318 réponses à ce sujet

[Wulfram]

Give people some dedicated Persuasion points that can't be used for anything else - your PC is necessarily charismatic, that's why they're in charge .

The player then can choose what type of persuasion they're going to be good at, with this making an actual difference to what they can achieve. Some characters can only be persuaded by high Intimidation, some by high Diplomacy, and some by a clever mix of both. And you'll still need to pick the right dialogue choices.

(You might want a third variety along the lines of Charm or Bluff, depends how complicated you want things)

[Fast Jimmy]

^

I've always found Logic to be an underutilized Persuasion skill.

"Do you really want to go through all the hassle of arresting this poor kid just for stealing bread? We need guards on the streets protecting us from the real threats; not being bogged down by bureaucratic nonsense for something as trifling as this."

Also, empathy: "This boy is stealing to feed his little sister! You would punish him for that? You would sentence his little sister to certain death? Have a heart, man!"

Also, smooth-talking/lying "I've been sent over from the fort to deal with what they have termed 'low-threat' issues. You guards can tackle the bandits with swords, they are sending us to handle the riff-raff like this little urchin here. I'll talk to Saul over in the treasury to give you your compensation for securing him for us."

Etc. etc. There are so many ways to persuade people that for games to only have one or two options (actual persuasion or a threat to beat someone senseless) seems pretty one-dimensional.

[Wulfram]

Seperating out appeals to emotion and appeals to reason might make sense, but I think chopping things up too finely can be problematic - I want to be to get a decent amount of breadth from tmy skills and not feel that I've been treated unfairly because something's got stuck in the wrong basket because of an overly fine distinction.

[Zelto]

Wulfram wrote...

Give people some dedicated Persuasion points that can't be used for anything else - your PC is necessarily charismatic, that's why they're in charge .

The player then can choose what type of persuasion they're going to be good at, with this making an actual difference to what they can achieve. Some characters can only be persuaded by high Intimidation, some by high Diplomacy, and some by a clever mix of both. And you'll still need to pick the right dialogue choices.

(You might want a third variety along the lines of Charm or Bluff, depends how complicated you want things)

I quite like this idea as it prevents the "I Win' button that so many don't like but still gives a genuine persuasion skill rather than the DA:2 system.

I was actually thinking that instead of a skill they could significantly increase the number of attribute points from 3 to say 10, and then add in attributes like intimadate and charm, similar to ME1. Then there is a choice better combat or better persuasion without it being limited to 1, or in DA:O case 4 non-combat-skill choices. It will allow for a wider range of possible 'skill' levels where it is easier to pass some and harder for others. As well as allowing different types of persuade, preventing someone from being able to do them all well unless they severly limite their PC combat ability or are in a late game area.

[Fast Jimmy]

Wulfram wrote...

Seperating out appeals to emotion and appeals to reason might make sense, but I think chopping things up too finely can be problematic - I want to be to get a decent amount of breadth from tmy skills and not feel that I've been treated unfairly because something's got stuck in the wrong basket because of an overly fine distinction.

Well, I wouldn't have them be different skills, but rather just different approaches that work differently on NPCs.

As in my above example, the NPC you are trying to convince may be more susceptible to intimidation and empathy than logic and smooth-talking. And then have each approach also be tied to a particular stat (like Strength for Intimidation, Intelligence for Logic, Cunning for Smooth-Talking, Charisma for Empathy, etc.). This way, you can have the Speech skill be amplified (or diminished) by both your character's own personal stats, as well as the personality of the NPC themselves.

[BlueMagitek]

I would not be adverse to Fast Jimmy's idea, but I also believe that your completed quests should have some part if relevant.

[In Exile]

MerinTB wrote...
Playing a game is figuring out which buttons to hit in which order and which frequency to "win" so, yes, unless the game is simply an interactive novel with set outcomes regardless of what you do...

every game is "so many requisite (insert things here, like button presses or item collection) before you can click I-WIN."

There's a big difference between the actual gameplay, which involves its own challenges quite separate from literally clicking one option, and actually clicking one option. 

It's impossible to even answer your post because of how disingenuous you're being. 

