128 réponses à ce sujet

[terdferguson123]

I will be frank: Getting rid of the dialogue wheel or greatly altering it is the best thing that you could do for this series.

My biggest complaint in DAII (Yes, even more so than the reused environs and the self replicating enemies that pop out of thin air) is how the dialogue wheel is currently presented. It. Ruins. Character. Immersion.
I cannot think of any other way to put it.

The problem?

It is setup in such a way that you have "the good option", the "funny
option", and "angry/renegadeish" option. Having this setup (and rewarding
players via how they can persuade and talk for example) for continuously using the same
option is ruining the great immersion that Bioware games of old had (I hate to say it, but this is how I feel about it). Your character becomes too entwined with a specific character profile and never quite
sais how he/she actually feels because of it.

The list view is better because it does not setup the choices in an orderly good/evil fashion. It throws that idea out the window and in turn lets the player's choices often jump between good/renegade/funny as well as a wider range of emotions etc. depending on the situation. And outside of dealing with characters, provides no reward for players always choosing the same type of option.

The feeling that the dialogue wheel gives me is incredibly hard to describe, but if you look at comparisons to DA:O and DAII, you can easily see the problems with it:

- In DA:O If I was dealing with a person that did something wrong, but I genuinely felt sympathy for, I could easily find an option that reflected that feeling of mixed sympathy and anger. In DAII if this happened, I only had a sympathetic option, an option that makes light of the situation, and an option that displays anger. There is rarely ever an option that describes what I am actually feeling. I guess if I had to put it one way, the dialogue wheel takes away the "grey" feeling you can get from certain situations that are prevalent in the DA universe. The point is, the dialogue wheel setup just does not do the game justice by only allowing you these typical character profiles of good/renegade/joker.

There are aspects of the dialogue wheel that are good however, one of them is that it is presentable and another being that the investigate commands are easy to find and you don't have to worry about them accidentally pushing the story forward if you pick one.

So I guess that the optimal way to deal with choices and dialogue is to find a system that allows for easy navigation of investigate and story centric choices like the wheel, but also allows for the story centric choices to have a much more wide range of emotions in a situation.

Some of the things that I think would benefit the dialogue system:

-  Mix up the story centric choices so that the good option isn't always on top and the renegade option isn't always on the bottom etc. This allows the character to really read the choices over instead of just picking the good option every time. It will allow players to feel more like they are actually considering their choices instead of falling into a basic archetype.

- Remove the icons that tell you what feeling is being conveyed. I realize what you were trying to do here Bioware, and I respect that. But I feel like it doesn't help and prevents the player from really choosing the choice they mean in favor of staying true to a character profile. The alternative here is to have better described paraphrases on the choice menu. I realize you cannot put the entire dialogue in the paraphrase, but you really could put more effort into finding the right wording to describe it. 

- Provide choices that display a much wider range of emotions than just the three archetypes. I have stated this over and over because words can barely even express how important it is. I realize that this means more dialogue and in turn means more voice acting and costs associated with that. But it is worth it, especially considering how important dialogue is to a Bioware game and the DA series. When playing games with choices, I often find myself somewhere between good natured and neutral on many things, and I feel that DAII did not give me the correct methods to attain that personality.

In conclusion: The DA universe is excellent and I have enormous respect of the fact that the games avoid giving us some kind of a good/evil meter, but I feel like DAII's dialogue system still reflects that good/evil archetype even without having any kind of a guage. In DA:O I never felt that way and it was something that I really enjoyed. I am pretty sure that I have heard the dialogue wheel will make a return, and that is fine, but I really hope that changes are made in the ways I described to help immersion and to help make the character you create your own through having more choices and removing handholding mechanics that make it too easy for a character to fall into an archetype. Hopefully Bioware reads this, but I also hope the players can provide feedback here as well.

Modifié par terdferguson123, 13 novembre 2012 - 05:56 .

[CaptainBlackGold]

I am not sure that the problem is so much the wheel, as a voiced protagonist. When the protagonist is unvoiced, then your imagination can interpret various lines of dialogue in multiple ways - at least giving you the appearance of multiple, emotional responses.

