1502 réponses à ce sujet

[Wulfram]

ipgd wrote...

I'd rather just have better paraphrases than some sort of toggle, really.

Since I doubt that Bioware set out to write obtuse paraphrases, that's not really something we can expect.  There'll always be some paraphrases which won't translate right to some people.

[AloraKast]

I've got a suggestion.

Since we managed to open the lines of dialogue between the community and the game makers, would it be possible to keep an open mind and work on keeping those lines of communications open and the constructive, intellectual dialogue flowing?

Talking in circles isn't productive and stubbornly digging our heels in isn't going to get us anywhere (well, aside from shutting those lines of communication down again).

I direct you to my post earlier in the thread, which may have gotten lost a bit (yes, I know, shameless plug :innocent:):

http://social.biowar...2640/23#8047050

Would I prefer to have the ability to talk to my companions anywhere, anytime, about anything and everything? Heck YES! But we've already been told that, due to various reasons, that just isn't feasable. BUT the team IS looking at ways of giving us the ability of talking to our companions more freely, perhaps being able to initiate the dialogue and dictate the pace of that dialogue, and in doing so we'll be able to form more natural and stronger bonds with our companions. And as much as I would prefer to have everything I want realized... well, let's be realistic just a bit, eh?

The point I'm trying to make is this:

Let's try to compromise. The devs are clearly attempting to reach out to us, are listening to what we have to say and are looking to see IF and HOW they could give us SOME of the things we all feel passionate about, while working within the boundaries defined by technology, budget and time, all the while trying to make a great game. Can we at least meet them half-way please?

This isn't some fanboy rant for if you've been around these forums, you will know that I was most certainly not satisfied with the changes DA2 brought and I've voiced my disappointment (at times, rather passionately). But let's try and keep an open mind and insert a little bit of rationality here. We won't get EVERYTHING that we want. But what we can do is work with the team and each other on improving the next product and perhaps getting at least some of what we want.

Thank you! <3

PS. Mike, just what the heck are you still doing here, eh? It's the weekend, go and relax, put your feet up, clean your room, whatever... the weekend is here to be enjoyed, so unwind away. SHOO!

[Ianamus]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

You could click the investigate to open up 5 additional choices to ask Isabela about her relationship with Hayder, or you could choose to help her or not, and enjoy one of 3 possible responses, colored by the dominant tone you had chosen throughout the course of the game, creating a consistency of character. So that's...let's see....11 possible things you could say there, some of which were determined by how you had played the game up to that point.

Not too shabby, if you ask me.

I think that this highlights the inconsistency with dialogue options in DA2, which was one of my biggest concerns. Yes, there are many dialogue options when questioning Isabela about Hayder, but how many dialogue options were there asking Merrill about her past, or asking Aveline about her life with Wesley? None at all. We are only able to talk about things when they're plot relevant. 

We learnt a lot about companions through banter, but banter should not be the sole source of information about characters. I should not have to rely on Bethany asking Aveline why she never had children, or Anders asking Merrill how she learnt blood magic. I should be able to ask those questions myself. 

[ipgd]

rak72 wrote...

I don't see the word "Everyone" in my post.  If you like the cinematics, start a thread about it.  Everyone ... excuse me, as many people as possable, should give their opinions, no matter what they are, so the deveopers can get a sense of what the community would like to see.

You were implying that because of your own anecdotally observed perceived imbalances in the volume of complaint threads vs. praise threads generated on the forums that you have some sort of insight into the apparent majority opinion.

When, no, that's not really representative of anything other than people like complaining more than they do saying nice things.

[tmp7704]

ademska wrote...

or, since a talking-head cutscene that consists solely of, "Sorry, maybe later," is completely useless and not particularly immersive, we can just not do that.

Which is why i suggested for such responses to be "barks" i.e. the system used to deliver the companion banter and the responses you already get from them when you click on them in DA2/Awakening. And opening the stage-based conversation only in situations where there is some actual dialogue that you can have with the companion.

