103 réponses à ce sujet

[Meris]

Though DA2 dialogue is unable to present dialogue content (paraphrasing) and, in my opinion, condition the use of imagination for roleplaying (voice acting), I believe that the philosophy behind each line (tone and intent) is unchanged the same. The tone does not define the character, but does characterize it (via the Dominant Tone). You may have the Hawke that is mostly kind and diplomatic, but he doesn't have to be kind and diplomatic all the time; as opposed to having to have either Paragon or Renegade Shepard because Mixed Shepard doesn't give you bonuses and Paragon/Renegade are very unlikely to not be what they are.

The icons do make the whole thing feel a lot more gamey (click the heart to win the war of love! \\o/), but not only was that a problem* but that's an entirely different issue.

*Well, there's a reason why we use emoticons on the internet. Not always do we have the presence of mind of conveying our intent fully, nor are we always able to through words alone. Some players have complained that, at times, the lines of dialogue in Origins - however, I believe the writers at BioWare were smart enough to keep that at a extreme minimum, the rarity at which that sort of thing happened makes this a non-issue, IMO.

[PsychoBlonde]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
As for the schizophrenia, that sounds more like issues with how the voice acting is done.  If the writing had been the same, but the icons removed and the position on the wheel randomized (so it's not predictable), I don't think you'd find the responses any more or less schizophrenic, even though there's no icons at all.

For me, this was 100% a voice acting problem, especially in conversations where you have a list of Tone options followed by a cycle with a bunch of Investigate options.  It wasn't bad when you were doing Diplomatic or Sarcastic Hawke, because the tone was fairly consistent, but if you started out Angry Hawke and then did the investigate options, it sounded something like this:

Hawke: GRRR GRRR!
Respondant:  Eek!
Hawke: So, how about them dolphins?
Respondant: Dolphins are an aquatic mammal.
Hawke:  GRRR!
Respondant:  STOP GRRING AT ME!!!!!

It was, to say the least, kinda . . . weird.

What I'd like would not be to choose motivations AS you're making a selection, but when you have times where people would naturally challenge the PC's decisions or statements, instead of just handing out the points and calling it a day, what I'd like to see is (at least occasionally, especially when a LARGE point gain/loss is involved), giving the PC a chance to explain WHY they decided to do what they did, and possibly steer the NPC's attitude slightly.  Or even just an opportunity to definitely declare "I am concerned about X, here" or "I'm just a bastard, what do you want?!"

It doesn't have to be all the time.  A few (but well-placed) instances would go a long way toward making the characters come to life.

As for the dialog icons--I like them.  I just think you need more of them, and to mix them up a bit more.  For instance, there could be a book icon for letting the PC make an educated comment, that sort of thing.  Maybe have a second set of options that let you choose to be Sheltered or Cosmopolitan or Educated.

I'm also not sure that the TONE icons work as intended.  It's complicated enough that I don't have any particular suggestions along those lines--I'd kind of have to try out multiple ideas in order to see what I liked and what I didn't.  So I think, there, that it's more an issue of how the tone is implemented than the whole tone system per se, and since I've only seen one implementation of this I don't know that I have anything particularly useful to add yet.

[Allan Schumacher]

Korusus wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...
Perhaps I'm unique in that regard, but then what is it that is different about how I play and why do others find themselves susceptible to picking one of "the three Hawkes" or always being Paragon/Renegade, or to be all Lightside/Darkside.

I read your posts both here and on ME3 forums, so I think actually you are a bit of a unique case.  ME rewards you for consistenly picking Renegade or Paragon.  SWTOR rewards you for consistently picking Lightside/Darkside (although they're supposedly adding neutral gear).  And it could be argued that the instances in DA2 where you character says a line based on the tone you most often choose is a good metagaming motivation to consistently pick the same tone throughout.

This is a fair point.  For myself, the story is the reward for how I play, so things like bonuses for being max light/dark don't really appeal to me.  I'm not a fan of explicitly rewarding a type of play, although if we're going to, we need to be as fair as possible (I think that the idea of Rivalry/Friendship is in the right progression.  Alpha Protocol had something similar).