However, with a voiced protagonist, there is simply only so many ways that an actor can "read" the line not to mention, budgetary considerations - i.e., if the same line could be interpreted say five different ways to give five different nuances how much studio time can Bioware be realistically expected to spend, to cover all the bases?

Hence, it is much easier to give three different emotional tones. Putting the options in a "line" format would not change that budget consideration.

I am all in favor of choice and as many options as we can get; but as long as the protagonist is voiced, those options must of necessity be severely limited.

[terdferguson123]

CaptainBlackGold wrote...

I am not sure that the problem is so much the wheel, as a voiced protagonist. When the protagonist is unvoiced, then your imagination can interpret various lines of dialogue in multiple ways - at least giving you the appearance of multiple, emotional responses.

However, with a voiced protagonist, there is simply only so many ways that an actor can "read" the line not to mention, budgetary considerations - i.e., if the same line could be interpreted say five different ways to give five different nuances how much studio time can Bioware be realistically expected to spend, to cover all the bases?

Hence, it is much easier to give three different emotional tones. Putting the options in a "line" format would not change that budget consideration.

I am all in favor of choice and as many options as we can get; but as long as the protagonist is voiced, those options must of necessity be severely limited.

You are definately partly correct, voiced protagonists due put limitations on content related to dialogue. But, I feel that still mixing up the way the options are presented, removing handholding icons, and providing a few extra choices in certain circumstances would greatly increase the value of each individual choice as well as prevent players from falling into an archetype. The point is, while voice related costs are a problem, there is much they can improve that have little to no costs involved because the costs are already taken care of, the only thing that remains is to change how it is presented.

Modifié par terdferguson123, 13 novembre 2012 - 06:23 .

[Potato Cat]

I agree whole heartedly. I've hated the dialogue wheel since ME and resented the decision to bring that wretched thing into Thedas. Though I'd keep the icons, since the wheel will always be a worse scourge on the land than the Blight, and the icons is like darkspawn with no legs so they can't really do much. It lessens the overall evil of the wheel. They won't differ from the nice/neutral/mean much anyway. I did like the "choice" icons as they sometimes came in fours.

But to be honest, I hate the voiced protagonist most of all. I blame that for the blighted wheel and the cruel lack of race selection. Even if the story makes more sense for a human protagonist...the voice and race just immediately disconnect me from the character; it's like how it was Bioware's Shepard or Bioware's Hawke. I want a protagonist like my Warden.

However, I'm b****ing about a game that for all I know might be even better than DAO, (apart from lack of playable elves of course). I'll reserve further judgement for when we learn more about the backgrounds since this is the part I am most worried/interested in.

[Face of Evil]

As has been stated before and will be stated many times after — since these threads pop up with the regularity of cancerous lumps — there were just as many dialogue options in DA2 as there were in DAO.

In DAO, most responses were seperated into three categories: Diplomatic, Snarky and Aggressive. There were also Flirty responses and Investigative queries. It's the same system, it's just been simplified with the use of icons. Any further nuance was imagined on your part, likely because you yourself had to read the lines and therefore you could ascribe whatever tone you wanted.

Even I could tell that there's very little difference between my "Diplomatic" Warden and my "Diplomatic" Hawke.

Modifié par Face of Evil, 13 novembre 2012 - 06:53 .

[Maclimes]

They have confirmed on many, many, many occasions that DA3 will use the dialogue wheel, and will have paraphrasing. There will be improvements and changes, but the dialogue wheel is here to stay. Deal with it.

[Zobo]

terdferguson123 wrote...

Having this setup (and rewarding
players via how they can persuade and talk for example) for continuously using the same
option is ruining the great immersion that Bioware games of old had (I hate to say it, but this is how I feel about it).

But there is no rewards for using the same type of response in DA2 as it is.

terdferguson123 wrote...

In DAII if this happened, I only had a sympathetic option, an option that makes light of the situation, and an option that displays anger.

I personally see the sarcastic option not only as making light of the situation, but as an neural option as well. You are laughing things off without saying what you actually think. An ideal neutral response. I really think sarcastic option was a ingenious idea for that reason.

terdferguson123 wrote...

- Provide choices that display a much wider range of emotions than just the three archetypes.

This I absolutely agree with. Possible examples:
- A happy face icon
- A sad face icon
- A crying icon
- A poker face icon
Those emotions currently happened to be streamlined by the plot which is not good.