[phaonica]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

And to be clear, nothing Dave or I have said rules out things like the Awakening dialogs out in the world. Those are totally possible.

In the interest in giving feedback on out in the world Awakening dialog, the only trouble I had with it is that there seemed like there was a lot of companion character building that I missed because I didn't take them on a particular mission with me. If I didn't take a character with me, I might miss a conversation that gave them more depth, and then the cycle of me not taking them along and never knowing them just continued. If there is going to be location-specific cinematic conversations in the world, could there please be some kind of in game hint that you might want to take the correct character along on the mission with you?

[ipgd]

Wulfram wrote...

Since I doubt that Bioware set out to write obtuse paraphrases, that's not really something we can expect.  There'll always be some paraphrases which won't translate right to some people.

Just because they didn't set out to do so doesn't mean they can't refine their methodology. Player VA in general is a relatively new thing for Bioware's games, and something they can conceivably improve. There's a difference between a concept that is completely unworkable on a fundamental level and one that is just not executed as well as it could be, and I am of the opinion that paraphrases fall in the latter category. Now excuse me while Wakka disembowels me.

[ademska]

EJ107 wrote...

I think that this highlights the inconsistency with dialogue options in DA2, which was one of my biggest concerns. Yes, there are many dialogue options when questioning Isabela about Hayder, but how many dialogue options were there asking Merrill about her past, or asking Aveline about her life with Wesley? None at all. We are only able to talk about things when they're plot relevant. 

We learnt a lot about companions through banter, but banter should not be the sole source of information about characters. I should not have to rely on Bethany asking Aveline why she never had children, or Anders asking Merrill how she learnt blood magic. I should be able to ask those questions myself.

how is this any different from the system in Origins? you're still relying on a finite script in both cases - the only difference between DAO and DA2 is that DA2's inter-party conversations were improved to give the team a more cohesive, interacting feel.

these are videogames, not tabletop games, and your options are always going to be limited.

[Stelaris]

I normally just observe the forum however this thread has been an interesting development that I wanted to jump on! First though, I'd like to thank the devs for responding here, I always enjoy reading the posts you guys make, even if I may disagree sometimes.

All that said, I personally feel that going back to the DA:O style dialogue is a mistake. The cinematic style dialogue made talking to the companions a lot more interesting and memorable for me. Same with DA:O as well. The old god baby scene and others like it were the scenes I remembered.

To me, all the "talking heads" scenes did was provide characterization for various characters, and I think that could be achieved in a better way, such as Awakening style dialogue + more party banter. And if the player could have some role in how the banter plays out, that's ideal.

I do feel that an increased presence of player agency is needed but I think that is going to be achieved through the player activating dialogue at camp and other methods. Most of the unimportant dialogue in Origins (like Leliana talking about shoes) could have been achieved using a better method than just standing there and talking.

Modifié par Stelaris, 06 août 2011 - 07:05 .

[rak72]

ipgd wrote...

rak72 wrote...

I don't see the word "Everyone" in my post.  If you like the cinematics, start a thread about it.  Everyone ... excuse me, as many people as possable, should give their opinions, no matter what they are, so the deveopers can get a sense of what the community would like to see.

You were implying that because of your own anecdotally observed perceived imbalances in the volume of complaint threads vs. praise threads generated on the forums that you have some sort of insight into the apparent majority opinion.

When, no, that's not really representative of anything other than people like complaining more than they do saying nice things.

EVERYONE here is intelligent enough to know that no one speaks for EVERYONE, I do not need to explicitly state that I do not speak for everyone.  Like I said, if you like the cinematics, thats wonderful.  Make you voice heard, start theads, extoll it's virtues wherever you can.  For me, I prefer deeper interactions over fancey camara angles, so I will make MY voice heard about that.  The developers can then make up their own mind about what people want.

[axl99]

Would it be possible to have scripted events where a follower actually asks to talk to you? A bit KOTOR-ish but you get the idea.

Modifié par axl99, 06 août 2011 - 07:03 .

