390 réponses à ce sujet

[Massakkolia]

David Gaider wrote...

We intend to be less paranoid, however, about repeating information between the paraphrase and the actual line. So that makes the lines a bit easier to paraphrase. And, yes, I agree that more iteration of the paraphrases is necessary to lower the percentage of misinterpretations (which is low, but could stand to be lower).

Being less paranoid is good news. I always thought it was a strange claim that reading the actual line before it's spoken would somehow "ruin the surprise". The protagonist is my character and she shouldn't surprise me. The NPC I'm speaking with is the one who should handle the whole surprise part.

A question though. I'm interested in knowing how you measure the amount of misinterpretations caused by some ill-worded paraphrase. You claim the percentage is low but how can you know that? Do you measure the times people reload their game or consult the testers?

My personal experience,which probably does not represent the majority, is that the only way to avoid uncharacteristic lines in DA2 is to stick with one personality type (diplomatic, sarcastic, blunt). I didn't want to do that and I had to reload probably around 50 times on my first playthrough to keep my Hawke's lines in character (much easier on replays because I know my way around the game). I'd imagine many people just sigh and move on without bothering to reload, though.

Cryptic paraphrasing was the biggest culprit but the schizophrenic voice acting was also a problem. Sometimes Hawke's voice within the same conversation sounded like it came from a different person if I changed the tone midway. So it wasn't always the contents of the line but also how it was acted. This is a problem that comes with having a voiced protagonist. I understand you're going to stick with that but please try to maintain the flow of the conversation when recording voices. 

Edit: Oh the topic, yes. I really don't care whether the form is a list or a wheel or a möbius strip as long as the intent is crystal clear.

Modifié par Ria, 02 octobre 2012 - 09:55 .

[Nomen Mendax]

Ria wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

We intend to be less paranoid, however, about repeating information between the paraphrase and the actual line. So that makes the lines a bit easier to paraphrase. And, yes, I agree that more iteration of the paraphrases is necessary to lower the percentage of misinterpretations (which is low, but could stand to be lower).

Being less paranoid is good news. I always thought it was a strange claim that reading the actual line before it's spoken would somehow "ruin the surprise". The protagonist is my character and she shouldn't surprise me. The NPC I'm speaking with is the one who should handle the whole surprise part.

A question though. I'm interested in knowing how you measure the amount of misinterpretations caused by some ill-worded paraphrase. You claim the percentage is low but how can you know that? Do you measure the times people reload their game or consult the testers?

...

Edit: Oh the topic, yes. I really don't care whether the form is a list or a wheel or a möbius strip as long as the intent is crystal clear.

Completely agree with the bit I bolded.

As far as misinterpretations go I was frequently* (and usually unpleasantly) surprised by what Hawke said.  This was sometimes because the paraphrase gave reasonable information about one clause in Hawke's dialogue but no information about a second clause.

I rarely reloaded to choose different dialogue because it was just too much trouble.  The paraphrases exarcebated this because I didn't know what I was going to get with a different choice.  

Mary made a very relevant post about the number of choices.  Given a limited number of choices there are obviously going to be times when none of them are exactly what you want the PC to say.  One thing that full dialogue does very well and the paraphrases do very poorly is give you enough information to choose between a number of imperfect options.  If the new system could give us enough information to do this it would a big improvement.

I'm very happy that you are going to be less doctrinaire about the paraphrases not using the same words as the actual dialogue.

*I would expect there to be a relatively small number of misinterpretations relative to the total number of dialogue choices because there were many straightforward choices on the lines of yes, no, I'll do it later and so on. But if you only consider the conversations where Hawke's responses were complex then I felt that the paraphrases were just not giving me enough information.

Modifié par Nomen Mendax, 02 octobre 2012 - 10:18 .

[Dragoonlordz]

Put it this way.

I have a preference for lists instead of wheel both in visual sense, full explanation and does not cause the 'investigate' issue meaning it worked how I like it in the DAO system vs DA2 regarding investigation dialogue.