[In Exile]

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...
What the "I WIN" button does is allow the player's character to succeed under all circumstances using any means, and that's silly.  That prevents the character's personality from affecting his performance, and for things like persuasion the character's personality absolutely should affect performance (beyond merely labelling him as "persuasive" or "unpersuasive").
[/quote]

Let me just say that I agree with you entirely on this point, Sylvius. Although I would use combat as an analogy - there's no basis to say that you want to create a character who is "good at combat" by picking the "combat" skill, dropping 4 ranks into it 1/5th into the game, and then auto-winning all encounters. 

[/quote]What about a Speech stat that, instead of just choosing "Speech Skill Response" instead offers a couple different ways to Persuade? And different methods would be more effective with given NPCs (as well as other corresponding stats). This way, someone without Speech Skill points wouldn't be able to persuade an NPC, but if the player chose one method over another, it wouldn't guarantee success?[/quote]

I like the idea, but I think it has to be that, going with the combat analogy, the various "responses" are just like abilities. So we're back to DX:HR dialogue battles, but better executed (ideally) 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

But, to go right back to meta-gaming, certain players will sit there and load and reload (or, if given the option, just repeatedly attempt to select the same conversation option) until the dice roll wins for them... until they roll a Natural 20, so to speak.

These players won't see it as manipulating the system, they will see it as the game blocking them from the best outcomes with a silly system that requires them to load and reload. I've seen people complain endlessly about situations like this all the time - "combat is too hard, as if I have one person fall in combat, I "have" to reload," or "the chance to critically fail lock picking is stupid... if I jam a chest lock, I'll "have" to reload an earlier save."

But do they?  If I reload over and over again to get a succeessful assassination attempt in a Total War game, I don't see that as the game blocking me.  I see that as me cheating (or manipulating the game, as you put it).  I'm okay with me doing it, but I hardly feel like I'm being forced to.

That would be stupid.  Are people stupid?

It isn't even an issue where I have a problem with players being able to "game" the system... it is quite the opposite. I know it will mean that people will feel inconvenienced that they "HAVE" to game the system. Like it is a foregone conclusion that meta gaming is their only avenue possible to get past certain obstacles. The mindset of "if the game penalizes me in combat for putting points in lock picking, then I will just meta-game with the Save/Load feature to get past it... what a waste of time!"

How would they know they failed?  If we don't label the persuasion options, and sometimes persuasion simply doesn't work no matter what your stats are (because there should absolutely be no-win situations), then the players won't be able to tell when they've failed a dice roll.

If, instead, there is a static outcome, with no way to game the system, but rather some direct cause-and-effect, then the player must, legitimately, make the decision to go down one gameplay path or another.

That's an I WIN button.  The existence of an I WIN button is a persistent complaint with persuasion systems.

That being said, showing if you are going to "win" or not (or even if you are using the Persuasion Skill conversation option or not) should not be required. You shouldn't be told "this person is weak to intimidation" outside of what you can observe from their behavior. And you shouldn't know of your Strength is higher than the person you are trying to intimidate (or the equivalent thereof) outside of plot context given in the game.

This way, you wouldn't know what the "I win" button was, nor if your character would even win it if pressed. Even a walk through would need to clarify each situation - this NPC is vulnerable to intimidate if your STR score is X, otherwise you may need to bribe them unless your Speech skill is 5, which means you can smooth-talk him into thinking you are an official (which opens up the "Confusion Amongst the Ranks side quest later) or use the empathy option, which makes the orphan give you more information when he sees you being "nice."

That's still an I WIN button - just an unlabelled one.  Players could just follow guides, which seems to be something you're trying to prevent.

That kind of necessity in examining how to use a Speech skill would make it, in my opinion, much deeper than "pick the Intimidate skill and keep reloading until you succeed."

The presence of persuasion opportunities where success is impossible would discourage that.  You'd never know, when reloading, whether you had a 70% chance of success or a 10% chance of success or a 0% chance of success.  Frankly, if someone is going to reload to get the outcome they work, just give them console commands.

But if you don't want unwinnable events, we could instead use RNG results that persist across reloads, like XCom does.  Then, reloading doesn't help, as you just get the same result every time.