I like that SWTOR lets you start the conversation over because I do find knowing exactly what my character is going to say is important.  It's integral to my roleplay experience.  Otherwise it begins to feel too much like I'm watching a movie /shrug.

We mostly started the "never restart a conversation ever" just as a rule to never restart a conversation simply because one of us didn't like the outcome of one of our comments.

I also never play TOR solo either though.

I'm not really sure what you mean here, but I will disagree.  I think
the icons epitomize metagaming and encourage it.  Especially when
combined with the tone-based autodialogue.  If I'm to make a choice, let
it be because I'm choosing what my character is saying (Origins) and
not just how my character is saying it (DA2, where you never know what
Hawke is going to say, not really...never...not ever.)

I guess the question then becomes "Are people like Allan in the minority enough that such metagaming tools are mostly a benefit to the game?"

I'm actually pretty indifferent to the wheel itself, and not particularly "yay or nay" to the wheel or to full lines of text.  For myself, the biggest advantage of the wheel is that I turn subtitles off and actually listen to what my character says.  There are pros and cons to both systems IMO.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 20 avril 2012 - 03:14 .

[the_one_54321]

In Exile wrote...
I object to your use of the word "play". Not to mention that "if the game is restrctive"

Different people play different ways. Either the game allows me to play my way, or it restricts me.

This is unrelated to the volume of game content.

[Demx]

Bipolar Hawke was simply terrible for me. It got to the point where I didn't even read my responses and just went with what tone I wanted to be; completely ignoring the investigation section. I personally don't like playing RPGs this way, but it's better then seeing Hawke have mood swings.

[Dejajeva]

I don't think conversation icons are metagaming, if I understand metagaming to be when you make specific choices so you get a specific result that you know in advance. Such as, choosing specific dialogue to get the response that you wanted from a NPC or companion. Conversation icons allow me to make informed decisions in a game with a voiced protagonist. In Origins, it was not needed because you never heard the tone of the words your warden was saying because you chose the tone in your head. But with a voiced protag, I find that the icons are helping me make an informed decision on how my Hawke will deliver the lines that I've chosen.

I wouldn't mind having two dialogue options for each tone of delivery, but that's probably too much at this point.

I think metagaming is a moot point, because you're pretty much always metagaming after your first playthrough, especially DA2 because there aren't as many options/epilogues/choices. I don't know a single person who doesn't metagame at least a few times throughout a second or third playthrough.

Then again, if I am not understanding the concept of metagaming correctly, I'd love to be educated on the matter.

[Brockololly]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
I disagree with this.  I don't think it's implicit that the game leads people to to continuously pick one of the three options, since I never found myself doing that.  Perhaps I'm unique in that regard, but then what is it that is different about how I play and why do others find themselves susceptible to picking one of "the three Hawkes" or always being Paragon/Renegade, or to be all Lightside/Darkside.

And I use the KOTOR example to show that this occurs in games with fully laid out lines of dialogue, so I feel it's not a symptom of the dialogue wheel or the icons, but how people respond to other game mechanics.

I think its a combination of things that makes the icons problematic. But at the most basic level, its the fact that the dialogue and icons are simply obfuscating whatever it is your player character is truly going to say or do. I don't get any enjoyment out of being surprised by what my PC says or does. I want to know exactly what he's going to say or do and the enjoyment comes from seeing how other NPCs react to what I'm having my PC say or do.

So that said, the icons are problematic in that they're like the paraphrases in that they are obfuscating to some extent what your PC is going to do. Problem being, its not always clear what the icon actually is supposed to mean, especially when joined with a paraphrase that may or may not be indicative of what the PC actually says or does. Like the heart icon- is it careless flirting or serious romance?

And while I like the idea of having more power over tone, I don't care for the icons as it makes it feel too meta game-y. So if you want to romance somebody you just mindlessly pick the heart. Same with ME's paragon and renegade stuff. Or mindlessly picking sarcastic options so your Hawke's dominant personality is sarcastic.

