. Even in D&D (e.g. blade-singler). A games that allow me to do that are awesome (e.g. PoE2)
(Also, bad-speech-guy doing the talking sounds like a hilariously fun concept. I imagine it like a bloodlines player always picking the snarkiest line)
Would this also count as ambiguous grief: as a kid i always wanted to have the pokemon celebi in the pokemon games gold/silver. But for a person living in europe it was not possible to get it, you had to attend an event in japan with special equipment for your gameboy. My little kids heart was broken and since then i was never setting myself the goal of 100%-ing a game ever again, because there could be these crazy obstacles.
That boils up the original Dragon Age for me...I played each of the starter areas and technical problems killed each of them with various bugs. By the time they patched them all, I just couldn't be bothered to try and get it to work again. I know it's a good game, but I just can't be bothered to pick it back up again after it disappointed me.
But in Fallout: New Vegas, Charisma is not at all required for levelling a Speech character, and you would experience ambigious grief realizing you should have put your attribute points into intelligence instead.
One of the lamest ways of doing this (apart from not doing it all) is when Fallout 4 gives you a popup telling you the choice you are proposing is irreversible. It would be so much cooler to have a trusted character tell you that. Or rather, telegraph it.
Also I think if you have them make a choice then it should start to change how things are going as far as character path or how a faction percieves you. But maybe not completely at first. Maybe it just sets up a little distrust or maybe you don't get the information or the thing you needed right away and it causes you to grind a bit to achieve the same goal as if you had made the right decision. However I think if you choose an entire quest and really show that you so not like a character or faction. Then perhaps the game should begin to reward and punish you for your choices and maybe there's a trade off for the decision or a bad endkng depending on how far the player took it. I mean I know people want to surprise the player but if there's no warning signs you gotta start to think as a designer "does this change make the player feel bad enough to quit the game" or "is this event even important enough to change the course the adventure" and most importantly "Have I punished my player too much for being bold and testing the limits of my game".
sorry if i'm asking something too personal, but a quick internet search revealed that you turned 58 this august. so you should have a decade or so left until retirement. or is that different in the US?
There are a lot of things I feel that for, and it still continues to hurt me. When it comes to you though, I think of how I haven't ended up in a position in the industry to be able to meet you in person and say, 'thanks!' and how that's very unlikely at this point. I think of Arcanum, and how it would be nice to get your blessing for a spiritual successor, or something like that. It would be nice to be able to just send you an email and show what I've made. Hmm.
My ideal RPG would be something that lets you wield any weapon or chloting, only that usefulness of that item is reduced depending on your class/starting abilities. Top tier magic robe if the greates wizard of them all with 6282836% buff to mana regen should be totally viable for a barbarian type guy, only there would be no benefit aside the 0.1 armor that it adds compared to butt naked. Or maybe some enhanted sword that deals 15 fire damage on hit, instead of prohibiting you the use ofnit, it should damage you aswell since it cannod draw from the mana pool yet the only energy it can sap is your health/stamina. Coupled with this, all quests should be doable with any build, just in a different way and the further it is from the desired build, the more convoluted and grindy it would be. Skyrim, as neat as that game was back in the day, is just too open and easy as you can mix and match and still end up as an archer thief.
not being able to finish (win) the main story is more like softlocking, which should never happen, but being locked out of certain options and paths due to earlier choices is normal for rpg
The idea of you not being involved with anymore Fallout particularly hurts. The Amazon adaptation they're dropping next year feels like it's going to suffer without consultation from OG Fallout people like you.
I wonder what kind of grief you experience when you play a game, often a sequel, and a couple of hours into the game you realize that the game isnt what you thought it was. It isnt "bad" but it isnt what you expected it to be so you will never experience the joy of playing the game you was looking forward to playing.
I think this ignores the concept of replayability. You don't always have to be hinted at the outcome when at a crossroads. You just need to know that the crossroad exists. If I betray an NPC and learn down the road that the outcome was due to my betraying this character or faction, it gives me the incentive to replay the game out of curiosity in order to experience a different outcome. The same can be said with items locked due to my build. If I choose a Ranger class, without the game hinting or needing me to dig, I should be well aware that I cannot join the Mage's Guild, questline, or use that magical staff I found. This drives the curiosity of players to reroll a new character and play the game from an entirely different class perspective. Simply allowing a player to dip their toes in every class ability or questline, devalues each class's uniqueness.
