60 réponses à ce sujet

[zyntifox]

I really tried to approach this game as a role-playing game. But after about a 100 times being forced to reload saves because i was tricked by the paraphrasing; i gave up and started playing the game as i play Mass effect. That meaning i stopped trying to role-play and just picked the choice at the top right corner.

I don't mind going that route in Mass effect however; because i have never played it as a role-playing game but rather a interactive action/adventure game. This is however not how i want to play any Dragon age game because this was not the way i played the first game. I can't role-play a character i am constantly being surprised by when i am "choosing" what my character should say.

P.S. Sorry for the poor grammar. Who knew whiskey could affect ones ability to construct sentences?

[zyntifox]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Rurik948 wrote...

Strongly oppose to the changes described in the first post as I consider them nothing more than another reduction of dialog system and further alienation of the PC.

Intend and Tone are already perfectly implemented in DA2 icons. And it has nothing to do with the wheel clarity problems, the users have complained of. Pure tone which indicates the direction of auto-dialogs in fact will move a protagonist even further away from a player. At least paraphrasing gives you an idea of what your fellow creation is going to say.  

It seems to me the person who started the thread dislikes paraphrasing only because it breaks cinematic experience. BUT THIS IS A GAME, NOT A MOVIE. It can use some cinematic and quite succesfully , but only when it is not interfere with the player immersion and interactivity. Otherwise the basics of this genre are ruined.

I am sure If Bioware wants to remain a big developer and doesn't want to change an audience with every setting update, it needs to create a system much more flexible than the one described in the first post.

The way Bioware does paraphrasing doesn't give as much of an idea of what the PC is going to say because they intentionally don't include the phrasing of the line in the paraphrase (i.e. the paraphrase uses different words from the spoken line).  Often this isn't a problem but it certainly is enough of the time to bother me.

I found the second line I put in bold amusingly ironic.  I strongly dislike Bioware's obsession with making CRPGs into "cinematic experiences" and would much rather they focused their efforts on making them as much like PnP RPGs as possible.  I think there are a lot of things they could to to give more choice to the player, make gameplay more interesting, and make the NPCs more real but these all get a lot harder to do when you are focusing on cinematic presentation.  I'd be a lot happier with seeing the full text of my replies, getting rid of the dialogue wheel and going back to a non-voiced PC, but none of these things are going to happen.

David Gaider has been pretty clear that Bioware is interested in the cinematic side of the game, and making conversations more cinematic and flowing.  As I said in my OP I don't think their current paraphrasing system works well for that and I also prefer intent and tone to paraphrases for the other reasons I originally stated.

This is something i do not get. I get and respect wanting to make a game emphesizing cinematic presentation, heck Mass effect is one of my favourite franschises ever. What i do not get is wanting to turn a game franschise to this at the cost of what they seemingly prioritized in the first game. Or do they believe that they can keep the same roleplaying experience at the same time as making it more cinematic? Which i would argue is not the case in DA2.

[Get Magna Carter]

Wulfram wrote...
...
There were IIRC only one or two occasions when I totally misunderstood or really hated the paraphrase - the one I remember is that talking to Merrill's clan after spoily event, I understood "I'll take responsibility" as "it was my fault". ....

that one confused me too
Also disappointed by missing options..like ttelling the father of an elf-killer what I'd do if he got free and killed again...

I think that in Mass Effect 2 (and maybe ME3 and DA2) part of the problem is that Bioware are used to creating games with player-defined lead characters and they want to change that to a company-defined character (so you would get something like in The Witcher [ but without a licensed character]) however they are still presenting the character as player defined confusing and disappointing the player by forcing the character into saying/doing things other than what the player wishes

[Nomen Mendax]

Cstaf wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...

...

David Gaider has been pretty clear that Bioware is interested in the cinematic side of the game, and making conversations more cinematic and flowing.  As I said in my OP I don't think their current paraphrasing system works well for that and I also prefer intent and tone to paraphrases for the other reasons I originally stated.