I think Chris Avellone says it well in a recent interview. Question being RPG mechanics that bother you:

Next – dialogue morality bars tied to your character’s power with no  middle ground that gives you equal empowerment. It removes any interest  or awareness of the conversation beyond trying to hit the button that  says “choose Good side or Bad side.” When that happens, I feel like  you’re in danger of losing the RPG experience because you’re not  reacting like you would naturally based on the context of the situation, you’re “gaming” the system instead of role-playing it.

Modifié par Brockololly, 20 avril 2012 - 04:04 .

[the_one_54321]

The icons are a significant step forward from having paraphrases with no context at all. However, they are still a long ways behind just knowing exactly what the PC was going to say.

This is confusing and frustrating because I always used to know exactly what the PC was going to say in previous games. Changing this was thoroughly unnecessary.

[PsychoBlonde]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

This is a fair point.  For myself, the story is the reward for how I play, so things like bonuses for being max light/dark don't really appeal to me.  I'm not a fan of explicitly rewarding a type of play, although if we're going to, we need to be as fair as possible (I think that the idea of Rivalry/Friendship is in the right progression.  Alpha Protocol had something similar).

Me, I'm out to enjoy being the hero of the story (or at least the Main Character), and I'm not interested in winding up with an incoherent, inconsistent mess of contradictory hero-characterization.  I also want to accomplish certain goals, like having things turn out a certain way.  To an extent, the metagaming aspect of the option labels helps me accomplish this.  Heck, I don't think I really even read the tone paraphrases, because for me they're meaningless.

It doesn't really BOTHER me that they're meaningless, it just means that for me, the tone options basically aren't conversation "options", and I could cheerfully set tone at the start of the game and forget about it.  (Although I would like to have more variety overall, but I think EVERYONE always wants this.)  What concerns me are the *choice* options, and, to a lesser extent, the investigate options, which sometimes lead off to choice paths.

I will say that the choice paraphrases are usually pretty good, even if the tone ones may be radically off-base.

[Vaeliorin]

Korusus wrote...
SWTOR: Voiced protagonist, no tonal icons.  The difference being that most of the paraphrasing in SWTOR is logical and works, whereas the paraphrasing in DA2 was lazy, misleading, and depended entirely on the tonal icon for context.

It works unless you're playing against type.  My light-side Sith Sorcerer was constantly forced to say things that were completely inappropriate for her, because the dialog options were often pretty much all varying degrees of sociopath.  It would be nice if they'd at least included one option in each dialogue for a nice character who was just with the Empire because of circumstances (though it would have been even better were they to allow you to switch sides...or at least have the various Sith notice that you weren't very Sith-y.  The end of that story line makes almost no sense for a primarily light side character.)

Anyway, as to the icon question...I often found them quite frustrating, not only because they weren't well-defined enough, but also because some of them showed up so rarely I wasn't entirely certain what they were supposed to mean. 

There's also the problem of having the paraphrase that seems most appropriate to your character matched with a tone that's incogruous with what you want to say.  I recall a couple instances when my pro-Chantry/Templar warrior was talking to Bethany that the pro-Chantry/Templar dialogue option was also the aggressive option, and given that said character loved her sister, I was stuck with a choice between choosing an appropriate tone and choosing an appropriate paraphrase. 

My favorite example of this, however, when was my female Hawke was forced to choose a romance option with Aveline in order to tell her how important she was to my Hawke (Hawke considered Aveline family at that point, a combination of big sis and replacement mother, and the idea of romancing Aveline would have never even entered into the realm of possibilities for her.)  Fortunately, it didn't amount to anything, but I sat there for a couple of minutes looking at the options wondering what unfortunate ramifications might result from my character "flirting" with Aveline. 

That's not to imply that I'm opposed to having ramifications to what my character says, but I am opposed to being forced to choose an option that has an explicitly out of character motivation (I wouldn't have hesitated a second in picking the option if it hadn't had the heart icon) in order to get my character to express how she feels.