I was playing a game while listening to this. I accepted a quest that was time sensitive and quite hard to accomplish with my current state, I know that at the time but I took it in a slight hope that I might complete it despite the difficulty but lo and behold I'm nearing the deadline of the quest yet not even half there... now that would be a stain on my character, having one failed quest, it's not that I'm doing a perfect run since I was trying to challenge myself to one save and to lessen my scum saving ways... but I get this feeling yeah
Because grief is tied to the idea of loss, and with "ambiguous grief" you've lost something that you technically never had. Is it still considered loss in that situation? - that's what makes it ambiguous.
I really dislike this about baldurs gate 3...killing some cow, and therefore missing out on an awesome item 20 hours gametime later...it feels terrible to play the game once realised...I like choice and consequence, but not to this extreme
Strongly disagree with the water merchant example. If you think that was bad it's incredibly sad. That was part of what made the world of Fallout feel so alive! Realizing that the world reacted to a decision you made in a way that made sense (you gave the vault's address so mutants found it easier) makes everything feel more real! What else is the game tracking? I don't know. I'd better roleplay! If you had dumbed it down by having a merchant say "by the way, I sure hope that place isn't A SECRET oh oh oh" the game would have lost of a lot. If when confronted with the consequence the player says "oh of course that makes sense!" it's fantastic. But if there was indeed no way to guess it then yeah it's bad.
It wouldn't be ruined if someone from Vault 13 (preferably Overseer in an intro sequence) asked to be cautious with sharing information on the Vault with wastelanders.
@@r0zbenThe blurb is pretty clear that the vault is secret. Maybe one more line from the overseer on the way to the door would help. But not something right before you do the transaction.
I think something else that falls into ambiguous grief is when the game is changed or altered and that one build or item you had is no longer available and you can not get it back. It's one thing if it's unbalanced, changes need to happen obviously. But I mean when something is for the most part fine, but is suddenly changed and is no longer come back. That can effectively kill the game for some people, because the game as they knew it is now dead. Granted this isn't so bad if the changes are reasonable and make sense, but often it outright kills that option or playstyle, and you can no longer go back to it.
I've abandoned very good games for ambiguous grief in the past (the most egregious one possibly being Divinity Original Sin 1). Always with the idea I would have restarted the whole thing from scratch at a certain point. A certain point I've yet to reach to this day, for each one of the titles in question. To me, the worse cases of ambiguous grief in cRPGs are those caused by "spoilers". That would be when, after you played a significant portion of the story, you get to know from an outside source that, in a previous and now unreachable section of this amazing 100+ hours out-of-your-body experience, there was a big optional element that you missed completely (most of the time a potential member of you party) which would have made the rest of the adventure richer and more interesting all the way to the end screen. Thanks for your videos!
If everything telegraphed, everything avoidable and everything is fair game is boring. On absolutely different and opposite spectrum, look up pathologic, especially old one, the first one.
To be clear, there are cases where a game may deliberately employ ambiguous grief if it has something to say about that feeling. This is my mandatory reminder to play pathologic 2. Play it NOW.
This was a big problem with Oblivion. When you make a character, you can see that over half of the 21 Skills are completely non-combat. In fact, only 5 of 21 even relate to dealing damage. It tricks you into thinking you can make a non-combat-focused character. But if you try to do that, you will get absolutely stonewalled by mandatory late-game (even mid-game) combat encounters that have no non-combat solutions. And by that point, because of how enemy scaling works, you can't just switch into leveling combat skills because the enemies will always outpace your own growth.
Dunno if it's dumb to say this but I feel this right now so hard with the new vampire bloodlines sequel. Not only is it now not going to be what I hoped for since I was a teenager, but it's never going to be what I wanted to see because too much time has passed.
You didn’t have to make a $100 million game, the games you’ve made and been apart of are priceless and timeless 🍻.
Yup. Tim redefined roll playing for all time. Every game that came after FO should pay him royalties.
100%.
Games like CoD MW2 or Battlefield 4 simply don't carry the same long-term cultural significance as the original Fallout (or, honestly, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines). There's a reason Tim's games get taken seriously by actual academic papers (whereas games like CoD or Battlefield are typically only mentioned when talking about Cultural Imperialism, lol).
So just imagine what can be achieved when someone who knows what is doing gets a lot of money to do that.
@@S.... I doubt it would change a lot. At best, it would just increase the scope of the game. Quality doesn't scale with the budget.
"You are playing a character that wasn't designed to be played this way" - this is how I feel about my life.
Thanks for the therapy session today Tim. I've read about ambiguous grief. It needs to be spoken about more. The things we don't yet have a vocabulary for can be difficult to explore, or even discover.