Another possible examples:
- A puppy eyed face icon
- A jerk face icon
- A facepalm icon
- A WTF face icon

[Potato Cat]

Umm, there is a benefit from selecting the same dialogue choices over and over. To change Hawke's tone. I know did that so I could side with Ser Varnell and keep Petrice alive in Act 2 while I was creating my perfect canon.

[Zobo]

I was pretty sure Hawk's personalty that changes when you select the same type of response over and over only affects random battle cries and some petty autodialogue that do not affect any plot options at any point. Was I wrong?

[David Gaider]

Face of Evil wrote...

As has been stated before and will be stated many times after — since these threads pop up with the regularity of cancerous lumps — there were just as many dialogue options in DA2 as there were in DAO. Most responses were seperated into three categories: Diplomatic, Snarky and Aggressive. There were also Flirty responses and Investigative queries.

It's the same system, it's just been simplified with the use of icons. Any further nuance was imagined on your part, likely because you yourself had to read the lines and therefore you could ascribe whatever tone you wanted.

Even I could tell that there's very little difference between my "Diplomatic" Warden and my "Diplomatic" Hawke.

That is indeed true.

The tone wheel is used with the same regularity as, in DAO, what we called the "flavor hub". In DAO, that kind of hub was about how you said something and was generally used to move the dialogue along-- and it have Diplomatic, Humorous and Aggressive-toned responses. People can argue that this wasn't the case if they like, but it was. That was intentional.

Then you have the choice wheel, which also has its counterpart in DAO. This is where you'd actually make choices or, at least, be selecting options from a list of actions as opposed to tones.

In either of these wheels, you have up to 10 options total (5 with up to 5 on the Investigate sub-sub)... as opposed to a limit of 6 in DAO (which was hard-coded, so people who claim to remember more are incorrect). The only part where this was awkward in DA2's organization was with regards to the limit on what was allowed in certain parts of the wheel-- a self-imposed limit, but no more frequently an issue than the limit of 6 was in DAO (I personally loathed the "What would you like to know?" sub-hub style with every fiber of my being).

The primary difference between the two styles lays with the use of a paraphrase and the existence of the icons. The paraphrase stuff I won't even get into again, as it's been discussed to death elsewhere and isn't changing. The icons some people don't like because, in a way, it exposes the man behind the curtain. It makes obvious what some prefer to be implied. Which I understand, to a point... seeing as this is not a silent protagonist, you are not free to imagine whatever tone you like. So the icons exist to help illustrate the intended tone of your character (if not necessarily the effect that tone will have-- a heart icon indicates your intention to flirt, not that it will be reciprocated). The icons are being revamped, but they will still exist. We are also getting a "reaction wheel" for use when an emotional reaction to events is being called for-- I've mentioned this before, and it's useful in very specific circumstances, but it's not something I'll go into in full until we can show what we mean by it.

On the whole, I think a lot of issues are ascribed to the wheel that aren't really the wheel's fault at all. Not that this will stop some from blaming it regardless, or stop a topic like this from drawing out the same people who have an axe to grind about the switch to a voiced protagonist and what that does to the way we write dialogue (or the desire for some to imagine their tone and roleplay, the only kind of roleplaying they will accept). Which I get, but that is also something that is not going to change.

Modifié par David Gaider, 13 novembre 2012 - 07:00 .

[AlexJK]

I like the wheel. It's wheely good.

[Potato Cat]

Zobo wrote...

I was pretty sure Hawk's personalty that changes when you select the same type of response over and over only affects random battle cries and some petty autodialogue that do not affect any plot options at any point. Was I wrong?

You have to be aggressive in order to get a special dialogue and keep Petrice alive and she then leads a schism in the Chantry that is more actively anti-Qunari. There's other special dialogues from having a specific tone, but I think that's the most important instance.

[Zobo]

Elfman wrote...

Zobo wrote...

I was pretty sure Hawk's personalty that changes when you select the same type of response over and over only affects random battle cries and some petty autodialogue that do not affect any plot options at any point. Was I wrong?

You have to be aggressive in order to get a special dialogue and keep Petrice alive and she then leads a schism in the Chantry that is more actively anti-Qunari. There's other special dialogues from having a specific tone, but I think that's the most important instance.

