406 réponses à ce sujet

[Darth Krytie]

@David Gaider.

 

I vaguely recall seeing something about this elsewhere, but not for a while and I cannot remember the entirety of it anyhow.

 

I like the wheel/s and dialogue icons just fine, but sometimes I felt the paraphrases were...not as useful as they could be. Do you think they're a bit more fine-tuned this time around? To more accurately indicate what's to be said?

 

I know that you wouldn't intentionally release a product that's confusing....but DA2 was a learning experience in using that sort of feature at all...trial and error and all...do you feel that there's been a fair improvement in that area?

[AlanC9]

Please use betatesters that have different viewpoints in life and from different countries so you get different opinions from the reports.

 

 

At what point would a non-English version be available for testing?

[Bond]

 Farci, my post is hardly ranting. I asked the question why icons are not a toggle since there is toggles for far bigger things that request more development time. Also i am not trying to get attention, i just cant understand this decision and literally dont understand how it is making the game better.  One thing is not to like something, but i find it inappropriate to the game... Plus, i am doing it to prevent it from happening in other bioware games.

David Gaider, i see your point, the dev team probably believe it is for best, hence why they are doing it, but having something deeply hidden in the  options menu as a toggle, wont hurt anyone. For example, you finally decide to include a toggle in the game and icons remain the default choice. If there are people who really enjoy having icons, they wont even care if there is option in the menu that removes them. Others, like me, can go and toggle it off. You could put warning, that if you do so, you can fall to conclusion (wont be true, but wash your hands in case someone is not happy with it). 

On the question is it worth the effort....I still believe you underestimate the hate this feature got in DA2. I was not around in here back then, but i read vast amount of comments in IGN and Eurogamer. I rarely read anything there, but was wondering if i was alone in this. I think if you check now the DA2 review in those sites you will most definetely find a lot of negative comments about the dialogue system and especially the icons and fixed positions. 

As you know ME3 got a lot of heat on the dialogue system, especially for the fact that there was only two options (which i understand, cause it worked plot-wise) but even ME3 did not get such a horrible receiving on this front. I believe that DA2 got worse reaction than ME3 conversation-wise (even with the extra line in the middle) because it just felt really simple and childish (no offence, my opinion, my 2 cents) because of these symbols in the middle. 

Edit : I will give some examples of people who agree with me, answering the question if it is worth doing. You satisfy pretty big crowd with not much effort.

http://social.biowar...12755326-1.html


http://procrastinati...t-dragon-age-2/

http://www.giantbomb...passion-486305/

[In Exile]

@David Gaider.

I vaguely recall seeing something about this elsewhere, but not for a while and I cannot remember the entirety of it anyhow.

I like the wheel/s and dialogue icons just fine, but sometimes I felt the paraphrases were...not as useful as they could be. Do you think they're a bit more fine-tuned this time around? To more accurately indicate what's to be said?

I know that you wouldn't intentionally release a product that's confusing....but DA2 was a learning experience in using that sort of feature at all...trial and error and all...do you feel that there's been a fair improvement in that area?

The problem with DA2 paraphrases was an apparent design decision that the paraphrase and spoken line should have no words in common. This is a problem because not all English works can be replaced with synonyms and still mean the same thing. Skill and ability can be synonyms, for example, but when you surround each with other synonyms you can really change the meaning of the phrase.

[David Gaider]

I like the wheel/s and dialogue icons just fine, but sometimes I felt the paraphrases were...not as useful as they could be. Do you think they're a bit more fine-tuned this time around? To more accurately indicate what's to be said?

 

I know that you wouldn't intentionally release a product that's confusing....but DA2 was a learning experience in using that sort of feature at all...trial and error and all...do you feel that there's been a fair improvement in that area?

 

Yes, for three main reasons:

 

1) We'll have more time to test them. More eyes on the paraphrases means more catching of the awkward ones.

 

2) We no longer have choice options breaking out into three different lines, based on dominant tone. The issue with that was basically that we needed to differentiate between the three lines as much as possible, and that thus made it difficult to match a paraphrase to all three. I think we chalked that up to "nice idea, but not worth the trouble to refine further".