So that feeling of despair when you realize that you're locked out of the other romance option just by being nice to Alenko and listening to him even if he bored you is called Ambiguous Grief, good to know! ahah
Hey Tim, thanks a lot for your thoughts! I experience this feeling a lot when an RPG group fizzles out, which frequently happens in online tables. Recently, after a two-year-long campaign, the DM had a radical change of schedule, and the adventure had to be canceled. I loved my character so much and wanted to see his story unfold, but unfortunately, I'll have to settle for a headcanon epilogue for him.
Regarding cRPGs, I do feel it with Arcanum. I really want to experience that world again in a sequel. But I don't think it will ever happen. One can hope, though!
Cheers!
Just finished playing through Cyberpunk 2077, and they very much hide/twist the consequences of your decisions, but in a way, you kind of sign up for that by choosing to play a dystopian game. It's almost like they weaponized this "ambiguous grief", in a way that enhances the role-playing experience rather than take away from it
But it's more like an evil genie twisting your wish: you still get what you wanted, but everything *else* goes wrong, and you end up regretting that wish.
can we talk about the sheer number of unique shirts Tim must own, I can't find any repeats across his videos
Some causes of ambiguous grief are infertility, termination of pregnancy, disappearance of a family member, death of an ex-spouse, a family member being in a state of cognitive decline due to dementia, and video games.
I think you are trying to be clever or ironic, but you are saying truth. Grief comes from any source of loss, and loss is experiences when you are attached to something (even a video game) and then it's no longer there.
In psychoanalysis it is called melancholy, and it's not the romantic melancholy that is closer to nostalgia bit the clinical pathology of modern times called depression.
@@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898 That's good to mention. We truly can get attached to anything.
Unrelated, my goal is to be attached to things under my control.
This made me think, and Deadfire did the absolute best job of avoiding ambiguous grief of any video game I’ve played, while also being heavily thematically drenched in ambiguous grief 😅
We used to call this "ambushing the player". It's something juvenile DMs and juvenile writers do. You want consequences but you want the consequences to be appreciated at the time the player makes the decision. Tim you are a wise DM and thus also a wise game designer.
Thanks Tim, now I know what it's called 😅 Had this feeling multiple times in my favorite RPGs. Worst is if some seemingly unimportant choices early in the game restrict the main storyline outcomes.
Funny thing is this literally happened to me while playing Outerworlds. I was playing as a character who was going to set everything to right as best he could even if it meant extreme use of force. Like a Punisher style thing. I heard the stories about Sublight and didn't care for their "benefits" I also heard you can "kill anyone" in Outerworlds so I went ahead and did that. I destroyed Sublight on the Groundbreaker without causing a commotion. No one else was upset and I went on with my life I only to find out later it shut off a companion quest. I had no way of knowing that so I had to reload from like 10 hours prior.
Once I finish that mission I will take out Sublight.
Reminds me slightly of the "leveling problem" in Oblivion, whereby, unless you kept your endurance high, enemies would end up becoming much stronger than you.
I like the dark ambience. It feels cozy and relaxing.
The junktown example is classic. Part of me understands why it ended up like it did, but also I really like the idea of the alternative
It's a thin line between telegraphing and spoiling a game experience. I've seen examples of a blunt attempts to telegraph something, for example when character literally tells about every possible consequence of player choice and *wink-winks* at what could be done in conversation which feels so artificial and instantly breaks immersion.
Ambiguous grief is when someone is not able to properly mourn the loss of the death of a loved one because they have died at war or have been kidnapped. This is something else.
Hearing you say "I'll never work on Fallout again" just breaks my heart. Maybe i should have guessed it as a fan but its just how that goes right? As a younger guy who grew up playing f3 and new vegas and 4, and liking them all (New Vegas always was my favorite). I went back and played Fallout 1 back in 2020 (as a gifted game from my older brother) and just so fell in love with it to the point i think it would now be my favorite Fallout game. Always appreciate your talks Tim, much love.
Always nice to hear your thoughts, Uncle Tim! 🧙🏻♂️
Love your channel Tim. As someone wanting to finally delve into and work with game dev and game design, a lot of what you say is priceless wisdom.
Something I've heard recently: "Gamedev doesn't have that many veterans, as many people fall off the industry too early..we need to value our veterans, inspire and motivate them to share their wisdom with the younger generations."
Keep'em coming!
I found that ambiguous grief or "missing out" happens more often on the early runs of the game. This has actually made me replay the game so I eventually got that thing. Maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing.
You should be satisfied and gladdened by your career. You have brought joy and excitement to many people, whether or not they know who you are.
Good luck with your retirement. Perhaps consider a small personal passion project or book.
