This really took the enjoyment out of my second mass effect playthrough. All the fake choices become obvious if you know the outcome.

You should play Telltale games

Once.

Otherwise the facade breaks realllllllll quick

Meanwhile, right now, I'm like, "I didn't commit those 58 homicides. It was the Grey Fox!"

There are games I've stopped playing because I get overwhelmed by choices and worrying that I'll completely alter the experience, and I don't wanna choose wrong....

Most of the time I realize it literally doesn't matter

To be fair, it’s understandable given dev time constraints.

…I was surprised by how impactful some BG3 choices were. Channels old school RPGs I guess, yet somehow with the glitz (and voice acting) of new.

Unless your game is actively getting generated by AI, handling multiple branching storylines is n times the amount of work for n branches of the storyline a lot of players will never get to explore and will just watch on YouTube.

I would give an option with branching paths but then I would have to program an infinitely number of branching paths instead I'll make an outcome that works with all possible outcomes

Or ya know AI.

As if legionnaires would use a barbarous Germanic design...

this is why i just watch walkthroughs instead of playing RPGs. it's the same experience, but hands-free.

(it also gets much deeper than just that, but i don't want to ruin like 95% of all games for people, so i'm not gonna go into detail. if you know, you know.)

Why I love boulders gate 3 where your words actually matter instead of whatever you say is doesn't matter. One of the few games where I actually listen to the dialogue and think about my choices of responding instead of just picking randomly because it don't matter

Every Pokémon dialogue choice ever

• Yes let's burn it!
• No, I need to prepare first.
• [persuade] I have a nuke we could use.

Xena, no. That's how you get Callisto.

Damn. Centuriichan is going full Mimi.

... Why don't we have Mimi on the fediverse already?

Actually, it's deep winter, and the people feel cold ...