I guess what that all boils down to is that I want to be able to mix and match tone, motivation and actual line choice as I see fit to create the character that I envision, instead of being stuck picking pre-set tones/motivations that restrict me to playing a much narrower range of characters.  So...I guess I either want technology from a couple decades in the future (human sounding synthesized voices that can be generated on the fly for any combination of tone/motive/line) or to go back to a silent protagonist.  

[AngryFrozenWater]

The idea described in the original post is great, but I rather see the game finally have consequences to your choices first. The why you made a decision should be evident from the situation in which it is made. The how the dialogue is delivered is also connected to that. Both have to naturally flow from the story direction.

The problem I see with how dialogue lines are delivered now are connected to the above. Instead of giving real choices, the lines delivered appear nothing more than cosmetic. In DA2 the story is set in stone and all the choices made result in being rationalizations to keep the story on the same track.

To make what the OP proposes believable the game needs to commit to branching story lines. In DA2's Legacy there are two paths at some point, but they fold back to fighting the same end boss in no time. That is certainly not the way do it. What actually happens is that DA2's map is a collection of points of interests, puzzles, boss fights, and so on, and the dialogue is merely a tool to weave the path to all those points together. To do that in the most economical way all points are visited. DA2's "decisions" result in an attempt to create the illusion of choice where the how and why become nonsensical rationalizations, rather than real choices. I think that also causes bad story telling. A good story is made from believable events and not from rationalizations.

Common ingredients we see are minor dialogue line changes, cameos and mails to give the illusion that your choices mattered. That's fine as a gimmick for one or two runs of the game, but it becomes a background noise when you want to replay the game more often, because there are a lot of those. It often works like: "Oh, that elf is not at this spot so I must have killed them in DAO." or most likely "Did I miss something and what was it?" The problem is of course that how BW should reflect that decision in-game in a way that matters. Instead of making it a simple cameo it could have impact when Merrill's DA2 story line was connected to the elf-decision in DAO. She may not appear at all in DA2 when you sided with the werewolves. It would also impact Flemeth's storyline. After all, Merrill is connected to that one.

In ME2 and ME3 we see bad solutions for those. For an example: If you kill the rachni queen in ME1 then she has been replaced by another queen created by the reapers and thus the story just plays out the same. All the speculation that made the ME1 decision food for thought and countless threads was flushed down the toilet. Killing the ME1 queen had no impact, except for maybe a couple of war asset points in ME3 (which you can win back by doing some MP stuff).

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 20 avril 2012 - 06:54 .

[FedericoV]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I guess my question is:

What specifically is wrong with them? With a follow up: Are there any alternatives that you could suggest the provide greater context so that the player doesn't end up doing anything that is grossly unexpected (like suddenly romancing a character or other aspects like that)?

I see the icons as being an abstraction of the [Attack] type side notes that would exist along the text lines of CRPGs a decade ago.

Use different fonts and colours for the paraphrase text like Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines.

It's a lot more elegant, subtle, and less intrusive.

The icons are out of context: they seem a "social" feature from facebook or a dating sim.

Most importantly, they give a general sense of dumbness to the dialogues: something like... "oh, you are too stupid to understand so we give you icon instead of text". I know it's not the intention of the feature but I could not stop to think about that anytime a dialogue start and many other people take it that way.

Finally, it's another point where you remove illusion of choice and player agency by making manifest and explicit the intention/purposes of the authorial narrative through dialogues.

When you choose an heart icon to start a romance, the romance start to feel gamey and abstract. Not a natural continuation of an organic storyline that resulted from my choices. Mixing paraphrase, icons, voiced dialogue and cinematic, the player feel like "audience" during dialogues.

Modifié par FedericoV, 20 avril 2012 - 09:14 .