I have a preference for silent instead of voiced which is first person vs third person roleplaying (not to be confused with camera PoV which is not the same thing).

I have a preference for investigation not being just being limited to elucidation/exposition but also having potential impact and actual outcome so would not devalue it in comparrison to the choice side of the wheel.

But I have a problem with paraphrasing causing the character to say things that was never expected and a desire to see the tone system improved so things said come out the way you expected them too and differentiate between how you treat the people you know and have history with and people you do not which have no preconception about.

Modifié par Dragoonlordz, 02 octobre 2012 - 10:32 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

One thing that full dialogue does very well and the paraphrases do very poorly is give you enough information to choose between a number of imperfect options.  If the new system could give us enough information to do this it would a big improvement.

This is absolutely true.  Being able to tell what the line is going to be would be a massive step forward.

Though, being able to disable the voice can often turn those imperfect options into perfect options.

[tmp7704]

David Gaider wrote...

Not quite true. We can list the full line, though it ends up looking quite messy on the interface. We can even truncate the displayed line and display the full line on-hover. We won't do that, however, as a stylistic choice.

At a risk of getting a kitten punted through the glass at the mention of a toggle... is the stubborn sticking to a stylistic choice worth more (especially to the player) than being able to play the game in a way more compatible with the player's individual tastes?

I mean, it's not like the game doesn't offer come amount of UI customization in other areas. So to selectively deny it in this aspect "as a stylistic choice"... i don't know, it feels a bit as if it's emotions driving the decision, over the reason.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I suspect there's more to it than a stylistic choice, but they don't appear willing to tell us what that is.

Unless forcing the player to play the game a certain way counts as a stylistic choice.

[inko1nsiderate]

David Gaider wrote...

Cstaf wrote...
I agree that the wheel does not take away the number of choices. It does however force, the way bioware seems to want to do it, the usage of shorter paraphrase due to the limitation of space

Not quite true. We can list the full line, though it ends up looking quite messy on the interface. We can even truncate the displayed line and display the full line on-hover. We won't do that, however, as a stylistic choice.

We intend to be less paranoid, however, about repeating information between the paraphrase and the actual line. So that makes the lines a bit easier to paraphrase. And, yes, I agree that more iteration of the paraphrases is necessary to lower the percentage of misinterpretations (which is low, but could stand to be lower).

I know that some people just don't like the perceived "mechanical" nature of the interface, or the use of the icons to make the intended tone more explicit (tones which were always present, even in DAO, as that's the way we wrote them). Abandoning the entire style to deliberately go back to a more obscure interface, however, isn't something we're going to entertain... and I personally believe wouldn't actually do what some people seem to believe it would. I do hear the criticism, but don't agree with the diagnosis. In the end, however, I'd rather show what we're doing than discuss it in this manner, so I'll hold off going into detail.

Really, it wouldn't be a problem if you could quick load to a save right before the conversation in the middle of the current conversation.  If I choose a dialogue option and feel the paraphrasing was bad, or not what I wanted to do, I really hate going through a 5 minute unskippable set of dialogue/cutscene to reload to a point before the conversation and try again.

This is a very small quibble as it only comes up a few times in any given Bioware game, but when it does come up it gets me frustrated.  DA:O is way better at this because you seem to be able to hardskip most things, ME3 is probably the worst at this.

Modifié par inko1nsiderate, 02 octobre 2012 - 10:49 .

[Korusus]

inko1nsiderate wrote...

David Gaider wrote...

Cstaf wrote...
I agree that the wheel does not take away the number of choices. It does however force, the way bioware seems to want to do it, the usage of shorter paraphrase due to the limitation of space

Not quite true. We can list the full line, though it ends up looking quite messy on the interface. We can even truncate the displayed line and display the full line on-hover. We won't do that, however, as a stylistic choice.

We intend to be less paranoid, however, about repeating information between the paraphrase and the actual line. So that makes the lines a bit easier to paraphrase. And, yes, I agree that more iteration of the paraphrases is necessary to lower the percentage of misinterpretations (which is low, but could stand to be lower).