This was a great talk. I'd like to push back just a little to say that there can be benefits to grief (both ambiguous and unambiguous) as well. Realizing you will never be president can lead you to acceptance of what you *have* achieved and bring peace to your current situation. It can also renew enthusiasm for other goals you may have. All this to say that its good to try and telegraph points of no-return if you can, but that unforeseen consequences can also leave a positive impact on a game. The beauty of video games includes the existence of the reset button. Getting to the end slides and realizing that your choices had consequences you didn't intend can be a huge motivation for starting a new play through. Suddenly realizing that your character build is ineffective or poorly planned can be motivation to try a new build or spend a little time increasing you mastery over those character systems so you can avoid pitfalls the next go around. And you can go too far in trying to avoid ambiguous grief, which can result in bland character systems, uninspired story writing, and a lack of meaningful choice in general. As with most things, striking a balance seems to be key.
ambiguous grief seems like the impetus to replay a game based on some of these examples
I think the issue with Fallout is the amount of space between each major encounter leads to players feeling disconnected from the plot. I've been thinking about Far Harbor a lot recently and part of why it has stuck with me for so long is because the relatively small locale of The Island allows the player to connect with its inhabitants through their troubled relations making it more satisfying to come up with a solution.
And yet I feel ambiguous grief over how annoying each faction is and not being allowed to kill them all in one playthrough.
F4 is amazing. And the team went out with one hell of a bang with Far Harbour and Nuka World (what if there was a place with all the zip of nuka-cola). Then after we got f76 (lol utter trash, a mper without npcs, can you say cashgrab?) and starfield 76 (a boring travesty, seriously what are they thinking). It feels like gaming industry died and a necromancer has raised it as a zombie. What was once more beutiful then Helen of Troy is now a walking dead zombie and they think we dont see it? Sad thing is many dont. So they can keep making trash. It reminds me of the Seinfeld quote when they are selling the show to NBC. The executive says why am i watching it? And george resonds "because it is on tv". I feel these new games has that response. Why should i play these trash games? Because they are new (on tv). Nah not good enough for me.
You've got the award of my heart
This happens in Dragon's Dogma all the time. I do a couple story quests and suddenly I've "failed" a side quest for not doing it first... or better yet, a side quest becomes stuck in my quest log because I got locked out of a special area in Witchwood after not doing another side quest! I had to learn to embrace the ambiguous grief and stop reading the wiki for every mission so I could enjoy my first playthrough! (I love this game).
Tim, you might not have won all the awards you desired or became the president but you made some of the most amazing games out there, inspired generations of gamers and brought countless hours of enjoyment into people’s lives. Very few people can say that about themselves. I personally finished Fallout more than 30 times: :)
As for the grief - yep, have this feeling as well. Really hate the feeling that I miss on something important (even if it’s just an item in game) because of a decision I made earlier. Really dislike that in games.
started feelikg like that about game industry after finishing Mass Effect in 2012, the grief of what became of gaming industry and the games i wanted to play will never be made...
As someone who grew up on late 90s games and grew to love games in 2003-2007, i realized that around 2008 AAA studios stopped creating trends and started to follow what works. I wanted to play new things, not what i played before :(
Mass effect 3 was end of that era, last bastion in the dark, Bioware was dead and everyone wanted to make their call of duty, make another assasins creed2 and it was not getting better, on the contrary
Untill my brother came with idea of making our own games recently and me starting to learning programming at 30, i was honestly disappointed with where gaming industry come to. Now i try to ignore the garbage that keeps coming out and hope i will learn to program properly so i can start playing(and making i guess) games i always wanded to :)
I feel lucky here because ive gotten the games ive dreamed about (f1, f2, f3, NV, F4, Arcanum, Warhammer total war 2 and the tools to mod them to my hearts content).
Sure it would be sweet with an Arcanum game that was in 3d and as good as f4 or NV. And ofc another awesome fallout game but if it never happens then i still got ALL my dream games and made them into what i wanted them to be. So much entertainment they have given me and keep giving.
And i agree that the industry is now putting out garbage. Which is a mystery. Never been a larger industry, tech is more advanced, teams are huge. But what is made feels like boring plastic.
thats because back then games were made to be played, by people that played games and liked games. Now games are made to make money
Inovation is for suits that call the shots something untested and unknow, and they fear the unknown
Today : Uncle Tim learned a new word.
Kinda ran into this in FNV.
I had a great headcanon for my character and went through most of the game developing it.
Then I get to the DLC, and I believe it was Lonesome Road that tacks on a backstory to the Courier, completely countering the headcanon I had been building up to that point.
Had to take a long break from the game before I could finish it.