[Hurbster]

I think Dragon Age had it bang on. And I'd like to know exactly what I am going to say before I say it.

[Realmzmaster]

The use of persistent RNG results would lessen reloading. The idea is when the party enters a new area or encounter all the dice rolls are made at that time. All the contents of chests that are randomly generated would be set. All possible persuasion checks would be set. Therefore if the character levels during that time and adds more points to persuasion that will increase the character's chance of success, but it will not change the already set persuasion.

I will use Kingdom of Amalur as a system that gets it wrong (in my opinion). The chests that need to be disspelled have a percentage chance of success or failure depending on the character's disspelling level (unless you wish to play the disspelling mini-game which is based on the gamer's reaction skills).

You simply save before the chest. Click on the chest. There is a button for auto-attempt with a percentage chance. You can simply keep reloading until the character succeeds.
Not only that Amalur gives the gamer two chances on normal play to disspell the chest before the ward triggers and hits the character with a curse or disease. The character can still loot the chest after being cursed or diseased
Now if all of that is set when the character enters the area then only increasing the dispell skill will change the success chance. The gamer can reload the results will be the same. The same can be done with persuasion checks.

[garrusfan1]

I love the wheel! also I hope they keep the symbols that indicate whether you are being sarcastic or aggresive and such

[Vaeliorin]

In Exile wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
What the "I WIN" button does is allow the player's character to succeed under all circumstances using any means, and that's silly.  That prevents the character's personality from affecting his performance, and for things like persuasion the character's personality absolutely should affect performance (beyond merely labelling him as "persuasive" or "unpersuasive").

Let me just say that I agree with you entirely on this point, Sylvius. Although I would use combat as an analogy - there's no basis to say that you want to create a character who is "good at combat" by picking the "combat" skill, dropping 4 ranks into it 1/5th into the game, and then auto-winning all encounters. 

What about a Speech stat that, instead of just choosing "Speech Skill Response" instead offers a couple different ways to Persuade? And different methods would be more effective with given NPCs (as well as other corresponding stats). This way, someone without Speech Skill points wouldn't be able to persuade an NPC, but if the player chose one method over another, it wouldn't guarantee success?

I like the idea, but I think it has to be that, going with the combat analogy, the various "responses" are just like abilities. So we're back to DX:HR dialogue battles, but better executed (ideally) 

Perhaps there could be some sort of companion skill to the speech skill (or maybe just roll it into the speech skill, or maybe some sort of perception skill) that gave you some way to gauge which approach might be most effective?  Otherwise, it seems like you're just guessing, unless it's a character with which you've had a fairly long association.

I guess I'd just like a skill to notice all those little things that seem so important to other people, but that I tend not to pick up on (such as body language), particularly in games.

Modifié par Vaeliorin, 11 mai 2013 - 01:25 .

[-TC1989-]

Personally I am a fan of the wheel, but it needs some work. It's more of the concept than the execution so far. The wheel in DA2 just felt... lacking of life? The choices seemed a little too direct, and too easy. I want there to be degrees of sarcasm, rather than just there being "it". Sometimes I find myself just clicking an option, without reading what it says, only because I see the symbol. I think the brash/aggressive responses need degrees most of all. I liked how in some cases, that there actually kind of was. But for an overall aspect? It was seriously lacking. I'm a pretty sarcastic person in real life, but Hawke's level of sarcasm wasn't really funny, and sometimes down right... distasteful.

[In Exile]

Vaeliorin wrote...
Perhaps there could be some sort of companion skill to the speech skill (or maybe just roll it into the speech skill, or maybe some sort of perception skill) that gave you some way to gauge which approach might be most effective?

I agree that it would be useful, but then games have never provided similarily useful things for combat (like spotting what resistances are ahead of time). 

Otherwise, it seems like you're just guessing, unless it's a character with which you've had a fairly long association.

Well, you'd be making an in-character decision is the appeal. Speaking as someone who's seen as persuasive IRL, I'm generally always making educated guesses. I have an inution about how a situation would break down, but it's an intuition that comes from a lot of experience. 

