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Merchant questline/ending? (obvious spoilers)

Eyestabber

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Either way you end up as another guy's secretary? Lame. =/

Anyone got a better ending?
 

Saduj

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I got the same ending and found it pretty annoying. I've been led to believe that faction reputations can affect endings so I kind of assumed my Commercium faction reputation was too low (29) to warrant a better ending. I didn't fail any quests but perhaps there were ones where I could have achieved a greater success state. Not sure.
 

Goral

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lol
Play Fallout 4, you will be able to become the chosen one for the n-th time.
 

Vault Dweller

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I got the same ending and found it pretty annoying. I've been led to believe that faction reputations can affect endings so I kind of assumed my Commercium faction reputation was too low (29) to warrant a better ending. I didn't fail any quests but perhaps there were ones where I could have achieved a greater success state. Not sure.
What did you expect though? You're a corporate employee (basically). You won't become a CEO overnight but you can 'bet on the right horse' and rise with your 'master'. Being Strabos' second in command isn't a bad position, especially considering that your predecessor was given a city to manage.
 

Saduj

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What did you expect though? You're a corporate employee (basically). You won't become a CEO overnight but you can 'bet on the right horse' and rise with your 'master'. Being Strabos' second in command isn't a bad position, especially considering that your predecessor was given a city to manage.

The ending mentions Strabos not thinking enough of you to become a magistrus and, to me, makes it sound like you become more of a gopher than a second in command. I didn't think it was a terrible fate. I was just annoyed that I couldn't figure out what the hell I failed to do if this was a less optimal ending. Also, a character who finishes the merchant questline is the kind of guy who is going to end up rich with or without Strabos, assuming he doesn't get himself killed. So he'd probably tell Strabos to fuck off before accepting a position as s schlepper. If I was just misreading the ending, then that's the problem.
 

Vault Dweller

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high rep:

While Strabos did not deem you fit for the rank of Magistratus, your dedication has not been forgotten. Strabos recalls you to Maadoran to serve as his personal assistant. The man is not an easy master, and the list of your responsibilities would wear all but the longest scroll, but if you can last a few years the promise of advancement remains.

low rep:

Maseus gets Ganezzar, Athanasius retains his position despite all his scheming, and Strabos is granted everything he desired on a silver platter. You get a pat on the head and are forgotten like a stray cat. Eventually, Maseus takes pity on you and offers you a job shifting papers and tallying accounts. It’s not much, but it’s better than the street.
 

Eyestabber

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It makes perfect sense, it just felt like a bit of a letdown after all the cool things we get to do in the merchant questline. Absolutely loved the Ganezzar bit! :incline::incline::incline:

Btw, 4-4-4-8-10-10 merchant is the easiest way to finish the game. My guy even managed 10 lore and enough crafting to blow up the temple. SPs are plentiful when you have 0 combat investment.
 

Shadenuat

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Unspectacular success is worse than spectacular failure. Strange that difference between 29 points and 30+(?) points of Reputation is same as between 1 and 29.
It sometimes works weird in other factions too.
Adding 1-2 extra endings doesn't seem that big of a problem if you already know all the numbers and what rep player could have in the end. Are they all mostly between good one and meh one? Might as well track rep in 0's and 1's, or between 1 and 5 instead.

Also, wouldn't it be cool if reputation with factions somehow mixed with other types of it or quests you have done? Say, if you're an Arena Champ with 200 kills and end up as a Praetor who "didn do nuffin", you get an ending where you leave politics and fight in the Arena.
 

Vault Dweller

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Unspectacular success is worse than spectacular failure.
Depends on your definition of spectacular success. The way I see it, becoming second-in-command of one of the most powerful men is pretty spectacular.
 

IHaveHugeNick

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What did you expect though? You're a corporate employee (basically). You won't become a CEO overnight but you can 'bet on the right horse' and rise with your 'master'.

Yeah, that analogy doesn't hold up. Already while in Teron you are being given tasks on the level of ~corporate VP.
Fulfill them all, do the same in 2 other cities, and you end up as a glorified secretary. How does that make sense?

I'm completely pulling this out of my ass, but I'm guessing you had a design principle that PC becoming a God Amongst Men was supposed to be exception rather then rule. But in Merchant this was often clashing with the expectations I had when starting the playthrough. If my PC already starts high on the social ladder, by the end of the game I expect him to climb somewhere far more impressive than the lowly thief.
 

Shadenuat

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Meh. The player served long enough under Straboses boot and other masters during the game, running errands for them - dangerous and not very law-obiding, on a level of political coups and asassinations. Getting another list of errands does not look very welcoming. I'd rather run away with shitton of money, live like a king for a few years and then die like main hero of Mafia 1 when Commercium finds me to "collect debts".

Compare that to betraying some of Teron guilds, switching to Guard, betraying Guard to make Boatmen kill Strabos and then getting Praetor rank from Gaelius (oh and you can also betray Gaelius too later). That's a lot more proactive and in spirit of what Merchant/Grifter would do. Heck, that's really what Commercium does around the game, just this time it's you who came up with The Game.