I never felt like or heard anyone complain that the choices in Fallout had unfair or annoying results so it's a surprise to hear that you feel it is a design issue. Playing the game was such a joy, with the atmosphere and world building and enjoyable characters and heroic story, that it seemed like a huge benefit to be able to replay it again and again to see what different outcomes you could make happen. What you are describing is only an issue in games where you're only going to play through the story once because it's not worth going through the tedium again just to get different results (looking at you Dishonored).
The great thing about Fallout is that the choices are easy to choose. You either kill someone or you don't. There aren't situations where you want to make a choice like "take the no violence option for this mission" but you fail because your gaming skills aren't good enough to get past all the guards without drawing aggro and being forced to kill them. This is why a game like Alpha Protocol is better than Deus Ex Human Revolution. The choices are easier to make.
What a way to be inspired!
I believe Brazilians have a word for this that is integral to their culture called “saudade” it is a sense of loss over something or someone that never will be and might never have been.
The only way big AAA games get those 95+ scores is by contractually forcing the reviewers into it to get access.
This happens so often in RPGs. I love obscure build concepts.
Totally felt this before in Pillars of Eternity. Didnt know i got locked into a certain faction till it was too late!!
The original Corrupted Ashbringer.
Not the place I expected to be introduced to an emotional concept that is directly helpful to my current struggles, but thank you Uncle Tim!
Imagine using dialog as a tool to share meaningful information with the player. What an idea. I hope Todd Howard watches Tim's channel.
Mr. Cain: I’m grateful you, your games, and your videos exist. :) thanks for sharing. (Also: I hope if you want to, you get to work on fallout again, in some capacity)
Tim, your games have brought me more joy than any Triple A, 100 Million Dollar title. Fallout was the original common ground when I met my partner, and then we both got hooked with Outer Worlds. You've had your hand in fandoms that inspired an entire generation of role players and artists
If Obsidian, or Bethesda asked you to come on-board for the next Fallout title, would that coax you from retirement?
I’ll never forget losing my og fallout 3 character cus I had one save and got stuck on the player home bed in Megaton.
Such a bizarre complaint to me, because as near as I can tell the whole point of what people are considering RPGs is not being able to finish things.
Every RPG I've played, it's like.. ok.. I have to get into this door, but my lockingpicking skill isn't high on this character so... I just can't get into the door. I have to start another character if I want to be in that building.
Whereas a good RPG, IMO, would say... Ok. My lockpicking isn't high enough, but maybe I have a really high explosive stat and I can blow the lock. Or maybe I have a really high sneak stat, so I could shadow someone in there. There are multiple ways to get into the room without having to unlock that door.
But almost NO RPG's do this. Often when it comes to the lockpicking argument specifically, this is mitigated by the fact that whatever in that chest or behind that door is a random crappy reward anyways, instead of making it important to have a lockpicking skill for something.
Oddly enough, Fallout 76's silos are actually pretty good at giving you multiple ways of getting through the silo, and yet rewarding you for having high enough lockpicking and terminal hacking to skip major portions of it. And I consider Fallout 76 a less than average game.
My ambiguous grief is knowing that an Arcanum revival developed by you Mr. Cain and your old Troika partners isn't going to happen. Oof.
Could you make a video on how to analyze games critically with the objective of learning more about design? Sorry if my English sucks, xoxo
I think part of the problem with Starfield the newest game from Bethesda is that it is too afraid to let players make decisions they will regret. It's been a problem for a lot of Bethesda games to some degree, but it is a huge problem in their newest one.
The decision at the end of Starfield is the perfect example of ambiguous grief. I don't know if you played it to the end or at all.
That one quest in the Witcher 3 with the spirit stuck in the tree comes to mind. It isnt clear that if you save this spirit that the village will die or the consequences for the children or the Barons wife. I read all dialogue and explore completely but that outcome took me by surprise. Felt it didnt have to have so much outcome behind each choice and for it to be so ambiguous
Yes!!! I've found myself frustrated with games exactly for this reason, especially some of the quests in the Witcher 3.
I felt it in the Outer Worlds too, specifically the first planet, if you side with the deserters. I knew that the leader of the deserters hated the mayor of Edgewater, but I assumed that she would at least take in some of the other townsfolk. She didn't and her reasoning made sense, but had I known that that's how it would have ended up, I wouldn't have chosen that path.
It is posible to sell a vídeogame idea? Im working on a project, developing a Demo and a Game Design Document, and I want to know if it is posible to sell or present my idea to a AAA company. I know it may not be the best option, and also not very normal, but I want to know if it is posible. If it is, ¿what should I do? ¿Should i try to make also the script and everything i can?
