Did Telltale push us to Gryff over Ludd? *Spoilers*
We get the option to pick between Gryff or Ludd to kill in episode 6.
In Rodrik's episode 6 playthrough, Telltale tricked us into thinking that if we went after Ludd, that Ryon was going to be killed by Gryff. They probably figured most players would go after Gryff for this reason.
Now, if you play as Asher, there is only one scenario in which Ludd dies, and that is if you pick the poison option, AND have Elissa drink it. There's no way for Ludd to die if you picked the ambush option. With the poison option, you need to not call it off, and not stop Elissa from drinking it. They probably figured a lot of players would have stopped her from drinking it for obvious reasons.
Do you think Telltale was trying to push players in a direction to have Ludd live? Seems to me that's what they were going for, but it may just be my imagination or a coincidence.
Comments
I think the idea behind it was, Ludd is obviously the far bigger threat to the Forresters - if it was just a straight up choice, almost everyone would have killed Ludd.
If you wanted to take out Ludd, you had to be willing to sacrifice something - for Rodrik it was Ryon, for Asher it's Elissa. Ludd was simply more cunning than Gryff which meant he had better survival instincts and thus took precautions.
Except Ryon lives either way, and Elissa dies either way.
Granted, nobody knew that prior to playing, but the point remains the same.
@Blockb0ys has it right. The idea is that Ludd is the greater threat and would be more beneficial to eliminate, but to do it you have to risk losing someone you care about in the process. The games basically asking "How far are you willing to go?" which I think was a big theme with EP6. Especially the Asher version.
ehh. Well as bad as it sounds when I was playing as Rodrik I still went after Ludd. I had complete faith in Beshka to get Ryon out of there. Ludd HAD to die if we had any chance, well that was my thinking anyways. ;o
In that moment, the choice mattered a lot to you. That's what Telltale is really about, not choices mattering in the long run, but choices having an emotional impact on you in the moment you have to make them. As soon as you do a replay or start discussing the game more deeply, you start looking 'behind the curtain'. Soon, you'll realize that your choices don't change that much. Ryon lives either way, Elissa dies either way, Ironrath falls either way. But the point is, you don't know that while playing for the first time. Replaying a Telltale game can only take away from your first playthrough experience.