I see. Well, that sucks, I agree.
Also that looks like an absolutely unecessary and pointless thing to implement on developers' part.

Modifié par Zobo, 13 novembre 2012 - 07:11 .

[AmstradHero]

Yet again, David Gaider is right. The dialogue wheel is about presentation, and really the choices weren't limited in comparison to Origins. Flavour and decisions were separated rather than tossed into the one set of dialogue choices.

Perhaps the only valid criticism that could be leveled at the DA2 in terms of differences is sometimes that the voiced protagonist veered into the territory of providing Hawke's rationale for a decision. Note that this is not a criticism of a voiced protagonist, but of the writing of the dialogue - either the paraphrase or subsequent lines as a result of a choice. For my money, a voiced protagonist should never provide a reason for the decision, as it's impossible for the writers to predict why a player might be making a particular choice. Providing that rationale is far more crippling of roleplaying than any other aspect of a dialogue system or its presentation, because it definitively makes the character belong to the writers and not to the player.

[terdferguson123]

David Gaider wrote...

Face of Evil wrote...

As has been stated before and will be stated many times after — since these threads pop up with the regularity of cancerous lumps — there were just as many dialogue options in DA2 as there were in DAO. Most responses were seperated into three categories: Diplomatic, Snarky and Aggressive. There were also Flirty responses and Investigative queries.

It's the same system, it's just been simplified with the use of icons. Any further nuance was imagined on your part, likely because you yourself had to read the lines and therefore you could ascribe whatever tone you wanted.

Even I could tell that there's very little difference between my "Diplomatic" Warden and my "Diplomatic" Hawke.

That is indeed true.

The tone wheel is used with the same regularity as, in DAO, what we called the "flavor hub". In DAO, that kind of hub was about how you said something and was generally used to move the dialogue along-- and it have Diplomatic, Humorous and Aggressive-toned responses. People can argue that this wasn't the case if they like, but it was. That was intentional.

Then you have the choice wheel, which also has its counterpart in DAO. This is where you'd actually make choices or, at least, be selecting options from a list of actions as opposed to tones.

In either of these wheels, you have up to 10 options total (5 with up to 5 on the Investigate sub-sub)... as opposed to a limit of 6 in DAO (which was hard-coded, so people who claim to remember more are incorrect). The only part where this was awkward in DA2's organization was with regards to the limit on what was allowed in certain parts of the wheel-- a self-imposed limit, but no more frequently an issue than the limit of 6 was in DAO (I personally loathed the "What would you like to know?" sub-hub style with every fiber of my being).

The primary difference between the two styles lays with the use of a paraphrase and the existence of the icons. The paraphrase stuff I won't even get into again, as it's been discussed to death elsewhere and isn't changing. The icons some people don't like because, in a way, it exposes the man behind the curtain. It makes obvious what some prefer to be implied. Which I understand, to a point... seeing as this is not a silent protagonist, you are not free to imagine whatever tone you like. So the icons exist to help illustrate the intended tone of your character (if not necessarily the effect that tone will have-- a heart icon indicates your intention to flirt, not that it will be reciprocated). The icons are being revamped, but they will still exist. We are also getting a "reaction wheel" for use when an emotional reaction to events is being called for-- I've mentioned this before, and it's useful in very specific circumstances, but it's not something I'll go into in full until we can show what we mean by it.

On the whole, I think a lot of issues are ascribed to the wheel that aren't really the wheel's fault at all. Not that this will stop some from blaming it regardless, or stop a topic like this from drawing out the same people who have an axe to grind about the switch to a voiced protagonist and what that does to the way we write dialogue (or the desire for some to imagine their tone and roleplay, the only kind of roleplaying they will accept). Which I get, but that is also something that is not going to change.

That's a fair answer, and I don't entirely believe that the amount of choices in DA:O compared to DA:2 in any given circumstance are more or less, but I do feel that they were represented better in DA:O by relevance to the situation (which is of course strictly opinion based).

