World Justice for The Maltic Witch

Maltic's Well, a level 11 quest I feel most people forget about. It's been in the game for a very very long time, yet it has always bothered me. Why did the writers go through the effort to give her more personality and backstory (if you weren't there, this used to be a very basic quest about just killing an evil witch living in a well), just for the player to slaughter her in cold blood? She even states that the citizens of Maltic forced her down there after trying to, "Hunt [her] like a rabid dog." In her final moments, she only fights you out of fear for her own life, and when the fight concludes, the child even states that she was nice to him.

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to kill someone who showed fear in her final moments, who was pushed to the brink by a town who abused her due to prejudice, who simply wished to wear what makes her happy and happened to have some warts. I understand she kidnapped a child, but at worst she should be arrested and given a chance to live a better life.

My suggestion is simple, add an option to spare her. Either you tell everyone she's not evil and you let her go or you arrest her, though I'd prefer the former. The choice can happen right before combat would normally begin, like so:

Witch: ...oh my gosh it worked???? It worked, I did a spell for once in my miserable life!!
Witch: W-Wait, that's not good at all, you're gonna... No! You won't take me out of here alive!

[1]: You're right, I won't.
[2]: Wait! Please, I don't want to hurt you. We can talk this out.

Witch: Y-You don't? But I kidnapped a child, and i-its your job to kill me, right?
Witch: Unless... You don't hate me? I... Listen, you can take the child back. I never even wanted to take him.
Witch: I'll leave and never come back, I just want to live in peace with my cowl and spells...
Witch: And... Thank you. For not seeing me as a monster.

Speaking with Rynend:

Rynend: Oh my son! What happened down there? Erh, not a witch, you say?
Rynend: Preposterous! She wore a hat and had warts! And you let her go?!
Child: She really wasn't evil dad! She even made me cookies!
Rynend: Not evil? And she made you cookies? Hmmm...
Rynend: I... suppose as long as my son is back. And you say she's going to leave and never return?
Rynend: I guess we may have jumped to conclusions about her... The least we can do is keep this whole thing between us.
Rynend: Thanks for handling it regardless, I hope this reward will suffice.

There's doesn't need to be any new items or rewards, just a different story ending that feels a little more satisfying and isn't condemning a (mostly) innocent woman to death just for how she looks.

I think small moments like this mean a lot when it comes to making the world feel alive, and making the player feel like they actually have an effect on the world. I hope it is considered.

 

Removes the fight from the quest, making it the easier solution as it just allows you to end the quest without the hardest part
Also, if you look at all of the player's actions across the game, their leanings towards a violent mature seem pretty intentional. You usually try to solve solutions with beating something up (Perhaps a symptom of the player being sent to Wynn from Fruma as a soldier for the war!)

 

I don't think that having an easier solution necessarily makes it any worse. The boss is neither particularly difficult nor particularly interesting. I'd like to have more agency as a player; almost every quest has just one solution, and it's pretty much always "kill without knowing why", and while that worked for Bloodborne, Wynncraft has no payoff for you being a violent sociopath through the whole game. It just kinda make you feel like you're being a bit of a dick, especially when the few quests where you can be the good guy come up. "I'll resolve this situation peacefully, but the lady in the well? Yeah, I totally murdered her."

 

Wynn's story isn't entirely in game. Taking Bloodborne as the metaphor, you haven't even made it to The Nightmare of Mensis yet.

 

Then give a unique reward for killing her. Then, gameplay wise, you can choose between a fight for an item, or sparing to skip the fight.

I still don't think we have to keep the idea that the player is violent. In fact, having quests like this where you choose the peaceful option would go a long way adding depth to the player character.

 

based

 

The player character is intentionally shallow so you can slap whatever you want onto them, aside from them being a brainwashed soldier from Fruma & a human.

 

If they're intentionally shallow to make it easier for a player to put their own ideas on them, why would adding a choice change that? If anything it helps add that player intractability.