I guess I'd just like a skill to notice all those little things that seem so important to other people, but that I tend not to pick up on (such as body language), particularly in games.

How is that different than someone who - for example - wants to play a turn-based combat game and RP a tactical genius, but IRL is a moron who can't handle the combat system even on the low difficulties? Not that I want to be snarky - I just think that the idea that somehow dialogue and social skills shouldn't be based on player skill and so should be entirely an RNG is a weird idea in an RPG when combat is nothing like that. 

I think games should be consistent across combat and dialogue. 

[Fast Jimmy]

But do they? If I reload over and over again to get a succeessful assassination attempt in a Total War game, I don't see that as the game blocking me. I see that as me cheating (or manipulating the game, as you put it). I'm okay with me doing it, but I hardly feel like I'm being forced to.

That would be stupid. Are people stupid?

I'm not sure I can safely make that same conclusion, but people do feel that way: that if they are being blocked from ALL content but that there is a round-about-way of obtaining it, that they MUST. It is human nature to want to experience everything. And you can either make the way to do so supported by game mechanics (like DA2, which has no non-combat options, simply dialogue options that are available based on non-limiting things, such as who is in your party) or you can make it un-gameable.

The set RNG values suggestion could work, but only assuming they don't randomize again upon leaving an area. If you can go into an area, find the numbers too high, leave the area and then re-try, that is simply something people will complain is an inconvenience or a poorly designed system... since it will be difficult to game around it.

It is the irony of ironies that all too often people will complain about how cumbersome a system is simply because its cheats (of sorts) are so difficult, when removing the cheats in the first place can create a more interesting game experience.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 11 mai 2013 - 02:02 .

[jillabender]

I enjoy the dialogue challenges in Deus X:HR, but I can see EntropicAngel's point in that the game makes the challenge of persuading through dialogue choices into such a fascinating puzzle that it's easy to fall into approaching those conversations more as puzzles than as opportunities to define the protagonist. Personally, I've decided to get around that by role-playing Adam Jensen as the kind of person who would approach the conversations as puzzles.

I don't mind the idea of having a game mechanic to track how persuasive a character is, and I like In Exile's suggestion of having various methods of persuasion, which would each vary in effectiveness depending on the situation.

In general though, if a situation calls for charm, persuasion, or intimidation, I prefer, ideally, for it not to be immediately obvious which response will get my character what he or she wants. Ideally, I like it when a game challenges me to discern, based on the content of each choice, which option will lead to a particular result, and gives me the chance to portray a character who's astute enough to recognize that, or not.

As I've said before, the main reward for me when choosing dialogue in a BioWare RPG comes from the act of making choices that say something interesting about my character. Conversations that are puzzles and challenge me as the player to think carefully about my options and the situation aren't necessarily a requirement for me, but when done well, they can really add a lot in terms of stepping into the role of a character.

Modifié par jillabender, 11 mai 2013 - 02:28 .

[Fast Jimmy]

^

The real problem with having a system that let's the player figure out which of the options is not the persuasion skill dialogue option(s) is the paraphrase system and the dialogue wheel. With either the dialogue icons, the set placement of certain tones/personality choices in the the same spots and/or never being able to see what our character is going to say exactly, it seems practically impossible to not have at least SOME meta-game knowledge of what choice is going to be leveraging the speech skill.

In my opinion, of course.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 11 mai 2013 - 03:08 .

[jillabender]

That's very true - the mechanics of dialogue in Dragon Age and Mass Effect always provide at least some meta-game knowledge by their very nature, and "dialogue puzzles" that are really intended to challenge the player have never really been a focus of BioWare RPGs.

Given that, though, I think that In Exile's suggestion of having various methods for persuasion and intimidation, perhaps each with their own icon, and with varying degrees of effectiveness depending on the situation, could be a neat way of making persuasion a bit more of an active experience, and a bit more varied and less predictable. Maybe something similar to the tone-specific persuasion options in DA2, but without being tied to a dominant tone. I don't know whether that's something BioWare would be interested in doing, but I still think it's a cool idea.

Modifié par jillabender, 11 mai 2013 - 03:45 .