I've experiences grief in games. When Lauritius went hollow in Dark Souls, when Aeris was killed in Final Fantasy 7, when Velvet decided to end it all in Berseria, when James did likewise in Silent Hill 2, when Veronica sacrificed herself to save her friends in Dragon Quest XI, with everything that happened every 15 minites in the Yakuza series... But that ambiguous grief you talk about, like items locked, quest lines that can be done, or soft-locking yourself, no, never. I've been soft-locked and locked, but it didn't caus grief to me. I don't see how it would.
An AG is why I dont play many RPG games, bc they are hard work n insane preparation to know what outcome this or the other decision will make. So at the end you will either waste your time n end up replaying the game or you will spoil the game for yourself if you know all the outcomes in advance. I dont know which one of these two is lesser evil.
Choice and consequences are great, but the consequence shouldn't be softlocking yourself.
I had this sort of "Ambiguous Grief" moment in my second playthrough of Mass Effect 2.
I was doing a "Renegade" playthrough, but I hadn't committed to that immediately. Then, when the time came in the game where you can recruit Morinth, because of the way the Paragon/Renegade system worked, I couldn't possibly have sufficient "Renegade points" to recruit her. I must have replayed from previous saves five times before giving up and accepting that it was impossible. It was extra annoying since, during my first playthrough, I did a sort of "grey" playthrough and I had sufficient points to do whatever I wanted!
After looking up now what happened to Morinth in ME3... looks like I didn't miss out on much. Seems like they completely abandoned that character.
I experienced this in Arcanum after finding out about a certain book in a certain locked barrel that's involved in a quest with a certain ogre that you meet only once during the course of the game, so if you missed out on the book, the ogre would never get his precious book. Made me restart the game...:D
You were very lucky to have had such a job tim where you could make fallout. And very lucky to have had such a team. And that you landed on all those ideas, made all those stories, citites etc (and ofc very hard work from the team). And we were very lucky to get the Fallout setting and games. It is incredible that your team made that game and how it has taken the world with storm (tv show incoming, i hope it is good). But what a setting you got to make. A setting that has resonated with millions all over the world for almost 30 years!
I sort of went through this in fallout 1 itself. So on my first playthrough of fallout 1, i reached New Reno. And some NPC got aggressive towards me so i killed it, got 5xp, then other NPCs got angry, now usually on killing those "Citizen" NPCs you dont get xp, but i did cuz they were junkies. So then i just kept on killing and eventually, i had killed the entire starting area of new reno, and no longer had access to the quests the first area of New reno offered. Ik this example isnt as serious but just wanted to share cuz i went through it in fallout
I felt ambiguous grief when I found out my 1 Karma score precluded me from being handed Power Armor by the Brotherhood in Fallout, even though I had saved their initiate and brought back that darned disc from the Glow, and that meant I had to kill just about everybody on the first level of their bunker to pry it from their cold, dead, power-armored hands :P
I've watched several videos now, and it seems he's really into wrpgs. I could never get into them myself, for stuff like this, such as Diablo 2. Needing to know all the mechanics and consequences before even starting the game, otherwise you brick out, and have to start over (yes noob gatekeeper Duriel), especially when it's not clear what you did wrong, just turns me away.
Mass Effect's dialogue being really unclear at times, prevented me from wanting to get more than an hour or two in. Several choices left me with "That's not what I thought that meant!" Or the sidequests: "Hey, Commander, could you bring back some fetch quest samples from this planet?" "No, I'm chasing a space terrorist and everyone's been telling me I need to catch them ASAP. I'll do it later." "Oh, well never mind, this sidequest is just inaccessible now." (something I hadn't experienced or expected before).
Dark Souls FOMO was a major point of pathos in plays and replays. Very avant garde and it relies heavily on multiplayer community. If youre like me you missed out on that too because you run a fisher price dinosaur boomer desktop with no NVIDIA space age ultra gamer tech
Hey Uncle Tim, thanks for this! Like so many other gamers I've felt this often. Yet, I know that sometimes we come across gamers that do really interesting things. I found Death Standing to be one of those games; maybe not original in every individual element but taken as a whole felt completely different from anything is ever played. What did you think of that genre and what were done times this happened for you?
If only Stygian Software would watch this.
Is the reason Tim likes gray choices influenced by his colour blindness? ;)
It could be a train wreck but I think it might be cool for you to collaborate with one of the groups making mods like Fallout Miami on a quest or something like that. It would probably make their year.