I know that some people just don't like the perceived "mechanical" nature of the interface, or the use of the icons to make the intended tone more explicit (tones which were always present, even in DAO, as that's the way we wrote them). Abandoning the entire style to deliberately go back to a more obscure interface, however, isn't something we're going to entertain... and I personally believe wouldn't actually do what some people seem to believe it would. I do hear the criticism, but don't agree with the diagnosis. In the end, however, I'd rather show what we're doing than discuss it in this manner, so I'll hold off going into detail.

Really, it wouldn't be a problem if you could quick load to a save in the middle of a conversation.  If I choose a dialogue option and feel the paraphrasing was bad, or not what I wanted to do, I really hate going through a 5 minute unskippable set of dialogue/cutscene to reload to a point before the conversation and try again.

This is a very small quibble as it only comes up a few times in any given Bioware game, but when it does come up it gets me frustrated.

This is why if they insist on retaining the wheel and the paraphrasing (which it appears at this point that Dragon Effect is here to stay) then I fully support doing it SWTOR style, let you back out and restart a conversation.  That's the only way the paraphrase system works for me.  That's the only way to maintain any sense of retaining identity over the character...otherwise it's always going to be a toss of the dice.

[Xewaka]

David Gaider wrote...
Not quite true. We can list the full line, though it ends up looking quite messy on the interface. We can even truncate the displayed line and display the full line on-hover. We won't do that, however, as a stylistic choice.

So you intend to drastically reduce the information available to the player decision making process because it's not stylish?

David Gaider wrote...
We intend to be less paranoid, however, about repeating information between the paraphrase and the actual line. So that makes the lines a bit easier to paraphrase. And, yes, I agree that more iteration of the paraphrases is necessary to lower the percentage of misinterpretations (which is low, but could stand to be lower).

Will I be able to know what will my character say and what will he/she refrain from saying with the paraphases alone? Because otherwise, paraphrases fail as a dialogue UI.

David Gaider wrote...
I know that some people just don't like the perceived "mechanical" nature of the interface, or the use of the icons to make the intended tone more explicit (tones which were always present, even in DAO, as that's the way we wrote them). Abandoning the entire style to deliberately go back to a more obscure interface, however, isn't something we're going to entertain... and I personally believe wouldn't actually do what some people seem to believe it would. I do hear the criticism, but don't agree with the diagnosis. In the end, however, I'd rather show what we're doing than discuss it in this manner, so I'll hold off going into detail.

Paraphrases hide what the character will say. You cannot be more obscure than that.

[upsettingshorts]

tmp7704 wrote...

At a risk of getting a kitten punted through the glass at the mention of a toggle... is the stubborn sticking to a stylistic choice worth more (especially to the player) than being able to play the game in a way more compatible with the player's individual tastes?

To be fair, is sticking to a preferred style any more stubborn than sticking to one way to play a game?

If anything its a battle of stubbornness.  

"I stubbornly want to know precisely what my character will say!"
"I stubbornly want to do a GUI that has a set of features that does not provide for that!"

Why?

"We like it better that way!"

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 02 octobre 2012 - 11:33 .

[Direwolf0294]

The dialogue wheel can offer two extra choices to move the conversation forward but often doesn't. I wonder if people would be more willing to accept the wheel if those two extra slots were utilised more, maybe for more specific dialogue based on your characters class or race.

For example, using the lost dog conversation Mary posted:

http://desmond.image...jpg&res=landing

http://desmond.image...jpg&res=landing

[Morroian]

David Gaider wrote...

Not quite true. We can list the full line, though it ends up looking quite messy on the interface. We can even truncate the displayed line and display the full line on-hover. We won't do that, however, as a stylistic choice.

Why not? I don't think I've seen a good reason for this and it would mollify a lot of people. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...

At a risk of getting a kitten punted through the glass at the mention of a toggle... is the stubborn sticking to a stylistic choice worth more (especially to the player) than being able to play the game in a way more compatible with the player's individual tastes?