I guess I just want more of "TOTALLY... WORTH IT." endings. I don't actually remember too many of those except of "Fuck it, just nuke Balzaar". Getting last laugh on many factions and people in AoD would be nice, even if price would be high.
 
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Tigranes

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I don't completely disagree about what kinds of rewards are 'proportional' to the labour you do as a merchant, but I like the fact that many endings have you pay in humanity for your power, or indeed you find that becoming one of the most powerful men around isn't always the most enjoyable or liberating.

There is, of course, at least one epic hurr durr i am god-king ending so it's not all schaudenfraude.
 

IHaveHugeNick

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It makes no sense to become a right-hand man, because for all purposes, that's what you already were anyway. So I made one king a Merchant guild puppet, arrange an assasination of another, and all I get is a handshake? There's just no progression. I could have as well sit at home and masturbate.
 

Cassidy

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There is, of course, at least one epic hurr durr i am god-king ending so it's not all schaudenfraude.

Didn't go through such specific ending yet, but isn't it supposed to be like "Shit, I am becoming a mind controlled puppet for an eldritch horror. What have I done?"
 

Shadenuat

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It would have been cool and in spirit of AoD, but epic biblical quotes, kicking shit out of all your enemies and knowing that you're in ~2% people who did this in game makes it more an achievement like merging of DC Denton with AI, rather than a "gotcha!" moment you fallen for because of your foolishness.
 

ZagorTeNej

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In general AoD tries so hard to avoid fellating the player on his awesomeness (like your regular RPG does) that often the game's responses to your actions seem a bit forced. Problem is that it's a video game and as such not the best suitable medium for conveying to the player that he's just a small, insignificant cog in a large wheel given that the one moving the game plot forward has to be you (the player), you're the one solving and doing everything while the others seem grossly incompetent and static in comparison. Of course, to its credit AoD has that "If you leave Maadoran things resolve without you" thing but still the magnitude of the effect the player has on outcomes of such political struggles at the highest level is very much typical of a Captain Awesome/Chosen One video game protagonist.

It's almost a "Shepard is the only one that can fight the reapers" scenario all the while the game's overarching narrative is trying its utmost best to convince you that you're as far from such a figure as possible (aside from Bennie ending and the ones involving Cthulhu obviously), just a lowly servant doing his part.

Despite being unique in many regards, the game does follow your standard RPG character progression where your guy starts out as as largely incompetent but over the course of a short period (a few in-game months at most) ends up becoming a demi-god in gameplay terms (whether he's a suave talker with almost hypnotic ability to affect the crowd and talk himself out of every possible scenario or a brute killing machine in Power Armor that can take on armies effortleslly) but the game doesn't react to that and as it is usual in RPGs, offers no in-game world explanation for such a gigantic increase in power over such a short period (to be fair, other than PST I can't remember any RPG that does).

Didn't go through such specific ending yet, but isn't it supposed to be like "Shit, I am becoming a mind controlled puppet for an eldritch horror. What have I done?"

Nope (though there's that ending as well).
 
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alkeides 2.0

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Well you served a bunch of conniving, greedy little men who would betray their allies if they could profit, so you can really expect loyalty from them.

That said, why would the merchants want to throw away a valuable asset who has already proven his worth and make him shuffle papers?
 

Vault Dweller

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Yeah, that analogy doesn't hold up. Already while in Teron you are being given tasks on the level of ~corporate VP.
Fulfill them all, do the same in 2 other cities, and you end up as a glorified secretary. How does that make sense?
There is a huge difference between *being given* important tasks and *giving* important tasks to others.

So, no, you weren't given tasks on the VP level because no VP would be sent to that tavern to risk his life to get the information out of Mercato and then to the barracks to find proof. Similarly, no VP would have to 'knock on doors' to drum up support for Strabos' plan, etc.
 

Saduj

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Describing the high rep position as "personal assistant" is what is confusing people. I thought it was the low rep ending because it was worded that way. If the position were described in a way that conveys "second in command", as VD is describing it here, I would have realized I got the good ending.

My main concern was over which ending I got, not that the good ending wasn't as "good" as I wanted it to be.

Although I have to say that it was satisfying as a Boatmen loyalist to think "I should be made head of the guild in Ganezzar" and then to see that this is exactly what happens in the ending slides.
 

anus_pounder

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While Strabos did not deem you fit for the rank of Magistratus, your dedication has not been forgotten.

Maybe, maybe not. But I'm guessing this is the line that throws people off in the 'high rep' ending. Maybe if it was worded more positively, like if the first part of that sentence wasn't there. "Strabos decides someone of your skills is good to have around blah blah etc. etc." - I'm no good at writing - and then the rest of the ending continues as normal. It'd be more obvious that this is a good thing.
 

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