This is something i do not get. I get and respect wanting to make a game emphesizing cinematic presentation, heck Mass effect is one of my favourite franschises ever. What i do not get is wanting to turn a game franschise to this at the cost of what they seemingly prioritized in the first game. Or do they believe that they can keep the same roleplaying experience at the same time as making it more cinematic? Which i would argue is not the case in DA2.

I don't get it either, nor do I think it is possible to make the game more cinematic and keep the same roleplaying experience as DAO -- at least not without a lot more effort and expense.

[zyntifox]

Well the thing with cinematic in RPGs is that you lose control of your character. And if that character does something in the cinematic, e.g. talks or kills someone, there is a high possibility of lessening some peoples roleplaying experience. The thing is; they had cinematics in DA:O ,which were very well done if may add, but the damage wasn't especially excessive so it didn't bother me.

One cinematic which could have been devastating in DA:O, if the warden was voiced, was the rallying of the troops before Denerim. Now, cleverly they got around that by using Alistair or Anora depending on who becomes the regent. Now i have read before on this forum that people wanted their warden to give that speech but to me it makes sense that the leader of the country to give that speech anyhow.

[Cultist]

Rurik948 wrote...
Intend and Tone are already perfectly implemented in DA2 icons.

Ah, yes, the icons.

Rurik948 wrote..
At least paraphrasing gives you an idea of what your fellow creation is going to say.

Paraphrasing perfectly did the opposite -  Removed any idea what protagonist is going to say and replaced it with  "WTF is s\\he saying!?!".

Rurik948 wrote..
It seems to me the person who started the thread dislikes paraphrasing only because it breaks cinematic experience.

But paraphrasing is craated to support cinematic gameplay and replace complex conversations

[Ghidorah14]

"YOU BETTER STOP ATTACKING THE BONE PIT'S CARAVANS. UNDERSTAND?"

Yeah, because that is TOTALLY what I would want to say to some coterie scumbag who just called me a "lice-covered refugee."

And yeah I know you can choose the other option and be all "im such a badass" but having two options and one of them sucks kinda defeats the purpose of having options.

[Sir JK]

A problem I anticipate with the intent dialogue choices is that they're difficult to retain. The dominant personality system in place has it flaws, but it allows the benefit that we do not have to choose tone every single dialogue junction. Which is to say that, in theory, it allows separate choies for reflection (tone choices) and course of action. I can choose one of the offered tones and then retain that one as I choose my course of action, without the system being forced to allow the action choice to be offered in all three tones (which is to say a minimum of 6 options, not counting investigation... which is way more than even origins provided... and that's just a plain yes or no).

We wouldn't be looking at branching dialogue trees anymore, we'd be looking at dividing dialogue fractals. And while I am sure this sound like nothing but great to some, I am quite certain most of us would prefer a wealth of dialogues over a handful of very expansive ones.

So while I understand the desire of Intent, rather than tone, intent is a very specific choice. While it's easy to apply to one exchange, it's difficult to retain that one for two. Not keeping the tone and having all course of action choices be neutral defeats the purpose of having tone and voice in the first place (unless you specifically choose that one of course). And having tonal/intent choices in every junction is at best impractical and at worst will limit the amount of choices we'd get in total (which I believe what many of us found to be one of the problems with DA2's approach; too few differing options).

So while the information provided to the player needs a lot of improvement when it comes to both paraphrase and tone, I do think that tone will on a design level accomodate for a greater variatey (whether that is pulled off or not is another matter) than intent would. A tool that can be applied to a greater range of options. An aggressive tone can fit a multitude of intents and motivations, but an intent can only fit one.

Besides, would it really be any less frustrating to realise that the desired intent is not provided in this junction than what the PC said didn't meet you expectations? Both provide equal obstacles to roleplaying your character.

That's why I believe focus is better served making the dialogue wheel more informative, the paraphrases more accurate and providing for more courses of action, rather than exchanging tone for intent.