[paul165]

As we are referencing ToR I like the dialogue well but sometimes the randomised positions for dialogue can result in 'huh what' moment. For instance there was a dialogue option that was 'call security' or something very similiar and I read it as alert security to raise the base alert while I deal with it and the character went 'not my problem'

Yes I can see where the answer comes from but this to me demonstrates why icons are a good idea so we can tell roughly what the paraphrase is giving us.

[fchopin]

I want to know what my character will say.

[yusuf060297]

Personally, i dont like the tone icons at all, imo it is making the game to easy and it also takes away the feeling of making a choice, in dao there were those times where you could read all the lines and you would actually think which line too choose but in da2, there werent anymore of those moments, it became all to easy i didnt even bothered to read those lines anymore and looked at the tone icons instead. Get rid of them, and take some notes from deus ex and the witcher 2, or go simply back to dao with voice. it would be far better without the icons telling you what the lines mean, its not like 8 years old children are playing the game, people get what the lines mean when they are written good.

Modifié par yusuf060297, 20 avril 2012 - 01:21 .

[Zexiv]

yusuf060297 wrote...

Personally, i dont like the tone icons at all, imo it is making the game to easy and it also takes away the feeling of making a choice, in dao there were those times where you could read all the lines and you would actually think which line too choose but in da2, there werent anymore of those moments, it became all to easy i didnt even bothered to read those lines anymore and looked at the tone icons instead. Get rid of them, and take some notes from deus ex and the witcher 2, or go simply back to dao with voice. it would be far better without the icons telling you what the lines mean, its not like 8 years old children are playing the game, people get what the lines mean when they are written good.

The icons actually took away from the game experience to some degree having to think about the choices and which would be most diplomatic or convey what you wanted and went best what previous choices in the dialog path was enjoyable.  After awhile all I cared about was the icons and not the vioce or written text since I knew that the words present weren't going to be what was going to be vioced and I already knew that the intent was delivered via the icon so I didn't need to listen.  

Having what was going to be said present would be nice and possibly even better would be if there was an option to turn icons on and off so the player could then choose dialog paths without the hint from the icon.

Take it easy

Modifié par Zexiv, 20 avril 2012 - 02:56 .

[Dakota Strider]

Zexiv wrote...

yusuf060297 wrote...

Personally, i dont like the tone icons at all, imo it is making the game too easy and it also takes away the feeling of making a choice, in dao there were those times where you could read all the lines and you would actually think which line too choose but in da2, there werent anymore of those moments, it became all too easy i didnt even bothered to read those lines anymore and looked at the tone icons instead. Get rid of them, and take some notes from deus ex and the witcher 2, or go simply back to dao with voice. it would be far better without the icons telling you what the lines mean, its not like 8 years old children are playing the game, people get what the lines mean when they are written good.

The icons actually took away from the game experience to some degree having to think about the choices and which would be most diplomatic or convey what you wanted and went best what previous choices in the dialog path was enjoyable.  After awhile all I cared about was the icons and not the vioce or written text since I knew that the words present weren't going to be what was going to be vioced and I already knew that the intent was delivered via the icon so I didn't need to listen.  

Having what was going to be said present would be nice even and possibly even better if there was option to turn icons on and off so the player could then choose with out the hint from the icon.

Take it easy

Both very good responses.

There used to be a time, when it was just assumed that RPG players wanted to think, and be challenged.  Now Bioware is trying to make hybrid RPG's that incorporate the aspects of shooters and hack n' slash arcade style elements.  These aspects rely more on the fast-twitch reflexes, than strategy.  It seems that the game devs feel the need to dumb down conversation in an attempt to attract this new style of gamer.  To be honest, I think that is insulting to your game audience, even the ones that like the faster style of gaming.  Unless it is true, that this hybrid game lover prefers to avoid all conversation and roleplay, and just get results....that way they can just quick click through the icons.

Zexiv suggested a great compromise.  Fully type out the text of player choices, as in the past.  Then you can icon/color code them, but make that feature a choice to be turned on or off in the Game Options.

Modifié par Dakota Strider, 20 avril 2012 - 02:31 .

[Uccio]

Oh dialogue wheel, how I hate thee.