[phaonica]

EJ107 wrote...

I think that this highlights the inconsistency with dialogue options in DA2, which was one of my biggest concerns. Yes, there are many dialogue options when questioning Isabela about Hayder, but how many dialogue options were there asking Merrill about her past, or asking Aveline about her life with Wesley? None at all. We are only able to talk about things when they're plot relevant. 

We learnt a lot about companions through banter, but banter should not be the sole source of information about characters. I should not have to rely on Bethany asking Aveline why she never had children, or Anders asking Merrill how she learnt blood magic. I should be able to ask those questions myself.

I almost think that if a lot of the "investigate" options in companion conversations could be accessed as separate player-initiated conversations, it might work better. Then it'd be more like small talk and less like quest-dictated info-dump.

I know I didn't explain that well, let me try again:

Right now, say in DA2 you have a quest in your journal that Hawke thinks s/he should visit Isabella. So you go to the Hanged Man and have a single cinematic conversation with Isabella that includes several "investigate" question options, such as asking about her ship or Hayder or whatever. Once you leave this conversation, you can no longer ask her any of those questions. You have to ask them all at once in this one conversation.

What if, instead, the investigate questions (and associated cinematic conversations) were still available whenever you clicked on Isabella (until you actually asked them, of course)? It's exactly the same amount of information, except now instead of getting it all at once, you can ask these questions whenever you want (just not wherever, which ultimately, I'm okay with).

Modifié par phaonica, 06 août 2011 - 07:06 .

[rak72]

phaonica wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

And to be clear, nothing Dave or I have said rules out things like the Awakening dialogs out in the world. Those are totally possible.

In the interest in giving feedback on out in the world Awakening dialog, the only trouble I had with it is that there seemed like there was a lot of companion character building that I missed because I didn't take them on a particular mission with me. If I didn't take a character with me, I might miss a conversation that gave them more depth, and then the cycle of me not taking them along and never knowing them just continued. If there is going to be location-specific cinematic conversations in the world, could there please be some kind of in game hint that you might want to take the correct character along on the mission with you?

That was a big problem I had with it too.   I thought the Awakening system was aweful.

[Brockololly]

Andaril78 wrote...

Hi. Saw that you were talking about companion banter. Howewer...There's many deaf and hearing impaired gamers out there. And we have big problems with your banter system. Why? Because the PC is almost 100% of the time in the front BUT the party banter is behind you. The subtitled banter I mean. And you've cutted out the dialog log who was popular in DAO so we misses much of the banter.
Thanks.

Thats a big one but just another thing absent in DA2 for no apparent reason. I'd love to have the dialogue log back and maybe even add a combat log.

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
Remember,
that is what's being asked for: complete freedom to talk to my
followers whenever and wherever I want. I am saying no to that. What you
have just proposed also says no to that.

But Origins more or less allowed freedom to talk wherever and I think people are curious as to what the rationale on the developer's side was why that system wasn't either tweaked and built on to fix the problems in it, instead of more or less ditching it completely and perceiving that enabling of player agency through dialogue at the expense of cinematics as something to be avoided in the future?

Thats my confusion with a great many of DA2's changes: Origins established that it was possible to have certain features or do certain things and come DA2, many of those features or systems were not tweaked or built on, but ditched for something completely different.


So as a developer, what do you think is the advantage of DA2 style cinematics over the freedom of a DAO-like system for the player? What prompted such a fundamental shift and why do you think it works better than DAO's system for the end user experience?

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
And that's fine, but there are times
when I or a dev might come in to say "We're going to do X, and we
appreciate the feedback, but the decision is made." The goal, of course,
is to inform you guys where we're headed, not to be big ogres who make
arbitrary decisions.

Thats fine and much appreciated really. I just think people would like to know the thinking behind why a developer makes choice X and how the developer thinks that will make for a better end user experience as opposed to say, choice Y, which might be what the previous game did.