To be fair, is sticking to a preferred style any more stubborn than sticking to one way to play a game?

If anything its a battle of stubbornness.  

"I stubbornly want to know precisely what my character will say!"
"I stubbornly want to do a GUI that has a set of features that does not provide for that!"

Why?

"We like it better that way!"

But I don't see what that gets them.  Us playing the game the way we like gets us fun gameplay that we wouldn't otherwise have.  Them denying us a feature doesn't seem to benefit them (unless being able to design specific GUIs is a big part of their job satisfaction).

[Withidread]

David Gaider wrote...

Not quite true. We can list the full line, though it ends up looking quite messy on the interface. We can even truncate the displayed line and display the full line on-hover. We won't do that, however, as a stylistic choice.

We intend to be less paranoid, however, about repeating information between the paraphrase and the actual line. So that makes the lines a bit easier to paraphrase. And, yes, I agree that more iteration of the paraphrases is necessary to lower the percentage of misinterpretations (which is low, but could stand to be lower).

I know that some people just don't like the perceived "mechanical" nature of the interface, or the use of the icons to make the intended tone more explicit (tones which were always present, even in DAO, as that's the way we wrote them). Abandoning the entire style to deliberately go back to a more obscure interface, however, isn't something we're going to entertain... and I personally believe wouldn't actually do what some people seem to believe it would. I do hear the criticism, but don't agree with the diagnosis. In the end, however, I'd rather show what we're doing than discuss it in this manner, so I'll hold off going into detail.

I realize release of information is a trickle at best right now, but would it be possible to pester whoever is in charge of such releases until they agree to let you talk about this in the (hopefully not too distant) future before release?

[Nomen Mendax]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...

At a risk of getting a kitten punted through the glass at the mention of a toggle... is the stubborn sticking to a stylistic choice worth more (especially to the player) than being able to play the game in a way more compatible with the player's individual tastes?

To be fair, is sticking to a preferred style any more stubborn than sticking to one way to play a game?

If anything its a battle of stubbornness.  

"I stubbornly want to know precisely what my character will say!"
"I stubbornly want to do a GUI that has a set of features that does not provide for that!"

Why?

"We like it better that way!"

I'm sorry, but I don't think that's a reasonable argument.  As far as the UI issue is concerned stubbornly refusing to provide an alternative if a significant number of your customers* find your current version unsatisfactory is an odd thing to do if you are in software development. As I'm sure you are aware many business products provide multiple different methods for users to provide input (buttons, menu options, R clicking and so on).

As far as playing the game is concerned the way conversation works in DA2 reduces the enjoyment I get out of it. I want to play a game where I get to choose what my character says, and I'm not nearly as interested in playing one where I'm surprised by what my character says. If they stick with the system in DA2 then my only choices are to either play a game where I don't like the conversation system very much or not play the game. It's not something I'm being stubborn about, it's just a preference, like not liking rice pudding.

*I'm talking in general here I have no idea whether or not those of us who want full text are a significant number, and I'm not going to start guessing either.

Modifié par Nomen Mendax, 03 octobre 2012 - 01:15 .

[upsettingshorts]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...

At a risk of getting a kitten punted through the glass at the mention of a toggle... is the stubborn sticking to a stylistic choice worth more (especially to the player) than being able to play the game in a way more compatible with the player's individual tastes?

To be fair, is sticking to a preferred style any more stubborn than sticking to one way to play a game?

If anything its a battle of stubbornness.  

"I stubbornly want to know precisely what my character will say!"
"I stubbornly want to do a GUI that has a set of features that does not provide for that!"

Why?

"We like it better that way!"

I'm sorry, but I don't think that's a reasonable argument.  

I do.

Each party in this scenario just has a different idea of what the costs and benefits are in the cost/benefit analysis.

If either party can be absolutely certain about any factor, it's BioWare knowing the cost.  The rest is open for debate.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 03 octobre 2012 - 01:31 .