I have to say the more that I hear from people I am beginning to understand that my problem is not with the wheel itself (as you stated) but more so how the game fits you into archetypes. Even if these archetypes existed in Origins, they were less noticable and I felt like my Warden ended up choosing a much different archetype given each situation which made him feel more like a personal character. It's very hard to explain, but the best way I can explain it is that the way the choices in Origins were presented made it easier to pick choices that are relevant to the situation and more akin to how I actually felt, and that is something that I and I think a lot of gamers value highly. As I stated in my OP, I think that if the order that choices are presented was mixed up or different, and the icons took many more forms it would alleviate some of the problem. Hopefully when you said that the icons were being revamped, that this is what you meant.

Modifié par terdferguson123, 13 novembre 2012 - 08:00 .

[ref]

I don't mind the wheel system honestly, I prefer the full responses from Origins, but as long as BioWare improves upon the often confusing paraphrasing, then it should be much better.

[J.C. Blade]

What I don't understand is, if the developers want to, and certainly will, continue with the cinematic approach and voiced protagonist, why then do they not create a fully defined PC (personality, not gender), the way Shepard was in ME3, or Geralt in TW, or that guy in Alpha Protocol? As such, the choices in game would be made only in scope what said character would possibly do in given situation and develop from there on.

It would certainly be better than later having mass of people going, "But my ... would never do that!" I know I'd rather have a fully defined character, male or female, than have the game yank a choke-chain on me every-damn-time I go and try to establish supposedly "my" PC's personality in some way.

[randomcheeses]

J.C. Blade wrote...

What I don't understand is, if the developers want to, and certainly will, continue with the cinematic approach and voiced protagonist, why then do they not create a fully defined PC (personality, not gender), the way Shepard was in ME3, or Geralt in TW, or that guy in Alpha Protocol? As such, the choices in game would be made only in scope what said character would possibly do in given situation and develop from there on.

It would certainly be better than later having mass of people going, "But my ... would never do that!" I know I'd rather have a fully defined character, male or female, than have the game yank a choke-chain on me every-damn-time I go and try to establish supposedly "my" PC's personality in some way.

Bioware has a long tradition of having PCs that are more-or-less fully customizable the players. If they suddenly dropped that, their fan base would explode. Very likely the game would sell poorly among those who buy bioware games because you can make the protagonist so customised. And that describes probably more than half the fanbase.
 
They seem to be moving away from it, but they're doing it slowly and will probably never release a game with a completely pre-defined PC. I hope.

[DragonKingReborn]

Reaction wheel sounds good. That will mean - I'm guessing - that a secondary personality layer will start bedding down when it is used. Like using the diplomatic option alot ended with Hawkes automatic responses being different than if you predominantly used the aggressive one. Your "Inquisitor" will end up not being bothered by Templars getting incinerated but might shed a tear for a child mage stripped from their family?

Certainly brings role-playing into it, while maintaining a mode of delivery for that role playing system. Will be interesting to see this in action when the time is right.

[J.C. Blade]

@randomcheeses
They are getting closer to PCs being predefined with every game however. ME2 started it, In ME3, Shepard was nearly fully defined. In DA2 Hawke was Hawke, with the same love for their family and close connection to people in their group, no matter how you played them.

Modifié par J.C. Blade, 13 novembre 2012 - 08:26 .

[nightscrawl]

David Gaider wrote...

The icons are being revamped, but they will still exist. We are also getting a "reaction wheel" for use when an emotional reaction to events is being called for-- I've mentioned this before, and it's useful in very specific circumstances, but it's not something I'll go into in full until we can show what we mean by it.

Awesome! I love these little nuggets of information. 

[The Teyrn of Whatever]

What about the possibility of a second set of options, accessible through, let's say shift on PC and the left trigger on the 360 and L1 on the PS3, whenever the dialogue wheel appears, giving us more options.

What I miss from the DA:O days was those moments where we had a snarky comment with an even snarkier comment underneath it. Sure DA II still gave us the option to lie or persuade in certain situations, but it would be nice to have more options, such as the ability to tell a white lie, twisting the facts just a teensy bit and telling a bald-faced lie.

Greater variety is what I'd like to see if any alterations are made to the dialogue wheel for DA 3.

[Zobo]

David Gaider wrote...

We are also getting a "reaction wheel" for use when an emotional reaction to events is being called for...

Awesome!

[Persephone]

David Gaider wrote...

Face of Evil wrote...