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
Some people react very negatively to that kind of response, but what I have overwhelmingly
heard in this thread is that people want clear, concise communication.

Sure, but I think in addition to clarity, people like knowing the why behind certain decisions. Especially when previous systems or things weren't necessarily widely hated or despised but largely viewed as in need of some iteration or tweaking, not wholesale changes.

[b1322]

rak72 wrote...

phaonica wrote...

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

And to be clear, nothing Dave or I have said rules out things like the Awakening dialogs out in the world. Those are totally possible.

In the interest in giving feedback on out in the world Awakening dialog, the only trouble I had with it is that there seemed like there was a lot of companion character building that I missed because I didn't take them on a particular mission with me. If I didn't take a character with me, I might miss a conversation that gave them more depth, and then the cycle of me not taking them along and never knowing them just continued. If there is going to be location-specific cinematic conversations in the world, could there please be some kind of in game hint that you might want to take the correct character along on the mission with you?

That was a big problem I had with it too.   I thought the Awakening system was aweful.

Yes me too.

[alex90c]

phaonica wrote...

EJ107 wrote...

I think that this highlights the inconsistency with dialogue options in DA2, which was one of my biggest concerns. Yes, there are many dialogue options when questioning Isabela about Hayder, but how many dialogue options were there asking Merrill about her past, or asking Aveline about her life with Wesley? None at all. We are only able to talk about things when they're plot relevant. 

We learnt a lot about companions through banter, but banter should not be the sole source of information about characters. I should not have to rely on Bethany asking Aveline why she never had children, or Anders asking Merrill how she learnt blood magic. I should be able to ask those questions myself.

I almost think that if a lot of the "investigate" options in companion conversations could be accessed as separate player-initiated conversations, it might work better. Then it'd be more like small talk and less like quest-dictated info-dump.

I know I didn't explain that well, let me try again:

Right now, say in DA2 you have a quest in your journal that Hawke thinks s/he should visit Isabella. So you go to the Hanged Man and have a single cinematic conversation with Isabella that includes several "investigate" question options, such as asking about her ship or Hayder or whatever. Once you leave this conversation, you can no longer ask her any of those questions. You have to ask them all at once in this one conversation.

What if, instead, the investigate questions (and associated cinematic conversations) were still available whenever you clicked on Isabella (until you actually asked them, of course)? It's exactly the same amount of information, except now instead of getting it all at once, you can ask these questions whenever you want (just not wherever, which ultimately, I'm okay with).

What we need is the Mass Effect 1 system. Can talk to party members whenever you want (via investigate), can just chat to them a bit. Major plot point. Can chat more. Next major plot point. Can chat more. Repeat.

Same happened in ME2 as well (mostly with LIs though, not pursuing romance kinda borked things). I mean just imagine it:

Completed Merrill's recruitment mission. sup Aveline. sup Hawke. Just wanted to chat. Actually Hawke i've been wanting to discuss something with you ... are you sure taking Merrill along is a good idea ...etc. etc.

I'd happily have less squad mates if it meant we could get dialogue at each major plot point.

[phaonica]

b1322 wrote...

rak72 wrote...

That was a big problem I had with it too.   I thought the Awakening system was aweful.

Yes me too.

I mean, I think the "out in the world" conversations could work. I just think they can be easy to miss, which is a shame. Maybe if our main character found something and said "(Companion) might be interested in seeing this." Or before a quest starts, have a companion say "I'd be interested in tagging along, if you don't mind." Then the player would be less likely to miss these events. Either way you might run into the issue of "In every playthrough I always *have* to bring (Companion) with me on this mission or I miss this conversation", which kind of sucks, but at least if there is an in game hint to foreshadow the event, it feels less metagamey.

[b1322]

I have said it before and I will say it again Bioware, PLEASE dont make the elves in da3 with skinny legs like you did with Fenris, he had such a sweet face but the skinny legs kinda ruined his looks.

[ipgd]

rak72 wrote...