[sully.nathan]

I would like the list formula from DA:O because it fit the game better for me, but if the dialogue wheel is back I think the style should be changed to look more like a dragon age game rather than a mass effect game.

[wsandista]

Dragoonlordz wrote...

Put it this way.

I have a preference for lists instead of wheel both in visual sense, full explanation and does not cause the 'investigate' issue meaning it worked how I like it in the DAO system vs DA2 regarding investigation dialogue.

I have a preference for silent instead of voiced which is first person vs third person roleplaying (not to be confused with camera PoV which is not the same thing).

I have a preference for investigation not being just being limited to elucidation/exposition but also having potential impact and actual outcome so would not devalue it in comparrison to the choice side of the wheel.

But I have a problem with paraphrasing causing the character to say things that was never expected and a desire to see the tone system improved so things said come out the way you expected them too and differentiate between how you treat the people you know and have history with and people you do not which have no preconception about.

I agree with this completely.

[Nomen Mendax]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Upsettingshorts wrote...

tmp7704 wrote...

At a risk of getting a kitten punted through the glass at the mention of a toggle... is the stubborn sticking to a stylistic choice worth more (especially to the player) than being able to play the game in a way more compatible with the player's individual tastes?

To be fair, is sticking to a preferred style any more stubborn than sticking to one way to play a game?

If anything its a battle of stubbornness.  

"I stubbornly want to know precisely what my character will say!"
"I stubbornly want to do a GUI that has a set of features that does not provide for that!"

Why?

"We like it better that way!"

I'm sorry, but I don't think that's a reasonable argument.  

I do.

Each party in this scenario just has a different idea of what the costs and benefits are in the cost/benefit analysis.

If either party can be absolutely certain about any factor, it's BioWare knowing the cost.  The rest is open for debate.

If you are going to introduce costs into the equation then I'd say you are arguing something quite different from my understanding of your previous post.  If Bioware's position is that they know better than me how I want to play the game then I'd have to say that they are wrong. If their position is that they think voice + paraphrase appeals to most players, and that adding an option to see full text is prohibitively expensive then I'd accept that as a reason not to do it (while still being unhappy about it).

[Maria Caliban]

I like the dialog wheel and the list.

Instead of paraphrases, I'd prefer one word indicators. I still think Dues Ex: HR is the way to go.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

Is this a good place to spam my dialog compass pictures?

No, it's already been shut down as an option? Too bad. I like interesting discussions on game mechanics even if there's no chance for them to be implemented.



Keep in mind here, the important bit is not the zomg 8 options, it's how the options are presented to the player. A compass interface allows for up to 8, but it still works with 2, 3, 6, or whatever works for the dialogue writers.

Would not mind Deus Ex: HR's one word indicators with float over full text, either.

Modifié par CrustyBot, 03 octobre 2012 - 02:22 .

[Plaintiff]

Wulfram wrote...

oui_je_danse wrote...

How did investigate options feel less like real choices? You could still, you know, choose to investigate.

Because they're put in a special "hey don't worry, these don't actually matter" segment of the wheel.

That's a strange way of interpreting "Click here for more information".

[upsettingshorts]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

If you are going to introduce costs into the equation then I'd say you are arguing something quite different from my understanding of your previous post.  If Bioware's position is that they know better than me how I want to play the game then I'd have to say that they are wrong. If their position is that they think voice + paraphrase appeals to most players, and that adding an option to see full text is prohibitively expensive then I'd accept that as a reason not to do it (while still being unhappy about it).

That was not my intention.  Only to say that they have a different perspective and priority, their reasons are their own.  They don't know better than YOU how YOU want to play, that would be ludicrous.  But they definitely know better than any of us how much it costs to do X or Y, and probably know better which approach appeals to more customers.  There's more room for debate in the latter, almost none at all in the former.

On the other hand, customers have no real idea what the cost is to do either X or Y, and can't say with any certainty what the majority of customers want, though they certainly claim perfect knowledge of both 'round here.  

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 03 octobre 2012 - 02:27 .