 

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Not confirming, as I am not certain on this, but from what I do know it seems like it was originally (and still currently is) the intention of it, but the player's inclination towards violence is likely a product of them being ejected from Fruma, given that the people who are kicked out from Fruma and become soldiers can just be everyday folk (like Tasim, who seems to have had a pretty much entirely normal life up until the events that got him sent to Wynn) who wouldn't really be prepared to, y'know, fight in a war.

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While it's good to give the player autonomy, there are moments where the player has a lack of decision over the character's actions that almost function as a ludonarrative; the player being unable to do anything but kill to progress through a story beat, and the character being someone who's had their life completely changed through brainwashing to be a soldier

 

Yeah, you know I can actually see your point. If that's the story they're trying to tell, it's interesting. I just don't think there's enough evidence of the player character being their own person who's inherently violent to warrant, especially so early on in the story, not giving the player a choice in a quest that, to me, feels particularly flawed in it's conclusion. If this quest ending happened later on in the story, I could understand more the idea that our character has been per-established as a violent person who isn't great at peaceful solutions. But when such a violent conclusion to a misunderstanding happens so early on, instead of feeling like Ludo-narrative, it just feels like poor writing. At worst, it's setting up the idea that we, as a soldier, don't actually help people, but rather just uphold the status quo.

 

" Would you kindly? "

 

This whole argument seems to imply that there is a deliberate reason for the player being an emotionless killer throughout several quests, and while I'm not a developer, it's very obvious that isn't true. If it were, then they wouldn't have started adding player choices for quests (including for early quests), and this has been the case all the way since An Iron Heart Part II was first added. If the intent is to allow the player to insert themselves into their character, then there is literally no better way to do that than to offer choices during quests, which is clearly the exact reason they started doing that in the first place.

Just about everything you have argued here just comes across as you trying to use contradictive headcanon as an excuse to not add a feature that's already been added across much of Wynncraft. If you don't think it should be added, just be honest about it and stop hiding behind an excuse, especially one that directly contradicts the rest of the game. People will understand if you just simply say that there are more important things for the content team to do than re-rework the Maltic Well quest.
With all that being said, I think that if this feature were added, you should have to fight the witch and then be given the choice to kill or let go as mentioned by OP.

 

Good recommendation actually! Not sure how I didnt think of that myself.

 

The player is generally throughout the game characterised as being excessively violent and downright amoral. We're just an agent of chaos with no clear moral alignment.

As a premise, this is interesting, and presents unique story opportunities. However, Wynncraft is not nearly developed enough to justify this. I don't know enough of Bloodborne to understand where the Nightmare of Mensis is, so IDK what that reference means, but I do hope the CT has a lot more planned in regards to the player's actions. Blank main characters are overdone.

If the player is intended to be a blank to project yourself onto, there should be a peaceful option in this quest. If the player is intended to have a personality characterised through the specificity of the choices you're given, then I think Maltic's Well would be a good early source of characterisation - as long as it's followed up later in the game.

 

And I have pointed to the reasoning why the player would jump to violence at times, im pretty confident in the assertion, but I don't say it outright because I'm not completely certain, given I haven't asked the other lore writers for the 100% confirmation on that regard (I'll update you if we confirm/deny it)
You say it's 'very obvious the player isn't an emotionless killer', and yeah, it is quite obvious they aren't! You probably didn't intentionally do it, but you made a strawman of what I've been actually saying

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I think just saying "yeah re-reworking this quest just isn't worth our time" is a lame response to a player putting an idea forward, and I would rather bring up why it potentially might not work with a story element than just say it would never be a high priority.
(Also, it doesn't contradict the rest of the game, unless you're rolling with the idea I'm saying the player is an "emotionless killer")

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This is a good idea. I would like the post, purely for this, as this is a good solution and one I could reasonably see us adding, but the rest of the post is... boowomp. Consider this like a. Half-like.

 

deusphage W (of ambiguous rarity)