EVERYONE here is intelligent enough to know that no one speaks for EVERYONE, I do not need to explicitly state that I do not speak for everyone.  Like I said, if you like the cinematics, thats wonderful.  Make you voice heard, start theads, extoll it's virtues wherever you can.  For me, I prefer deeper interactions over fancey camara angles, so I will make MY voice heard about that.  The developers can then make up their own mind about what people want.

You seem to think the cinematics are more important to the players than just being able to have decent interactions, but I don't see any threads about the wonderful cinematics, I see the threads about feeling lonely & leftout of your traveling party.

This implies that because you see more threads complaining about not being able to talk to companions on the road than you do threads praising the cinematics, that a majority of players would rather be able to talk to companions on the road than have dialogue written cinematically. I am saying that no, thanks to human nature, that's not true, and that's not an argument that has any persuasive substance. I am also saying that speaking beyond a personal, individual level is pointless, inaccurate and does not make your argument any more persuasive. If you don't intend to speak for other people or make statements about the prevalence of opinions in a group, don't speak for other people or make statements about the prevalence of opinions in a group.

Modifié par ipgd, 06 août 2011 - 07:22 .

[erynnar]

Brockololly wrote...

Andaril78 wrote...

Hi. Saw that you were talking about companion banter. Howewer...There's many deaf and hearing impaired gamers out there. And we have big problems with your banter system. Why? Because the PC is almost 100% of the time in the front BUT the party banter is behind you. The subtitled banter I mean. And you've cutted out the dialog log who was popular in DAO so we misses much of the banter.
Thanks.

Thats a big one but just another thing absent in DA2 for no apparent reason. I'd love to have the dialogue log back and maybe even add a combat log.

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
Remember,
that is what's being asked for: complete freedom to talk to my
followers whenever and wherever I want. I am saying no to that. What you
have just proposed also says no to that.

But Origins more or less allowed freedom to talk wherever and I think people are curious as to what the rationale on the developer's side was why that system wasn't either tweaked and built on to fix the problems in it, instead of more or less ditching it completely and perceiving that enabling of player agency through dialogue at the expense of cinematics as something to be avoided in the future?

Thats my confusion with a great many of DA2's changes: Origins established that it was possible to have certain features or do certain things and come DA2, many of those features or systems were not tweaked or built on, but ditched for something completely different.


So as a developer, what do you think is the advantage of DA2 style cinematics over the freedom of a DAO-like system for the player? What prompted such a fundamental shift and why do you think it works better than DAO's system for the end user experience?

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
And that's fine, but there are times
when I or a dev might come in to say "We're going to do X, and we
appreciate the feedback, but the decision is made." The goal, of course,
is to inform you guys where we're headed, not to be big ogres who make
arbitrary decisions.

Thats fine and much appreciated really. I just think people would like to know the thinking behind why a developer makes choice X and how the developer thinks that will make for a better end user experience as opposed to say, choice Y, which might be what the previous game did.

Mike Laidlaw wrote...
Some people react very negatively to that kind of response, but what I have overwhelmingly
heard in this thread is that people want clear, concise communication.

Sure, but I think in addition to clarity, people like knowing the why behind certain decisions. Especially when previous systems or things weren't necessarily widely hated or despised but largely viewed as in need of some iteration or tweaking, not wholesale changes.

This ^ Mr. Laidlaw. So many things were shown to us as possible in DAO then ditched. Why?  I love that you take the time to talk to us. I love honest clear communication. I also would love to know why.

[Sanguinerin]

Admittedly, I skimmed through this thread (it's quite a lot to read), so perhaps it's been suggested before. First, I want to thank the developers for the three pages of developer responses. I tried to at least read mostly all of them before commenting, with sprinklings of the rest of the responses.

I wasn't the biggest fan of DAII, but all of the positive reactions to Legacy have given me a more optimistic outlook. I think that I will eventually get it, although I still have some reservations.