How many times I cried out, "No! thats not what I meant!".

[In Exile]

Meris wrote...
So BioWare is wise enough to understand both the role of Imagination with the silent protagonist, as well as their more practical advantage of being capable of branching more than BioWare currently (or ever) has.

The "advantage", per your quote, is basically that people like imagining things. But giving me lots of branches that end with "imagine your own content" isn't giving me more options to enjoy the game - it's giving me a worse game.

I'm aware that you like making up your own content. I don't. I'm not judging you for liking to imagine content (other than if you want to somehow act superior - like that other poster in VO thread - for liking to imagine in-game content) but appreciate that this is a matter of taste that we're not going to agree on.

They have simply made a option, confident that cinematics and cutscenes are more engaging (and certainly more marketable, wink wink nodge nodge), and Mr. Gaider hopes that one day they'll be able to do Voice without sacrificing content and choice/consequence.

Hold-up. Now we have a fundamental disagreement. See, I don't think you get "options" when you cut out things like player VO and add things like "make-it up in your head". I just see a loss of content.

If the Warden never express a personal opinion in game, I don't get a "rich character" with "lots of options" because I can write fan-fiction about how my Cousland deals with his family being brutally murdered and apparently no one in the possee carring. I just get to have a game that doesn't deal with the personal trauma of my PC.

To which I add: While I believe there's a limit between writting fan-fiction and interpreting a story at your leisure, I believe you're wrong. Imagination doesn't need to be unrestrained to be effective.

I was being facetious in my previous post in the VO thread.

The poster I was responding to wanted to claim some kind of intellectual superiority for making things up in his or her head instead of seeing it on-screen. Well, after years of hearing the same insult, over and over, I thought a parallel was in order. So I illustrated the flip-side of the coin from now in in a hope of having everyone realize how ridiculous this discussion about imagination being connected to anything other than preference.

It, according to BioWare and decades old tradition in CRPG roleplaying
(and me o/, whoever I am), has its role whenever the story is presented
with ambiguity.

Look - just because it was the way things were always done (if that's the case) doesn't mean it's a good way of doing things. Playing the RPG veteran card is not the way go about this.

Modifié par In Exile, 20 avril 2012 - 09:01 .

[In Exile]

Zexiv wrote...
The icons actually took away from the game experience to some degree having to think about the choices and which would be most diplomatic or convey what you wanted and went best what previous choices in the dialog path was enjoyable.  After awhile all I cared about was the icons and not the vioce or written text since I knew that the words present weren't going to be what was going to be vioced and I already knew that the intent was delivered via the icon so I didn't need to listen.

Thinking about which choices are diplomatic is great fun, but I can't say there's ever been a Bioware game where the diplomatic option isn't almost painfully obvious. The dialogue is basically:

We all should be friends!
I am a neutral statement that moves the coversation forward.
Grr, PC smash with angry words and threats!

With the Silent PC Bioware reworded some lines, but their conversation branches were always the same. Just save/load a DA:O conversation, and you can see how most of your options are pure flavour that lead to indentical NPC reactions, just like in DA2.

[Nighteye2]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I guess my question is:

What specifically is wrong with them? With a follow up: Are there any alternatives that you could suggest the provide greater context so that the player doesn't end up doing anything that is grossly unexpected (like suddenly romancing a character or other aspects like that)?

I see the icons as being an abstraction of the [Attack] type side notes that would exist along the text lines of CRPGs a decade ago.

Someone has to say it: that alternative is full-text. If you can read the complete line of text, you can get much more information from how the line is worded than any icon can ever give you. Especially if you add a tone indicator to the full-text line. :innocent:

That combination worked very well in Vampire: The Masquarade...

[PsychoBlonde]

In Exile wrote...

With the Silent PC Bioware reworded some lines, but their conversation branches were always the same. Just save/load a DA:O conversation, and you can see how most of your options are pure flavour that lead to indentical NPC reactions, just like in DA2.

