"I wish this game let you be messy, the choice with the mayor doesn't even do anything" I don't even know what to tell you to seek because i'm looking into your eyes and squeezing both of your hands so hard and telling you:
So many choices in the DA games - so many of them! - exist only to provide character flavor for your PC.
They literally have no purpose other than for you to play out what kind of person you were. Maybe it's a dialogue choice, maybe it's a war table mission. And all you get in return - if anything - is some minor reward. Influence. Weird loot. The mayor turns into Venatori, or a Grey Warden, or darkspawn.
Regardless, you are choosing in that moment how you feel like dealing with a situation, and playing out the person you headcanon your PC to be. And some of those choices arguably ARE messy (never forget Cullen telling you to Calm The Fuck Down and Not Ask For That Woman's Head On A Pike).
Like, it's kind of a messy bitch character trait for Rook, who is previously exiled because they refused to NOT save lives, to take justice into their own hands and leave a man to the Blight and prey animals (including a blighted dragon!).
I genuinely cannot imagine why any of the player characters in DA should be any messier than they already are, or why you think there should be more consequences. The greater world within the game *does not give a shit* about a lot of these little choices. The story of Veilguard largely doesn't care about the mayor, because he exists as an emotional beat *for you*.
Like?
I truly do not understand what some of you are expecting as far as story and gameplay here. Which has been a recurring theme since the game dropped, tbh, and I should stop trying to figure it out.