Anyway, to my point: it's about the dialogue. I'll agree that Alistair handing my female Warden a rose in the middle of the Deep Roads while covered in the blood of our enemies wasn't the most romantic presentation. So in that regard, I definitely see the arguement against initiating dialogue anywhere.

However, let's say there was a dungeon at comparable length to the Deep Roads in Origins. Would it be possible to have a planned camp experience in the middle of the dungeon?

"We've travelled far tonight, let's make camp..."

You could converse with those followers with you at the time. It's almost like the Awakening-style points spread across the map, although I didn't particularly like those as much. I felt like I was chasing down points to get the dialogue instead of having a natural camp/home-base experience or the freedom of talking whenever. It kind of fell in-between both in an awkward place.

But that could be a neat idea--granted--only if you have long enough dungeons I suppose. It would break up something as lengthy as the Deep Roads with some personal time, and it could give a stationary "base" for the sake of cinematics/cut-scenes.

It would provide some sense of replayability, as you might only have those companions at this particular base that you brought with you. In encourages bonding with the people you brought with you rather than those you never see, which is something I remember David Gaider wrote about back in Awakening. (The idea that, why would you get to know someone you never used or travelled with, and part of his--I don't want to say distaste, but something along those lines--for companion camp dialogue in Origins.)

I hope that I made that clear enough to understand.

[seraphymon]

ipgd wrote...

rak72 wrote...

EVERYONE here is intelligent enough to know that no one speaks for EVERYONE, I do not need to explicitly state that I do not speak for everyone.  Like I said, if you like the cinematics, thats wonderful.  Make you voice heard, start theads, extoll it's virtues wherever you can.  For me, I prefer deeper interactions over fancey camara angles, so I will make MY voice heard about that.  The developers can then make up their own mind about what people want.

You seem to think the cinematics are more important to the players than just being able to have decent interactions, but I don't see any threads about the wonderful cinematics, I see the threads about feeling lonely & leftout of your traveling party.

This implies that because you see more threads complaining about not being able to talk to companions on the road than you do threads praising the cinematics, that a majority of players would rather be able to talk to companions on the road than have dialogue written cinematically. I am saying that no, thanks to human nature, that's not true, and that's not an argument that has any persuasive substance. I am also saying that speaking beyond a personal, individual level is pointless, inaccurate and does not make your argument any more persuasive. If you don't intend to speak for other people or make statements about the prevalence of opinions in a group, don't speak for other people or make statements about the prevalence of opinions in a group.

No offense, but i dont think the person was implying anything. Your assuming he did, but its all how you take what the person says. To me he is merly stating certain facts or observations. If people love something they would still mention it somewhere. Maybe not to the extent of a full blown thread, but in certain topics or reviews. There is no doubt there are people that love it. To me his argument is sound without speaking for everyone, and to me  doesnt come off as such.

[Zjarcal]

MerinTB wrote...

The simplest, strongest example I have of this in DA2... and Isabela.  No matter how much of a dick I was to her Hawke always treated her as a friend in journals, in the things he'd say when you met her or about things she left in his manor.  It was tear-my-hair-out frustrating for me.  I was NOT being nice to her, but the game defaulted to being uber-friendly.
      

I don't know what you're talking about. My latest run of DA2 I was going for full rivalry with her and I got the chance to be rude with her plenty of times, even in the final convo where she's mostly expressing a desire to change, I still had the chance to be rude.

Regarding the character saying and doing stuff your character wouldn't do, that is true for ALL Bioware games. In DAO I was forced to save Eamon even if I didn't want to, rescue Anora no matter what, become a warden even if I didn't want to, etc. Simply having one moment like that is enough for me to realize that I will never have full control over decisions and actions, so no BW game has really given me the feeling that I was in complete control. And truth to be told, that has never stopped me from feeling my characters are MY characters, because they most certainly are.

Perhaps the main issue for some people, is that moments like those were more frequent in DA2 (which is certianly true), so the illusion of being in control was violated too frequently for their liking. It didn't bother me but I guess it's understandable that it bothered others too much (to the point of them claiming the character isn't theirs).