[jillabender]

Sir JK wrote…

The dominant personality system in place has it flaws, but it allows the benefit that we do not have to choose tone every single dialogue junction. Which is to say that, in theory, it allows separate choices for reflection (tone choices) and course of action. I can choose one of the offered tones and then retain that one as I choose my course of action, without the system being forced to allow the action choice to be offered in all three tones (which is to say a minimum of 6 options, not counting investigation... which is way more than even origins provided... and that's just a plain yes or no).

In theory, I could see the tone system allowing separate choices for tone and action, but in practice, I don't think that DA2 did that enough of the time.

Now that I think of it, perhaps it would have been better if DA2 had let us choose our character's demeanour at the beginning of the game, and let that choice influence the character's tone in all interactions, leaving us free to choose what point we would like the character to make, instead of having to worry that choosing a certain option would lead to jarring inconsistencies in tone.

Another option that I like even more is one that Fortlowe suggested in another thread. The example he gave was that the player could be able to choose, say, a "gracious" icon, and then choose either a "compassionate" or "sarcastic" tone to select whether the PC will be gracious and polite, or gracious in a teasing way.

Sir JK wrote…

So while the information provided to the player needs a lot of improvement when it comes to both paraphrase and tone, I do think that tone will on a design level accomodate for a greater variatey (whether that is pulled off or not is another matter) than intent would. A tool that can be applied to a greater range of options. An aggressive tone can fit a multitude of intents and motivations, but an intent can only fit one.

That's a good point – relying completely on intent rather than tone in a Dragon Age game might put too many restrictions on the responses the writers can provide for the PC. But I don't see a problem with including intent as a descriptor in some paraphrases, to give additional information about how the PC will act.

Modifié par jillabender, 05 août 2012 - 06:26 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Olmert wrote...

I am really incredulous at how many people here have trouble with DA2's dialog. I have completed two playthroughs, once as a humorous/diplomatic male warrior, and once as an aggressive female mage, and I had ZERO issues with my character saying something that was at odds with the response I selected. ZERO. I am a long-time RPG player and I thought all the dialog was fine.

I had no idea whether the option I was selecting was going to produce a result with which I was happy.  If I chose to save a werewolf from elves, Hawke would claim he was acting selflessly, when in fact he was trying to acquire a powerful ally.  When I chose to let a slaver go, Hawke seethed "Get out of my sight!", when my Hawke bore the slavers no ill will at all.  When Hawke chose not to kill a murderer, he said it was because he believed no man was beyond redemption, when in truth he didn't care about the man's welfare at all, but was simply keeping his end of a bargain.

I can only conclude that many are being hypercritical of game dialog for reasons I can well imagine, but I won't speculate. It's not going to be as "precise" as the player being given full text with a silent protagonist, where your imagination supplies the tone. But that, again, is part and parcel of a voiced protagonist, which is here to stay.

Bioware can always seek to refine their system, but in large part I would suggest that we should begin to adjust our expectations to the new reality and limitations of voiced characters and the honest efforts of Bioware to provide the best dialog experience they can for the medium. And as they always note, they can't hope to please everyone who finds their solutions unacceptable.

I will accept no degredation in player control.  The player needs to know what the PC will say, and hw it will be said, before selecting the option.

I demand certainty.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Olmert wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

I see in your tag you own Mass Effect 2. If you have a save near it, have the Horizon conversation with the Virmire Survivor; only this time, assume your Shepard wants to hide his involvement with Cerberus for whatever reason. With that in mind (Shepard must refrain from speaking about Cerberus), try to navigate the dialogue, then count the times you had to reload because the paraphrase was completely silent in that regard either way.
Then you'll understand the issues with paraphrases.

Yeah, that seems like a problem to me.  I don't remember the issue from my playthrough, admittedly, but I'll grant you that that instance would create an issue.  But I'd say that was an error in execution, not in principle.

Xewaka's example is a terrific illustration of the problem the paraphrases create when the player's choice is driven not by his understanding of what the line will say, but by his understanding of what the line will not say.

If you are trying to avoid saying something, you need exhaustive knowledge of the content of the line in order to know what isn't said.  I don't see how paraphrases can offer that.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 05 août 2012 - 06:49 .