As has been stated before and will be stated many times after — since these threads pop up with the regularity of cancerous lumps — there were just as many dialogue options in DA2 as there were in DAO. Most responses were seperated into three categories: Diplomatic, Snarky and Aggressive. There were also Flirty responses and Investigative queries.

It's the same system, it's just been simplified with the use of icons. Any further nuance was imagined on your part, likely because you yourself had to read the lines and therefore you could ascribe whatever tone you wanted.

Even I could tell that there's very little difference between my "Diplomatic" Warden and my "Diplomatic" Hawke.

That is indeed true.

The tone wheel is used with the same regularity as, in DAO, what we called the "flavor hub". In DAO, that kind of hub was about how you said something and was generally used to move the dialogue along-- and it have Diplomatic, Humorous and Aggressive-toned responses. People can argue that this wasn't the case if they like, but it was. That was intentional.

Then you have the choice wheel, which also has its counterpart in DAO. This is where you'd actually make choices or, at least, be selecting options from a list of actions as opposed to tones.

In either of these wheels, you have up to 10 options total (5 with up to 5 on the Investigate sub-sub)... as opposed to a limit of 6 in DAO (which was hard-coded, so people who claim to remember more are incorrect). The only part where this was awkward in DA2's organization was with regards to the limit on what was allowed in certain parts of the wheel-- a self-imposed limit, but no more frequently an issue than the limit of 6 was in DAO (I personally loathed the "What would you like to know?" sub-hub style with every fiber of my being).

The primary difference between the two styles lays with the use of a paraphrase and the existence of the icons. The paraphrase stuff I won't even get into again, as it's been discussed to death elsewhere and isn't changing. The icons some people don't like because, in a way, it exposes the man behind the curtain. It makes obvious what some prefer to be implied. Which I understand, to a point... seeing as this is not a silent protagonist, you are not free to imagine whatever tone you like. So the icons exist to help illustrate the intended tone of your character (if not necessarily the effect that tone will have-- a heart icon indicates your intention to flirt, not that it will be reciprocated). The icons are being revamped, but they will still exist. We are also getting a "reaction wheel" for use when an emotional reaction to events is being called for-- I've mentioned this before, and it's useful in very specific circumstances, but it's not something I'll go into in full until we can show what we mean by it.

On the whole, I think a lot of issues are ascribed to the wheel that aren't really the wheel's fault at all. Not that this will stop some from blaming it regardless, or stop a topic like this from drawing out the same people who have an axe to grind about the switch to a voiced protagonist and what that does to the way we write dialogue (or the desire for some to imagine their tone and roleplay, the only kind of roleplaying they will accept). Which I get, but that is also something that is not going to change.

Ooooooh, now this is an interesting nugget of info. Given how much I loved the Interrupts in ME2&3.... I know, not the same, but being able to react emotionally to things in a DA game....

I remember my Surana choosing an overcome "I can't. I can't do it!" after Loghain calms Anora down at the Landsmeet. Only to stand by quietly & nod in assent to something she wanted to prevent at that point. To be able to choose to prevent it from happening, say by...staying Alistair's arm wordlessly....ooooooooh, I'd love it. And the scene that would result from it........oooooooohhhhhhhh myyyyyy.

Ahem....carry on.

[Wulfram]

I don't think it makes much difference whether the dialogue is presented with a wheel or something else. The only comment I could make specifically about the wheel is it makes it's not very intuitive which number key is associated with it.

More generally, though

I wonder if we might be better off without "investigate" options. It seems a very inelegant way to incorporate infodumps. It usually brings the conversation to a crashing halt, often jars badly with the tone of the rest of the dialogue since it's necessarily neutral, and often leads to the resumption of the conversation being totally disconnected from what was said last. Better for me to incorporate the necessary information in regular dialogue, and have asking a question progress the dialogue like other stuff does.

The tone icons really weren't very helpful to me, I don't think. They didn't really give me any useful information that wasn't already conveyed by the positioning. I really couldn't find any particularly consistent difference between the two blue tones or the two red tones, and while the purple icons did tell me whether there was going to be an actual joke or not they weren't particularly useful in helping me decide whether to pick them - just because Hawke isn't going to make a joke didn't mean he wasn't going to engage in inappropriate japery.