Nice video, just one minor grief of mine at 6:25 : I always want to play a frontline wizard. Even in D&D (e.g. blade-singler). A games that allow me to do that are awesome (e.g. PoE2)
(Also, bad-speech-guy doing the talking sounds like a hilariously fun concept. I imagine it like a bloodlines player always picking the snarkiest line)
Karlach's romance quest being broken in my run... I restarted after learning 70 hours in or so.
Would this also count as ambiguous grief: as a kid i always wanted to have the pokemon celebi in the pokemon games gold/silver. But for a person living in europe it was not possible to get it, you had to attend an event in japan with special equipment for your gameboy. My little kids heart was broken and since then i was never setting myself the goal of 100%-ing a game ever again, because there could be these crazy obstacles.
That boils up the original Dragon Age for me...I played each of the starter areas and technical problems killed each of them with various bugs. By the time they patched them all, I just couldn't be bothered to try and get it to work again. I know it's a good game, but I just can't be bothered to pick it back up again after it disappointed me.
If you ever want this sensation concentrated to the level of a raw-ass ball waxing, cannot recommend "The Age of Decadence" by Iron Tower enough.
But in Fallout: New Vegas, Charisma is not at all required for levelling a Speech character, and you would experience ambigious grief realizing you should have put your attribute points into intelligence instead.
One of the lamest ways of doing this (apart from not doing it all) is when Fallout 4 gives you a popup telling you the choice you are proposing is irreversible. It would be so much cooler to have a trusted character tell you that. Or rather, telegraph it.
Also I think if you have them make a choice then it should start to change how things are going as far as character path or how a faction percieves you. But maybe not completely at first. Maybe it just sets up a little distrust or maybe you don't get the information or the thing you needed right away and it causes you to grind a bit to achieve the same goal as if you had made the right decision. However I think if you choose an entire quest and really show that you so not like a character or faction. Then perhaps the game should begin to reward and punish you for your choices and maybe there's a trade off for the decision or a bad endkng depending on how far the player took it. I mean I know people want to surprise the player but if there's no warning signs you gotta start to think as a designer "does this change make the player feel bad enough to quit the game" or "is this event even important enough to change the course the adventure" and most importantly "Have I punished my player too much for being bold and testing the limits of my game".
sorry if i'm asking something too personal, but a quick internet search revealed that you turned 58 this august. so you should have a decade or so left until retirement. or is that different in the US?
There are a lot of things I feel that for, and it still continues to hurt me. When it comes to you though, I think of how I haven't ended up in a position in the industry to be able to meet you in person and say, 'thanks!' and how that's very unlikely at this point.
I think of Arcanum, and how it would be nice to get your blessing for a spiritual successor, or something like that. It would be nice to be able to just send you an email and show what I've made. Hmm.
My ideal RPG would be something that lets you wield any weapon or chloting, only that usefulness of that item is reduced depending on your class/starting abilities. Top tier magic robe if the greates wizard of them all with 6282836% buff to mana regen should be totally viable for a barbarian type guy, only there would be no benefit aside the 0.1 armor that it adds compared to butt naked. Or maybe some enhanted sword that deals 15 fire damage on hit, instead of prohibiting you the use ofnit, it should damage you aswell since it cannod draw from the mana pool yet the only energy it can sap is your health/stamina. Coupled with this, all quests should be doable with any build, just in a different way and the further it is from the desired build, the more convoluted and grindy it would be. Skyrim, as neat as that game was back in the day, is just too open and easy as you can mix and match and still end up as an archer thief.
Deus Ex (2000) - Masterpiece?
not being able to finish (win) the main story is more like softlocking, which should never happen, but being locked out of certain options and paths due to earlier choices is normal for rpg
Me killing rogue clockworks at level 1 in Ak'anon
The idea of you not being involved with anymore Fallout particularly hurts. The Amazon adaptation they're dropping next year feels like it's going to suffer without consultation from OG Fallout people like you.
I wonder what kind of grief you experience when you play a game, often a sequel, and a couple of hours into the game you realize that the game isnt what you thought it was. It isnt "bad" but it isnt what you expected it to be so you will never experience the joy of playing the game you was looking forward to playing.
Hi :)
I think this ignores the concept of replayability. You don't always have to be hinted at the outcome when at a crossroads. You just need to know that the crossroad exists. If I betray an NPC and learn down the road that the outcome was due to my betraying this character or faction, it gives me the incentive to replay the game out of curiosity in order to experience a different outcome. The same can be said with items locked due to my build. If I choose a Ranger class, without the game hinting or needing me to dig, I should be well aware that I cannot join the Mage's Guild, questline, or use that magical staff I found. This drives the curiosity of players to reroll a new character and play the game from an entirely different class perspective. Simply allowing a player to dip their toes in every class ability or questline, devalues each class's uniqueness.
