Issue: I simply refuse to use the stun gun on any robot in Delta

[vanjavk]

I was also disappointed when I realised I had to kill one of the robots :/ They should have hidden the chip in some box or something somewhere so there's an alternative.
Still not a reason to not complete this beautiful game

[Kein]

If you want to make the choice easier:

Spoiler below!

we know that the smaller & cuter & more helpful robot isn't actually sentient (i.e. a human-robot) but rather a full AI that doesn't have a consciousness. As such, destroying it isn't really killing anything but rather more like taking apart a computer to use some of its component parts.

To be immersed in the world is to take a choice, though. The fact that you can step back and not make a choice is an immediate breaking of the fourth wall, removing yourself from Simon's virtual dilemma. Simon doesn't like this any more than you do and he says so. Going on is the only option for him though.

That's not exactly true. Granted, the documents in HQ on Delta state that, but there is a lot of thing different in the world of SOMA. Omnitool had a basic AI setup too yet later you made this toaster talk and think. Who knows how the little helper was altered.

Also, I spent few hours looking for the spare chip anywhere, abused the hell out of the jumping glitch and there was literally nothing.

[kojack]

I immediately thought of the two dead helper bots nearby in the hopes of getting a chip. I didn't want to take a tool chip from the little guy that kept using tools to help me, that seemed like a bad idea. I didn't want to shock the crazy bot either, but that seemed the best of a bad situation.

I felt much worse later when dealing with

Spoiler below!

getting the code from Brandon.

I had something slightly similar to this thread happen in Skyrim. I had joined the assassin's guild and got a few missions in. Usually in these games there's a justification for assassinating someone if you look around enough. But then they gave me a certain mission that I didn't agree with.

Spoiler below!

killing the bride at the wedding.

There was a line I didn't want my character to cross. Now in an open world game like that there were several possible options that came to mind:
- do the assassination
- ignore the mission and just not progress as an assassin
- turn against the assassin guild

I didn't really want to do option one. Not that I couldn't, I had already done it to see how the mission progressed, I just didn't think my character would do that as a permanent solution (it's a role playing game afterall, I'm playing the role).

Option two was problematic. While the mission was active, an entire town was in a different state and other quest lines were blocked off. So not finishing the mission was affecting other parts of the game.

Option three didn't work. I returned to the guide hideout and tried to kill everyone. Every single assassin in there was locked to unkillable, no matter what I did they'd wake up again and resume attacking me. There was no way to turn on them at that point in the game.

To me that just seemed like bad design. Not being able to progress in one quest line for moral reasons is ok, but not being able to progress in other unrelated quests due to an event that should be short duration but instead runs infinitely, that's a flaw.
I continued playing the game (plenty of other stuff to do) but I'd lost a bit of interest in it due to that.


So I fully sympathize with Sirandar's discomfort at certain moral choices and his decision to not play if the game makes him uncomfortable. However threatening to never buy another Frictional game if they don't meet his demand to modify Soma to suit his personal moral code is crazy, and probably why this thread has such a negative backlash against him.

[Tordo]

Barring the fact that the OP is a troll, which isn't out of the question, it's really not feasible to believe that the world will just revolve around your every whim.

I mean, if you don't like how the game forces you into such a position, then you can...stop playing it. Nobody's forcing you to. But to demand everyone around you to change to your liking is nothing short of naivety.

Feel like you'd have a tough go at life with that mindset. "I don't like this, so everyone else should change!" It's the equivalent of an angry, raging customer yelling at the waitress that the food served isn't up to his standards (but there's nothing particularly wrong with it), so the restaurant must reimburse him and then change the menu to what he likes instead while still trying to eat said food. It just doesn't work and in both cases, both establishments would probably just scoff at it.

In addition, in both cases, the solution really is simple: Just stop doing ____ then. It's disappointing you didn't enjoy it, but that's okay! Everyone has opinions, and it's not like everything can be subjectively fun for all. It's when you try to forcefully impose those beliefs on others because of your own subjective view of "enjoyment" that it starts getting grating.

It's not like Soma was advertised as a Mass Effect/Visual Novel/The Walking Dead-style game either where "your choices are supposed to have impact." There are such things as games with linear stories, Soma is one of them. Not every game will be like the before mentioned games, which try to openly advertise "choices."

[enny330]

I found it a hard choice too and contemplated on it. The game designers know this and will prob reward/punish me with either choice! So I stunned the K8, which was helpful in nature and less likely to haunt me.

Make a choice! Continue playing or stop playing! No need to be salty about it.

[hollowleviathan]

I think the biggest problem with Sirandar's complaint is that it is completely consistent with the world and dilemma facing you at that point in the story to need a chip that you can only obtain from robots that are presenting dubious signs of sentience.

