12 réponses à ce sujet

[Cultist]

Along with abominable dialogue wheel and dumbed down dialogue trees we got various conversation icons to indicate out tone, like Diplomatic, agressive, sarcastic etc. The problem with them is that they act like background laughter in TV sitcom, telling us "that was a joke".
To clarify that "I will kill you and all your family" is agressive and "Let's talk this out" is diplomatic.
Conversations are dumbed down to the point where you may not even read the paraphrases, just go by colour as 90% of all dialogues never go beyond "Yes", "No" and "Investigate".
Remove the icons, at least make people read the lines. They are not mentally challenged imbeciles, who can't understant or figure the meaning of the phrase. make them analyze the dialogue they are in, even the primitive ones we got iin DA2.
As Devs said that dialogue wheel is here to stay, but can be transformed into something less harmful, take inspiration from Deus EX: HR. they still got tones but you must choose from different options of one tone and each option resulted in different outcomes.

Modifié par Cultist, 26 juin 2012 - 10:51 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I think my biggest problem was the "flirt" icon, if they're gonna get rid of any of them then it should be that one lol.

I've been curious about this because many use it as an example of the "dumbing down" of the wheel.

Would it be less "dumbing down" if we had more instances such as Avelline, whom the player could flirt with but wouldn't respond to?

[Allan Schumacher]

Well, the idea is more that "the heart option means that the player is attempting to flirt for romantic reasons." Whether or not the NPC reciprocates is up to the NPC (and the writers...)

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't feel that it's dumbing anything down, I just like trying to guess what dialogue option will have the best effect on each individual companion in general, specifically the flirt options lol.

I guess what I was more saying is: "What if the heart icon was literally just an attempt to flirt?" Or is there a part of you that enjoys guessing which line is the actual flirt line?

[Allan Schumacher]

There's a bigger problem here. Almost eveyone took heart icon as a romance initiator. And in any further dialogue with heart icon it was a no-brainer what option to choose. Aveline was the only instance where heart icon would not lead to romance, and Zevran maybe. So players would not think or read the lines\\paraphrases - they already knew that choosing heart icon is the only right ontion as it will progress romance one step further

Hmmm. I guess it might depend on the person whether or not it's actually a problem though, wouldn't it?

Viconia would not be one of the most interesting and captivating love interests in RPGs if along her long romance there would be indicators to hint players - "that anwser will progress romance". And let me remind you that her romance lasted for two games and each dialogue has 5-7 options on each step. And each time you should think what should you answer to another strange line of hers, born out of alien drow mind.

Maybe we should restrict the hearts to overt flirts, and not preclude romances from continuing simply because we didn't pick the heart option?

[Allan Schumacher]

If you are using icons, then yes. I would still like something like DE:HR where intent lines are used though.

What exactly are the "intent lines" again? I am remembering the few word response coupled with the "tooltip" that would display more of the text. Is it one of those?

It may work, but still it's a big spoiler. In Dagon Age 2 - no flirt\\heart option resulted in negative reaction. No companion reacted badly or was annoyed when PC acted pushy and straightforward. Should such behaviour be present in DA3 - game may rid itself from, as WotanAnubis stated, START ROMANCE NOW problem.

Yeah I think this sounds as reasonable as any type of feedback. I do think that the icons work best if they denote the intent of the player.

So I'm fine with showing the crossed swords if it means my player intends to attack. I don't think we should show the crossed swords if the player is trying to continue the conversation and the opponent decides enough is enough.

I guess I feel: Icons for intent, not for consequences.

[Allan Schumacher]

Ah yeah okay, you were referring to the words, combined with the full text.  I think I relied mostly on just the intent words myself because I prefer to not read the spoken line prior to hearing it.

But Yeah I typically have no issue with those and both those games you reference have interesting conversations.

Though IIRC the DEHR only happen for the "conversation battles" (which I still maintain are really well done).

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 28 juin 2012 - 07:17 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Meh. DEHR's 'Conversation Battles' didn't do much for me. Either you won them or you lost them and that's that. The conversations themselves might have been interesting, but the concept was flawed.

That's fair. The idea of a conversation battle where you read your character is likely what I found interesting about it. Doesn't mean it can't be iterated on and improved either!

Alpha Protocol's conversations were way better. You always got *something* out of them. It may not have been something you wanted, but at least you couldn't 'lose' (except for that one conversation with Marburg in Rome - you know the one). There was no 'right' way to do a conversation, and that's great.

As stated, the conversation system in that game blows me away. Even with the timer (which I know many did not care for).

[Allan Schumacher]

I did see that. I never did play the World of Ultima games

[Allan Schumacher]

I personally loved the switch to the mouse based system in Ultima VII from Ultima VI.

I found the guesswork to be as equally frustrating as it was entertaining. To be right about something was cool, but it typically resulted me trying that word with EVERYONE. And then having to type out that big word that I couldn't quite remember the spelling for? ARGH!

[Allan Schumacher]

For me, the timer actually helps make the system. It forces the player to make tough, instant decisions and simultaneously keeps the conversation flowing like a normal conversation. The absence of long drawn out pauses where the player is allowed to contemplate their decision forever lacks the impact of that split second decision. The timer forced roleplaying upon the player rather than allowing players to meta-game their way to what they thought would be the "best" decision.

Preaching to the choir hahaha.

[Allan Schumacher]

Baldur's Gate 2 got up to 15-20. Planescape got 24 as far as I remember. Better a lot of text and good game, than 3 lines and Dragon Age 2. Also, if they managed to create RPG with a lot of text back then, why can't they do so now?

The only one I can think of for PST is the answer to what can change the nature of man. It was atypical (though it did tend to have a large amount of dialogue choices).

Which instances of BG2 had 15-20? It certainly wasn't the norm.

[Allan Schumacher]

Yes, on average, BG2 for example, got 4-8 options for common conversations but the most important ones got very complex trees. I may be mistaken, but as far as i remember, the longest dialogue with 20 or so options was in Spellhold and second was a peaceful solution with Firecrag where you made a deal to get him Writ and kill the hostage girl.
That would be cumbersome to have 10 or so options in EVERY dialogue but most important key moments of the story certainly require a lot and, most important, complex dialogues.

Is there any chance you were playing a mod? I don't recall this at all....