Oh so that's what it's called...
I was playing a game while listening to this. I accepted a quest that was time sensitive and quite hard to accomplish with my current state, I know that at the time but I took it in a slight hope that I might complete it despite the difficulty but lo and behold I'm nearing the deadline of the quest yet not even half there... now that would be a stain on my character, having one failed quest, it's not that I'm doing a perfect run since I was trying to challenge myself to one save and to lessen my scum saving ways... but I get this feeling yeah
Why is it called "ambiguous" grief? Maybe another definition of ambiguous I'm not sure of.
Because grief is tied to the idea of loss, and with "ambiguous grief" you've lost something that you technically never had. Is it still considered loss in that situation? - that's what makes it ambiguous.
@@SyndicateOperative Very insightful, thank you
the less philosophy game devs know the less everything their games are.
hahaha sounds like Etrian Odyssey 1
I really dislike this about baldurs gate 3...killing some cow, and therefore missing out on an awesome item 20 hours gametime later...it feels terrible to play the game once realised...I like choice and consequence, but not to this extreme
Strongly disagree with the water merchant example. If you think that was bad it's incredibly sad. That was part of what made the world of Fallout feel so alive! Realizing that the world reacted to a decision you made in a way that made sense (you gave the vault's address so mutants found it easier) makes everything feel more real! What else is the game tracking? I don't know. I'd better roleplay! If you had dumbed it down by having a merchant say "by the way, I sure hope that place isn't A SECRET oh oh oh" the game would have lost of a lot.
If when confronted with the consequence the player says "oh of course that makes sense!" it's fantastic. But if there was indeed no way to guess it then yeah it's bad.
It wouldn't be ruined if someone from Vault 13 (preferably Overseer in an intro sequence) asked to be cautious with sharing information on the Vault with wastelanders.
@@r0zbenThe blurb is pretty clear that the vault is secret. Maybe one more line from the overseer on the way to the door would help. But not something right before you do the transaction.
Lol skyrim is the perfect video game after all
I think something else that falls into ambiguous grief is when the game is changed or altered and that one build or item you had is no longer available and you can not get it back.
It's one thing if it's unbalanced, changes need to happen obviously. But I mean when something is for the most part fine, but is suddenly changed and is no longer come back. That can effectively kill the game for some people, because the game as they knew it is now dead.
Granted this isn't so bad if the changes are reasonable and make sense, but often it outright kills that option or playstyle, and you can no longer go back to it.
Monster Hunter lol
Starfield is a masterclass grief sadly 😅
I've abandoned very good games for ambiguous grief in the past
(the most egregious one possibly being Divinity Original Sin 1).
Always with the idea I would have restarted the whole thing from scratch at a certain point.
A certain point I've yet to reach to this day, for each one of the titles in question.
To me, the worse cases of ambiguous grief in cRPGs are those caused by "spoilers".
That would be when, after you played a significant portion of the story,
you get to know from an outside source that,
in a previous and now unreachable section of this amazing 100+ hours out-of-your-body experience,
there was a big optional element that you missed completely (most of the time a potential member of you party)
which would have made the rest of the adventure richer and more interesting all the way to the end screen.
Thanks for your videos!
If everything telegraphed, everything avoidable and everything is fair game is boring.
On absolutely different and opposite spectrum, look up pathologic, especially old one, the first one.
hehe our game design teachers are recommending your youtube channel to us. It's a great watch! ^___^ //Tomas - Student from FutureGames in Sweden
To be clear, there are cases where a game may deliberately employ ambiguous grief if it has something to say about that feeling.
This is my mandatory reminder to play pathologic 2. Play it NOW.
This was a big problem with Oblivion. When you make a character, you can see that over half of the 21 Skills are completely non-combat. In fact, only 5 of 21 even relate to dealing damage. It tricks you into thinking you can make a non-combat-focused character. But if you try to do that, you will get absolutely stonewalled by mandatory late-game (even mid-game) combat encounters that have no non-combat solutions. And by that point, because of how enemy scaling works, you can't just switch into leveling combat skills because the enemies will always outpace your own growth.
bathesda games have been giving me grief
Dunno if it's dumb to say this but I feel this right now so hard with the new vampire bloodlines sequel. Not only is it now not going to be what I hoped for since I was a teenager, but it's never going to be what I wanted to see because too much time has passed.
I feel this way about inexplicably failing NPC quests in FromSoftware games by reaching an arbitrary point in the storyline