It's believable and even likely that Simon would find himself in this situation, and to demand that God/the devs magically create an alternate path that is soothing to your moral sensibilities is something that Simon might feel at that time. But in both cases it would be a miracle, and realistically you are going to have to deal with the cards you've been dealt.

Sirandar and Simon can sit in the sand until their battery drains, but they're betraying everyone on the ARK who is depending on them. You're still a villain if you don't stun the robots, Sirandar. You're a killer.

[Fragr]

Like so many people have pointed out before, the fact that the choice is tough and that most people would prefer to not have to make it at all is the whole point. It's even conveyed ingame by Simon's reluctance to hurt either of the robots.

The only problem for Simon is that he doesn't have the luxury of simply sitting down in the sand and choosing not to participate. If he stays outside on the ocean floor long enough, he'll eventually run out of oxygen and die. Same thing if he somehow finds his way back into one of the previous bases, he'll either starve or run out of power.

Spoiler below!

(Don't care what kind of magical plot-propulsion gel his body is filled with, he'll still need energy to be able to move.)

In other words, he's FORCED to proceed, and in extension, to make an unpleasant choice.

For me, that's the whole beauty of the situation. The simple fact that there is no alternative. You HAVE to choose. There is no other way out of it. Much like in real life, you don't always get a safe and easy path and sometimes the only way to progress is to compromise yourself.

Also, you say that the game is abusive, but is it really?
Sure, it doesn't always let you choose what to do and it often forces you through situations that you'd rather not be in. But you're never forced to do something because of lazy developers or because someone on the design team made arbitrary decisions. There's always a reason.

For example, in this specific situation, the game is forcing you to zap one of the robots specifically because it wants to force you to break your morals and invoke feelings of disempowerment and helplessness. In other words, they're not taking power away from you because they can't be bothered to come up with another way of doing it, they're taking power away from you because it's the only way to give the player the experience that they want to impart.

The fact that it works and that they do it so well is really something that they should be applauded for.

[Oscar House]

Related to the broken bots...

Code: (Select All)

...
    // If the player is clever enough to go back to the broken bots
    Entity_SetPlayerInteractCallback("soma_kate_broken_copy_grab_*", "InteractBrokenKateBots", true);
...

    void InteractBrokenKateBots(const tString &in asEntity)
    {
        Map_AddTimer("8_InteractBrokenKateBot", 0.5f, "TimerPlayVoice");
    }

The sound it's trying to play (8_InteractBrokenKateBot) can't be found in the game files, so I'd imagine it would just be the player mentioning that the chip is busted or something.

[eddman]

It's very simple; do not play the game and do not buy any other frictional game. They are not forcing you or anyone else to buy and play their games.

EDIT: must also add, it's THEIR game and THEIR story, not yours. If you don't like it, refer to the first paragraph.

Even in real life there are situations where you are forced to choose between bad and worse with no good choices, or when there isn't a choice at all. Are you going to commit suicide if that happens?

Life isn't all roses and rainbows.

Also, do not play Spec Ops: The Line.

P.S. I also didn't like the fact that I had to terminate one of the robots to get a chip, but it had to be done in order to progress.

[Sirandar]

From the OP

Thanks for all the comments .... all are interesting.

It does indeed look like I am trying to blackmail the devs into changing the game to suit my moral code ..... but actually, as you can probably guess I have been in this position a few times, and I know that they will not.

I was simply informing them of the consequences of their decision to force me into a dichotomous choice with not enough purpose behind it. It is all to get a stupid chip when the chip you already have is magically broken. The chip could be any object and the game doesn't change much at all if the dev magically placed a chip front of me to find, instead of stunning the robot.

It is already a done deal ... not playing this game, not playing any future games from Frictional unless they openly state that will craft better decision points in the game. There is no blackmail.

Dragon Age Origins had a similar issue to Soma and I never finished that game or bought any sequel. The issue was forcing me to drink the DarkSpawn blood and it was a major decision that should have had a lot of thought put into it by the devs.

For Dragon Age, forcing me to drink the darkspawn blood would be ok but what was needed was to give me the chance to actually choose in a satisfying way.

Choice 1 = drink the dragon blood
Choice 2 = State that Duncan is as vile as the Darkspawn he fights and attempt to hack my way out of the situation
Choice 3 = Recognize that you are outclassed, pull out your sword and end your life on it.

This was a major moment in the game wasted as the devs did it.

How could killing yourself or dying fighting Duncan be worked into the game? A simple cut scene where Duncan immobilizes you before you could do either and forces you to drink the blood saying " You are too valuable an asset to loose"

This way everybody wins and the story further moves and the player is given insight into how ruthless and desperate the Wardens really are. They did just murder your friend ....

When you force somebody to make an ugly choice it is a GIANT RED FLAG, meaning if you are going to do it, you better think about it and do it ABSOLUTELY right and in a compelling way. Think about it three times.