In Mass Effect even the PC would sometimes say the same line for both of the options.  At least in DA2 your PC ALWAYS says something different with the different tone options.

[byzantine horse]

With the risk of being the ugly duck in the pond, I don't want to know the consequences of what my character says. I want to know what he/she says in the first round of talk, but if there is some automated dialogue afterwards (which I don't mind, in Origins the substitute of that is that some companion does the talking instead - same thing different voice) everything after what I was saying (or trying to, maybe I get cut off?) should be in the dark for me.

I shouldn't be able to know how a person reacts to my words, I should try to gauge it and be able to pick the best words to convince the person I'm talking to that my way is the right way and that you don't really have to fight me. Or not, maybe I want to fight them, but I think that leaving it to the player to try to figure out how a character reacts in a dialogue to what you say is important, that leaves surprise in the dialogue game which usually is missing imo, even if my male Hawke once undressed Anders with his gaze once while I was watching in horror at the screen.

Which way would be the best way to display that? Intent-icons rather than tone-icons. I think that it is much better to have a certain tone depending on your intent than the other way around, for example in a fictional dialogue wheel not too far away:

Tone:
Says angrily: Cross me and I'll chop you to bits!
Says diplomatically: We don't have to be enemies, we have some common ground.
Says sarcastically: What is that you are holding, a stick?

Intent:
Threaten, said angrily.
Try to parley, said diplomatically.
Ridicule, said sarcastically.

In the above examples you have what DA2 has in "Tone" and what I would rather want in "Intent". It is much easier to foresee your character's tone depending on what he says rather than foresee what he will say depending on the tone, and that is imo the main problem with DA2 dialogue. Afterall, there's no way to say "Cross me and I'll chop you to bits!" diplomatically, but such leeway can be given if you go by tone rather than intent (obviously exaggerated, that hasn't happened yet, but I hope someone gets what I'm trying to say).

Deus Ex: Human Revolution did that well, in that Jensen would say something with the appropriate tone while you picked the intent of the words that followed.

Modifié par byzantine horse, 20 avril 2012 - 11:04 .

[Zexiv]

In Exile wrote...

Zexiv wrote...
The icons actually took away from the game experience to some degree having to think about the choices and which would be most diplomatic or convey what you wanted and went best what previous choices in the dialog path was enjoyable.  After awhile all I cared about was the icons and not the vioce or written text since I knew that the words present weren't going to be what was going to be vioced and I already knew that the intent was delivered via the icon so I didn't need to listen.

Thinking about which choices are diplomatic is great fun, but I can't say there's ever been a Bioware game where the diplomatic option isn't almost painfully obvious. The dialogue is basically:

We all should be friends!
I am a neutral statement that moves the coversation forward.
Grr, PC smash with angry words and threats!

With the Silent PC Bioware reworded some lines, but their conversation branches were always the same. Just save/load a DA:O conversation, and you can see how most of your options are pure flavour that lead to indentical NPC reactions, just like in DA2.

I was thinking of DAO options when talking with companions in camp when I wrote that there were dialog choices there were some what ambigous yet could lead to different reactions.  Or times the more nice dialog options could lead to a negative re-actions or a romance etc.  While navigating those dialogs I don't nessarily want to see icons  I'd rather read the options see which I liked the most and then think about the companions responce and decide if that's the path I want to go down conversation wise. During DA2 it felt like choose heart for romance choose broken heart to end romance choose crossed swords to lower companion score.

Take it easy

Modifié par Zexiv, 20 avril 2012 - 11:46 .

[Direwolf0294]

@ Allan



Been reading your responses to this thread and I have serveral things to say.



