216 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 .

[ianvillan]

The thing to know is that when the DA team copied the ME dialogue wheel, they knew from fan complaints that many fans were not happy with paraphrasing.
But the DA team were determined to use the wheel and had no way of fixing paraphrasing that come with the wheel itself, so they then slapped on the conversation icons to make it look different to Mass Effect including having as sort of paragon, renegade system just like ME.

The point Iam trying to make is as long as you have the wheel you will have paraphrasing and the icons will not make it better and can actually make it worse.

[Firky]

The icons did have merit, though. Like, in The Witcher 2, I picked something like "No thanks" and got an explicit swear one time. (Like, I had no idea I was reacting aggressively. I thought I was saying "no thanks.")

I'm not really fussed by the icons. I found I was always picking the same colour on the first playthrough, but that I felt good about picking contextually in later playthroughs. But, if they removed them, there'd probably have to be some different way of indicating tones? I guess?

[fchopin]

Yep, get rid of the icons, melt them down so they never come back.

I hope i am not boring everyone by repeating myself but repetition is the only way to learn.

[Cultist]

A good example of dialogue importance - The Witcher 2. There you can die because of selecting the wrong dialogue path. Alpha protocol - where your answers, even during tutorial, will influence various aspects during entire game.

[AmstradHero]

As Firky says, the dialogue icons themselves are not inherently bad. Paraphrased lines (or even purely written lines) do not necessarily communicate to the player the kind of tone that the protagonist will deliver them with. In some cases you might think the line is intended to be dry wit but it's sincere. Other times you might think to be delivering a gentle refusal but instead go completely aggressive.

I do agree that the options in DA2 were slightly simplistic (though I loved being able to roleplay a snarky character for once), but the icons themselves are a good idea in that they provide the player with information about the delivery of the line to inform their roleplaying decisions.

[Lord Gremlin]

I don't know. To me the main thing in an RPG is to never be surprised by what your character says (although I like being surprised by reactions). I think generally icons can help with that. Like, if you choose "no thanks" an icon can indicate if you say it politely or angrily.
DA2 was just too dumbed down and simplistic and linear and... Ugh. but generally speaking icons can be helpful.

[Olmerto]

As long as we're going with a voiced protagonist, I support paraphrasing and icons. The icons convey the tone of the response, which gives the player insight into how the statement will be received by the party you're speaking to. For those who profess a strong desire to "know their character's intent" behind every line, I would think the icons are indispensible. And because Bioware assign the icons to the various responses *and* write the reactions of the NPCs to them, you can have some assurance that your character's intent will likely be perceived correctly.

[Korusus]

I loathe the icons. But then again, I loathe the dialogue wheel as well.

[Cultist]

Olmert wrote...

As long as we're going with a voiced protagonist, I support paraphrasing and icons. The icons convey the tone of the response, which gives the player insight into how the statement will be received by the party you're speaking to. For those who profess a strong desire to "know their character's intent" behind every line, I would think the icons are indispensible. And because Bioware assign the icons to the various responses *and* write the reactions of the NPCs to them, you can have some assurance that your character's intent will likely be perceived correctly.

...and Dragon age 2 proved that paraphrases rarely describe what PC is actually saying, and icons are not helping.

[CuriousArtemis]

I actually loved the icons. I liked picking based on icons and color because I wanted to keep Hawke's personality consistent but also enjoyed being surprised (and often as not, having a laugh) over what he said.

To each his/her own

[WotanAnubis]

I don't mind the icons if only because they clarify the tone of the response. It allows the written lines to be, say, lies or sarcastic without a clunky [Lie] in the written line or being forced to make the sarcasm really, really obvious.

That said, the icons had little point in DA2. Really, they were only Diplomatic, Funny, Aggressive with sometimes maybe an Angel Wings (can't remember what that one was supposed to represent), Charming or Judgemental.

There were never any Aggressive/Judgemental choices so the distinction between the two didn't really matter. You didn't get, say, Diplomatic Hawke or Charming Hawke, you got Blue Hawke, Purple Hawke or Red Hawke.

Now, Blue, Purple and Red would (and did) work for 'automatic' dialogue just to make sure things don't get too complicated programming-wise, but it doesn't work so much with the dialogue the player is supposed to take part in.

[AkiKishi]

As long as you have herosexual characters then the icons need to stay.