The robot stun choice was not constructed in a compelling way, and so it made me feel the devs were forcing me to do something unpleasant just because they could. Not very good fro making repeat customers.

---

I, on the other hand, would like to use stun baton on every creature, if enough charge.

I wholeheartedly support your freedom to kill every creature in gaming down to the last little bunny in Witcher 3. Why do you have so much trouble understanding my desire not to?

---

Spoiler below!

A closing note from the OP to the devs which of course they are free to ignore

Soma had a lot of great aspects. It was intriguing, thought provoking and relatively non-violent. It had great atmosphere, feel and good flow. It was beautiful to look at too and provided information to the player in very compelling and novel ways.

In a sense, Frictional may be one of the few devs that could make a game I would finish and enjoy and feel it was an enriching empowering experience. You probably cant even if you wanted to in the current gaming climate.

That said, Soma has a lot of company on my "I won't finish the game list" and since there is some possibility that you could make a game worth playing I will describe my experiences with games so you can assess my market niche.

1) Fallout 3, Oblivion, Skyrim = didn't finish but not due to moral outrage ... the quests were too bland and pointless to be worth my time. Same is true for most sandboxes. Some of Skyrims quests were OK, but you can imagine how much I likes the 1/2 done civil war.

2) Batman Arkham Asylum: Violent and fairly abusive to the player but there was a certain craftmanship to that countered that = Finished twice

3) All the other Batman and superhero games: Interesting sandboxes, annoying abusive games = didn't finish once

4) Prince of Persia Sand of Time: Mindless Storytelling but fun Finished 2x. All other Prince of Persia games = highly abusive

5) Myst Revelation: Played 8x over the years Still one of the best games ever made despite being linearish. Myst End of Ages: A crap 1/4 done game = still finished but only because it was 1/4 done.

6) Fallout New Vegas: The ultimate in mixed content. Guns, Violence, stupid, silly, buggy but somehow the game just worked and delivered a game I played 3 times

7) Deus Ex HR: Another highly conflicted game. The boss battles were highly abusive with a pacifist build and written by another dev. Eventually fixed after nobody cared anymore. Jensens story and the atmosphere prevailed = finished twice

8) NeverWinter Nights Series: MotB was a 1/2 finished masterpiece but only played once because I couldn't bring down the wall. Hordes of the Underdark was also great and I finished that twice. These games can be abusive if you build your character wrong.

9) Planescape Torment: Masterpiece in its time. Played 3x. Some choices were forced but they were well constructed

10) Dragon Age Origins: Played up to the part where you were forced to drink the darkspawn blood. The forced choice was understandable, but how they framed the choice and how my character responded was not == ended playing after that abuse. Never played a DA game again.

11) Mass Effect = Violent but not particularly abusive in my playthroughs. Some forced choices but they didn't cause me to quit. ME1 was a masterpiece. ME2 was a great game but I hated being the Elusive Man's bitch. ME3 had some fairly abusive battles, but it was still playable.

12) Crysis: Didn't have a PC good enough for the original. The second one I played and it was fun but no enough to buy sequels.

13) Assassins Creed: Played the first one and it bored me to tears and it is about assassinations. Never finished never bought another.

14) Portal: Bland subversive fun = finished both

15)Longest Journey and Dreamfall: Fully played and loved both. Dreamfall Chapters started will but descended into an unplayable mess in chapter 3

16) Vanishing of Ethan Carter: Played 3x and loved it. Yes its linear but no forced choices either.

17) Antichamber: Played 2x and loved it

18) Don't Starve: Seems innocuous but extremely abusive

19) Witcher Series: 1) Interesting enough to finish once due to atmosphere and story 2) Couldn't even make it 1/4 though, monster hunting sucked, too much politics, too many annoyances 3) Loved and hated it: player is forced to act a Geralt would so the freedom of action is actually very limited. A lot of poorly crafted forced choices. Monster hunting is fairly compelling. Some quests are very compelling. Geralt is very unempowered in this game with few satisfying choices to be made and lots of abusive ones. Every wolf and dog in the game attacks on sight. Every bandit and deserter is a homicidal maniac. Stopped playing this game in hopes modders can fix it ... unlikely though.

Before you scream about moral inconsistencies .... thats how life is and moral landscapes change over time

O_O

have you tried yoga?

Lol, actually I have and yoga is a major part of my life. For me gaming is about expanding my awareness and experiencing the human condition. There hasn't been much worth playing recently. There has been a huge push toward enslavement in the gaming industry, especially in pay to play games.

When you come home, and your wife is banging some dude and you murder them both, there is a very high level of coercion to the situation. Because we need to eat and compete, there is a very high level of coercion to many human situations. If you add conditioning on top of that you get a potent mixture.

When you play a computer game, you are an absolute volunteer (unless your addiction level is high), so in some manner it is a portrait of your truest nature. Action without consequence.