[Realmzmaster]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

But do they? If I reload over and over again to get a succeessful assassination attempt in a Total War game, I don't see that as the game blocking me. I see that as me cheating (or manipulating the game, as you put it). I'm okay with me doing it, but I hardly feel like I'm being forced to.

That would be stupid. Are people stupid?

I'm not sure I can safely make that same conclusion, but people do feel that way: that if they are being blocked from ALL content but that there is a round-about-way of obtaining it, that they MUST. It is human nature to want to experience everything. And you can either make the way to do so supported by game mechanics (like DA2, which has no non-combat options, simply dialogue options that are available based on non-limiting things, such as who is in your party) or you can make it un-gameable.

The set RNG values suggestion could work, but only assuming they don't randomize again upon leaving an area. If you can go into an area, find the numbers too high, leave the area and then re-try, that is simply something people will complain is an inconvenience or a poorly designed system... since it will be difficult to game around it.

It is the irony of ironies that all too often people will complain about how cumbersome a system is simply because its cheats (of sorts) are so difficult, when removing the cheats in the first place can create a more interesting game experience.

The idea is that the numbers become locked or static. The programming simply remembers which areas have been visited and saves the numbers that were generated at that time. The contents of any chest would also be remembered so re-entering the area will not change anything, unless the gamer has leveled up the character in that particular skill to overcome the difficulty that was encountered.

[Fast Jimmy]

^

Would this provide backwards value setting?

In that if you save your game, enter a new location; find "hard" values, reload your game from before entering that area, and find the same "hard" values? Or would the RNG be reset if the Save Game was before that area was entered?

[Vaeliorin]

In Exile wrote...

Vaeliorin wrote...
Perhaps there could be some sort of companion skill to the speech skill (or maybe just roll it into the speech skill, or maybe some sort of perception skill) that gave you some way to gauge which approach might be most effective?

I agree that it would be useful, but then games have never provided similarily useful things for combat (like spotting what resistances are ahead of time).

They have, though.  Wizardry 8, for example, has a mythology skill that, depending on your level in it relative to an enemy, will show you things like enemy level, max hit points, current hit points, resistances, special attacks, attack range, etc. when you right click on them.  I wouldn't be opposed to something like that in DA, though it would only really make sense if the enemy resistances make sense (i.e. no more bandits who are randomly immune to ice, such as in DA2 on nightmare.)

Otherwise, it seems like you're just guessing, unless it's a character with which you've had a fairly long association.

Well, you'd be making an in-character decision is the appeal. Speaking as someone who's seen as persuasive IRL, I'm generally always making educated guesses. I have an inution about how a situation would break down, but it's an intuition that comes from a lot of experience.

Sure, but this is another one of those I am not my character moments.  My character might have that intuition, but I personally don't, particularly in video games, where characters don't have unique body language or facial expressions.

I guess I'd just like a skill to notice all those little things that seem so important to other people, but that I tend not to pick up on (such as body language), particularly in games.

How is that different than someone who - for example - wants to play a turn-based combat game and RP a tactical genius, but IRL is a moron who can't handle the combat system even on the low difficulties? Not that I want to be snarky - I just think that the idea that somehow dialogue and social skills shouldn't be based on player skill and so should be entirely an RNG is a weird idea in an RPG when combat is nothing like that. 

I think games should be consistent across combat and dialogue.

I guess it's just a matter of the fact that, to me, picking up a combat system is just a matter of putting in some effort (or reading tips on a forum) but I've spent a lifetime trying to learn how to interact with people and I just don't understand them at all.  Also, games have difficulty levels for combat.  They don't have difficulty levels for social interaction (though maybe they could).

Fast Jimmy wrote...
^

Would this provide backwards value setting?

In that if you save your game, enter a new location; find "hard" values, reload your game from before entering that area, and find the same "hard" values? Or would the RNG be reset if the Save Game was before that area was entered?

All you have to do to counteract this is have relatively large levels with the random values being used throughout the level.  Wizardry 8, for example, populates all the chests in an area as soon as you enter it (as well as some randomly placed items that aren't in chests.)  Now, perhaps there are people who are willing to play through several hours of game time all over again because they didn't like what they got out of a chest, but given that almost every area has multiple randomly generated chests/items, you're never going to get them all to go your way (well, not in a reasonable amount of time.)