[Jerrybnsn]

Lord Gremlin wrote...

I don't know. To me the main thing in an RPG is to never be surprised by what your character says .

Once it is decided that the protagonist will have a voice actor with a distinctive voice and be loaded down with cinematic scenes, you have to accept surprises because you're now reduced to just directing the hero of the story instead of playing the hero.

[PaulSX]

I thought icon was a good concept, but this system needs some modifications. for example, "Diplomatic" and "Charming" should not be only associated with your character's tone, and they should also be associated with character's stats, say willpower and cunning. then each time you choose a specific tone, you get a bonus on "Diplomatic" or "Charming" but the twist is when you increase your character's specific attributes, you will get bonus too. DA2's system encourage players choosing same tone everytime. In my opinion this is bad

WotanAnubis wrote...

I don't mind the icons if only because they clarify the tone of the response. It allows the written lines to be, say, lies or sarcastic without a clunky [Lie] in the written line or being forced to make the sarcasm really, really obvious.

there was a "lie" icon in da2

[AppealToReason]

I liked the wheel and the icons. Actually let me know what my guy was saying and how he was saying and thus how someone was likely to react rather than a bunch of text lines with no ability to distinguish sarcasm from being rude

[RinpocheSchnozberry]

Get rid of the text and only have icons.

I'd rather choose Hawke's tone than dialogue. I think that could still make for an interesting story.

[Wulfram]

I'd get rid of the icons and replace it with text, so you can have more variety and thus give more information.

Rather than one icon, you could have, say, [Tease], [Mock] and [Banter], which would be a lot clearer about what your character was going to say.

Modifié par Wulfram, 27 juin 2012 - 04:57 .

[Cultist]

Wulfram wrote...

I'd get rid of the icons and replace it with text, so you can have more variety and thus give more information.

Rather than one icon, you could have, say, [Tease], [Mock] and [Banter], which would be a lot clearer about what your character was going to say.

That'll be also more flexible.

[Nerdage]

I'd want the icons to stay even if the wheel / paraphrases / personality system go. It's useful information to have, and I'd prefer it to prefixing tags onto the written lines if only because it looks nicer; [     ] tags look messy to me.

Modifié par nerdage, 27 juin 2012 - 07:34 .

[Nefla]

As long as I know what I'm going to say I don't care if it's a dialogue wheel where the top is always one tone, the middle is another, and the bottom is a third, a fully written list of choices, or a wheel with tone icons. It's annoying in swtor because the responses are all mixed up and always in a random position on the wheel and I never know what I'm going to say.

[LolaLei]

The thing that really put me off about the icons was that it took away the "trial &error" aspect of the game. In DA:O I liked that it was complete guess work as to what piece of dialogue would have the desired effect and it was always a surprise when said character reacted badly to something that you thought would please them.

Not having icons would also create more reason to replay the game and try out different dialogue options to see what the characters reaction to each will be.

Modifié par LolaLei, 27 juin 2012 - 11:29 .

[Nefla]

LolaLei wrote...

The thing that really put me off about the icons was that it took away the "trial &error" aspect of the game. In DA:O I liked that it was complete guess work as to what piece of dialogue would have the desired effect and it was always a surprise when said character reacted badly to something that you thought would please them.

Not having icons would also create more reason to replay the game and try out different dialogue options to see what the characters reaction to each will be.

Except in DA:O your whole line was written out so you knew what you were going to say, just not how others would react (like real life) the problem with the dialogue wheel is that the summary may be so basic that you can't even begin to guess the tone or what you will actually do or say.

[LolaLei]

Nefla wrote...

LolaLei wrote...

The thing that really put me off about the icons was that it took away the "trial &error" aspect of the game. In DA:O I liked that it was complete guess work as to what piece of dialogue would have the desired effect and it was always a surprise when said character reacted badly to something that you thought would please them.

Not having icons would also create more reason to replay the game and try out different dialogue options to see what the characters reaction to each will be.

Except in DA:O your whole line was written out so you knew what you were going to say, just not how others would react (like real life) the problem with the dialogue wheel is that the summary may be so basic that you can't even begin to guess the tone or what you will actually do or say.

True, but DA:O had a silent protagonist so you never knew the tone in which the dialogue is said. As for DA2, the obscure summary of the dialogue was also a problem, but you always knew if Hawke was gonna say something snarky etc. 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.

[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?