1: I liked the icons in DA2 and playing through SW:TOR I actually missed
them and made a suggestion on the forums they be added. However, since
leveling a second character on TOR I've gotten
used to how the dialogue wheel works and what sort of things my
character is going to say when I pick a certain response and I think
the paraphrasing of the dialogue choices is a lot better in TOR than
DA2, though there are still moments when my character will come out and
say something completely different then what I intended (which is why
it's good you can exist a convo) , 

2: I often do feel like you have to stick to one personality type when playing BioWare games. It's not because of any sort of reward that's offered by going full lightside/paragon/darkside/renegade etc or that little icons pop up letting me know how many points I've gained, it's because of the sort of character I want to play. If I want to play a good character I have to go all paragon/lightside/diplomatic, if I want to play an evil character I have to go all renegade/darkside/aggresive. Mixing up your responses with the dialogue wheel doesn't really work because, as others have said, you start to sound schizophrenic because your characters emotions and personality jumps all over the place. Also the way NPCs react to you becomes rather weird. The only BioWare game you don't really get this in is TOR because your character almost always has a neutral tone no matter what they say and your choices don't really effect the game at all.

There's also another reason you have to make all choices from one option, because otherwise you miss out on dialogue choices. Unless you go all paragon in ME2 for example there are quite a few dialogue choices you'll miss out on and you won't be able to talk characters out of doing things etc. In DA2 it's sort of the same because, as you said, unless you have an aggresive Hawke you can't intimidate someone or if you don't have a diplomatic Hawke you can't talk someone down. I guess these extra dialogue abilities you can get from going fully down one path is a reward, but not a reward in the context you seem to be using the term as you seem to consider rewards to be something physical, like an item for your character or something.

3: I have a suggestion for how conversations should be structured in DA3. I actually came up with this in response to a problem I thought Mass Effect 3 had so I'm going to be using Mass Effect 3 as an example for what the problem is and how I think it can be fixed. So warning everyone, ME3 spoilers ahead.

-------------Mass Effect 3 Spoilers---------------

One of the big problems with ME3 was renegade Shepard. To put it simply, they made no sense. Renegade Shepard has always been a rather odd character, flitting between being a hardened soldier, a jerk and a cold blooded killer, but the intended personality of the character, or at least what a lot of people think the intended personality was supposed to be, is of the hardened soldier. Someone who does what needs to be done even if it steps on peoples toes. Someone who's not trying to be friends with everyone.

Now in ME3 renegade Shepard abandoned the hardened soldier personality and just started being evil for the sake of being evil, even if it hurt the war effort and the fight against the Reapers. A good example of this is renegade Shepards decision to not cure the genophage.

The problem with the genophage is that both paragon and renegade Shepard would want to cure it. Paragon Shepard because they think it's the right thing to do, renegade Shepard because even if they disagree with it they know it's going to be a great help in the fight against the Reapers. Now obviously BioWare had to give players the ability not to cure the genophage because otherwise heaps of people would have complained. Instead of just setting it up as paragon curing the genophage and renegade destroying the cure they should have had a renegade option to destroy the genophage cure, a renegade option to use the cure, a paragon option to destroy the genophage cure and a pragon option to use the cure. They should have had that for all the choices in ME3. Renegade option to unite the Geth and Quarians, renegade option to destroy one side etc. The motivations for Shepard in the case of the genophage could have played out like this:

Paragon cure: same reason as currently in the game, that Shepard's just a good person who thinks it's a good idea.
Paragon destroy: Shepard doesn't feel they have the right to make a decision this big and instead thinks the galatic community and the council should discuss and vote on it.
Renegade cure: The reason I put earlier, Shepard thinks it will help in the fight against the Reapers.
Renegade destroy: The same reason that's currently in the game, that Shepard's a jerk.

Maybe you could do something similar with DA3? Maybe not multiple diplomatic/sarcastic/aggresive responses for every conversation but for the ones where major decisions are made there could be multiple diplomatic and aggressive paths you can go down with multiple motivations and tones of voice for you character.

---------Mass Effect 3 Spoilers End-------------

So yeah, that's all I had to say. There was something else I was going to mention but I forgot what (don't you hate it when the happens?). I will add, in response to what some other people in this thread have talked about, that I've never been as unsure of myself or had a more indepth and fun conversation in a game then when I was playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Trying to talk a man out of suicide was particularly memorable.