Which one, Yea Forums?

Never going to happen because by "resource creation level" you're actually talking about "artistic vision" and "ambition." No amount of money and development team size is going to automatically make a game with truly diverse story choices because they're just going to put all those resources into graphix and shitty MTX for their "games as a service" models. And thanks to nutjobs like Kojima, no company is going to foot one man's passion project and risk losing all that money.

First one is retarded. Second one is bad game design because it brings the important choice early meaning you have to play the entire game's length again to get to the ending, wasting the player's team. Get rid of the last dot in the third example and it's good.

>aaron shekelstein is a rpg connoisseur

most WRPGs made in the 15 years are that one

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Example for 2 and 3? All I can think about is some VNshit.

3 if I had to pick between only those. That's the only one that most of the game isn't linear. The ending is but I can watch a youtube clip of all the "different" endings you get with Fallout.

Star Fox 64

Middle, I play Piranha Bytes games

Not an RPG but Shadow the Hedgehog only with more endings. Getting all the endings was fucking cancer.

Shadow the Hedgehog, although not an RPG.

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GET OUT OF MY MIND!

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But the capacity and speed to make new digital material is always increasing. Theoretically we could reach a point a machine learning program could turn a rudimentary script into the backbone of a game world might need touching up by humans, but wouldn't have to be built from scratch. Even more theoretically is an even more in the future machine learning program that custom builds games from scratch just for you. Of course at that point the world would be a much different place if home computer powered ai is that strong.

1 is better since I can just watch the other endings on youtube instead of having to replay the game 3243 times to get to see everything

All of those are retarded. Middle one is the most correct, but it should have splits in the middle instead of the beginning.

Basically any Telltale game
lots of choices and they all mean nothing

chrono trigger
>fight the boss and end the gameat multiple points in the story

Don't you have to do every single permutation in order to unlock the last level?

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>black bull

westopolis evil
digital circuit evil
cryptic castle (fight egg breaker)
edit save fil
mad matrix evil (fight egg breaker)
iron jungle neutral (fight egg breaker)
uninstall game

Either 1 or 3 for me.

This unironically

i guess my game is kind of like the third model

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This one.

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Whichever option in the shortest.

>novel takes like 90% of the "game"
Not so impressive.

First one. Story shouldn't be the most important thing in a videogame. With the first one you have can focus the work on the important things like gameplay, difficulty and level design.

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But... that IS the game user?

this is age of wonders

The first one. Scope and scale are important, and I'd rather have a singular route with a good story and multiple endings over a few mediocre stories that "cross over" just for the sake of crossing over. It's a dumb gimmick. Octopath Traveler is a good example of why a single focused story will always be much better than multiple diverging stories.

Triangle strategy

You could make it so that the gameplay is the same but the story changes
>you have to join A/B and raid the opposing castle
>A's castle and B's castle have the same structure but look different

2 is best, you get 3 different complete experiences. 1 is the shitty choose your ending button and 3 is aimless open world morality system trash.

Based rental game

Just recoloring sounds cheap as hell

>every single permutation
Fuck no, you just have to do every final level to unlock the last story.
Every permutation would be torture

wtf they all have the same ending so whats the fucking point???

>This level of bait
impressive

The second one can have 3 different experiences like each path is a different character with their own gameplay style

Except that game has 4 distinct endings, there's even a story tree available in-game, maybe someone will post the full one but it's not like the far right

The first one has no impact on gameplay, so you have played a linear game with different outcomes.

The second one is three different linear games in one.

The third one is an actual RPG where your preferred gameplay brought you to the conclusion.

The idea that three isn't the best is the mistaken assumption that it means your choices don't matter. It is indeed satisfying to see an outcome reflective of your decisions, but the game is over at that point and you already got through what mattered: the adventure tailored to how you wanted to play.

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>Shadow kills eggman in 3/4 endings

qwveqwevqwqwveqwveqwevqw

>this thread is actually making me want to play StH again
Convince me not to.

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I'm taking the middle one every day of the weak.
Right just ends up with mass effect shit where it's flavors of the same ending. Right is just
>well your choices didn't really matter
Middle at least has 3 strong narratives that come off of a key moment. I also wouldn't mind the ability to jump ship in the middle part, but the last few bits of the story should be locked in.

No
youtube.com/watch?v=8V1pMQKDPco

Middle is like FE: three houses where you're forced to make a decision despite only having just started the game.
Left is best because the choices are the most informed and impactful

Option 1 is basically "make a save point before the junction, then just play the endings"
Option 2 is just three different games.
Option 3 has the potential to be the most fun and deepest, but can also suffer from "I want to experience this side content, but after that I have no urge to finish the game I've already played as I already know the ending."

Overall, a mix of 1 and 3. Let me have different endings, but also different, intersecting ways to get there. I hate to use it as an example, but Shadow the Hedgehog actually did this really well, with its 10 endings and 350+ unique paths.

Depends on the game.

Most games, unironically:
But this is good too, but ONLY IF each "branch" is a different playable character just different perspectives.
For VNs or story-heavy games, the left one is the best. But ONLY IF there is a one "true/canon" route.

If I could I'd add 2-3 nodes to the start of the middle one to avoid that issue; it is a shit one, as you've said.
2-3 nodes where it's locked in, 3-4 nodes where you can jump back and forth (within reason), then a final 2 nodes or so where you're locked in on those paths.
That would be ideal for me.

Someone did however have to write out names for every single permutation though.

3>2>>>>Sick of souls ubishit "rpgs"

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>never seen a game do the far right one

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They already exist, its just the gameplay is not fun

I prefer linear. I've never cared about self expression or alternative endings, they just take away from resources that could've been spent on the main thing