Solace Bridge

Great work making Solace Bridge feel more urgent.

But I still believe it is lacking meaningful choice, which was set up on the Isle of Storms as a game theme.

A stronger story telling approach, aligned with the virtues, might be for the Avatar to have to choose between either:

1) Escorting the child to safety, out of love going out the back gate without other reward, or
2) Fighting with Edvard out the other gate with mobs to find a reward of greater truth at the end.

The choice of love vs. truth. Not both. But choosing one. That would be more meaningful in this scene.

The opening scene has a great opportunity to set the stage for the whole game. But the opening quest still feels like a highly transactional escort quest to me, not a meaningful virtue choice. I get that the team is trying to straddle the need to tell a story and give a basic tutorial on combat at the same time. That might be creating a trade off here, and it might be better to focus on story.

The Avatar also lacks some context for the choice that adds to it feeling highly transactional, not transformational. The Avatar can only say yes or no to the kid, not knowing anything other than the house is on fire. For all the Avatar knows at this point, choosing yes might result in the kid's death at the hands of mobs ahead. That the answer to escort her is 'obviously yes because the house is on fire', is what makes the quest feel highly transactional (point A to point B, not a real virtue choice).

 

Thank you for the feedback!