If you had mulitple conversation checks, potentially with multiple people, reloading would be almost useless unless you were willing to do so multiple times and play through large sections of the game over and over again.  Sure, you'd still get people who would do it and complain that they had to replay through big chunks over and over again to get what they want, but I'm kind of curious if those people really want to play an RPG, or just an interactive storybook.

(Yes, I've been playing Wizardry 8 recently )

Modifié par Vaeliorin, 11 mai 2013 - 04:38 .

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
I'm not sure I can safely make that same conclusion, but people do feel that way: that if they are being blocked from ALL content but that there is a round-about-way of obtaining it, that they MUST. It is human nature to want to experience everything. And you can either make the way to do so supported by game mechanics (like DA2, which has no non-combat options, simply dialogue options that are available based on non-limiting things, such as who is in your party) or you can make it un-gameable.  

It's about control. People (like me) dislike RNGs because it's just an absolute decree by developers that part of the game is beyond your control. While most things as a matter of fact are actually out of your control, that doesn't stop people from trying to assert as much control as possible. 

It is the irony of ironies that all too often people will complain about how cumbersome a system is simply because its cheats (of sorts) are so difficult, when removing the cheats in the first place can create a more interesting game experience.

Well, no. RNG gameplay is great for people that like random occurences out of their control, but the whole reason the issue exists in the first place is that not everyone agrees that the end result is a more interesting experience, instead of an incredibly unsatisfying one.

[In Exile]

Vaeliorin wrote...
They have, though.  Wizardry 8, for example, has a mythology skill that, depending on your level in it relative to an enemy, will show you things like enemy level, max hit points, current hit points, resistances, special attacks, attack range, etc. when you right click on them.  I wouldn't be opposed to something like that in DA, though it would only really make sense if the enemy resistances make sense (i.e. no more bandits who are randomly immune to ice, such as in DA2 on nightmare.)

Point taken. I should have specified Bioware (or 2000 era D&D-esque PC rpgs).

Sure, but this is another one of those I am not my character moments.  My character might have that intuition, but I personally don't, particularly in video games, where characters don't have unique body language or facial expressions.

Don't get me wrong - I appreciate where you're coming from. Though I will say that I find games that try to reflect facial expressions very easy to game because of the fact that everything, esentially, runs off standardized meshes.  

I guess it's just a matter of the fact that, to me, picking up a combat system is just a matter of putting in some effort (or reading tips on a forum) but I've spent a lifetime trying to learn how to interact with people and I just don't understand them at all.  Also, games have difficulty levels for combat.  They don't have difficulty levels for social interaction (though maybe they could).

Re: difficulty, I was thinking of bringing that up actually. 

In terms of the combat system, I'm not disagreeing with you - I just think it's important to appreciate that stat-based combat is not per se intuitive for everyone, and if the goal is absolute player-character separation, then combat fails to do it entirely. 

If you had mulitple conversation checks, potentially with multiple people, reloading would be almost useless unless you were willing to do so multiple times and play through large sections of the game over and over again.  Sure, you'd still get people who would do it and complain that they had to replay through big chunks over and over again to get what they want, but I'm kind of curious if those people really want to play an RPG, or just an interactive storybook.

I think the real end result you'd get is that people would throw the game away in frustration. I hate RNGs because, to me, at that point you don't have an RPG at all but rather just an RNG with pictures. Your decisions have no actual impact on the world - it's all arbitrary math.

Because nothing in the actual output changes - if you persuade the character, you get the [persuade] outcome that always looks the same, but the game has a random trigger for it. So sometimes logic + 50 will work, but other times secude +22 will work, and in both cases the PC will say the same line (logic or seduce) and the NPC will always react the same way. 

All of this creates the impression that there's no actual stable reality in the game, and it's incongruent, because it's not really a possible worlds thing - it's just the game telling you "LOLZ all values changed, now see every single part of the game that was under RNG when you replay!"