 

3) We're no longer anal about not having words/phrases repeated between paraphrase and actual line. Originally we attempted to have the paraphrase and actual line flow together, as if you could have them read out loud and still sound OK, and worried about any repetitiveness. We dropped that. A word repeated is fine, and if the real line is short enough (and the intent in it is clear) the paraphrase might be the full line and not need paraphrasing at all.

 

Is that going to eliminate all incidents of misalignment? Of course not, but then again no dialogue system can, as it is never one-size-fits-all.

[AlanC9]

I'm not clear how much confusion LoyalFan is asking to be added to the system. Would toggling the icons off actually work, or would Bio also have to randomize the positions of the lines on the wheel? You didn't really need to see the aggressive icon in DA2 because that line was always on the lower right, etc, just as you don't actually need to see the P/R colors in ME. But I suppose a player might be able to ignore the position if he really tried.

 

Edit: I guess it depends on what's actually bad about seeing the icons in the first place.

[AlanC9]

Edit : I will give some examples of people who agree with me, answering the question if it is worth doing. You satisfy pretty big crowd with not much effort.

http://social.biowar...12755326-1.html


http://procrastinati...t-dragon-age-2/

http://www.giantbomb...passion-486305/

 

You've misread the Procrastination Amplification post. His problem wasn't with the icons per se. His problem was that responses to the lines were predictable. Characters always respond positively to the diplomatic lines, for instance, which wasn't the case with Sten in DAO. A toggle to turn icons off wouldn't help with this since the real problem is with the dialogue structure and NPC reactions, not the icons. Although I suppose one could argue that DA2 NPC reactions might have been shaped around predictable responses to the icons. If Morrigan had been a DA2 character, would she have responded well to all "heart" lines? This could be a rel design issue. ( Mr. Gaider, can you comment?)

 

And that OKTank post is just confused. He's wildly overstating how many different dialogue options there are in a DAO conversation, probably because putting the investigate line in the same list the decision lines are in makes it look like more's going on than there actually is. Or perhaps letting the player fool himself is the point?

[fchopin]

At what point would a non-English version be available for testing?

I am talking about the English version to be tested.
The reason I said by different people from other countries is to have a variation of people who do not have the same outlook in life so the developers get a more correct result than they are getting at the moment.

Mr Gaider says that his investigation is that people do not want to read and I find that very strange.

[Allan Schumacher]

Just to add, game development could be, in many ways, consisting mostly of "not very large tasks" that numbers in the 1000+.

 

So while yes, "two days at tops" may be accurate to implement something like this, it means two days not spent working on something else.  It could be 4 things that are "half a day at tops" that get lost.

[fchopin]

Just to add, game development could be, in many ways, consisting mostly of "not very large tasks" that numbers in the 1000+.
 
So while yes, "two days at tops" may be accurate to implement something like this, it means two days not spent working on something else.  It could be 4 things that are "half a day at tops" that get lost.

This is a very important option that we have been asking for a long time Allan so it is not a triviality and I think many people want this.

[CybAnt1]

Yes, for three main reasons:

 

1) We'll have more time to test them. More eyes on the paraphrases means more catching of the awkward ones.

 

2) We no longer have choice options breaking out into three different lines, based on dominant tone. The issue with that was basically that we needed to differentiate between the three lines as much as possible, and that thus made it difficult to match a paraphrase to all three. I think we chalked that up to "nice idea, but not worth the trouble to refine further".

 

3) We're no longer anal about not having words/phrases repeated between paraphrase and actual line. Originally we attempted to have the paraphrase and actual line flow together, as if you could have them read out loud and still sound OK, and worried about any repetitiveness. We dropped that. A word repeated is fine, and if the real line is short enough (and the intent in it is clear) the paraphrase might be the full line and not need paraphrasing at all.

 

Is that going to eliminate all incidents of misalignment? Of course not, but then again no dialogue system can, as it is never one-size-fits-all.

 

Thank you, Lord Gaider. I believe those are three excellent steps toward reducing some problems some folks had with DA2's dialogue system. 

 

And thank you, Darth Krytie, for asking in a way that was probably more of the Diplomatic approach than mine, which tended toward Aggressive, otherwise we might not have known the steps they were taking.

[John Epler]

This is a very important option that we have been asking for a long time Allan so it is not a triviality and I think many people want this.

 

There are a dozen features -I- want that aren't making it into the final game.

 

There are a dozen features every single dev on this project wants that aren't making it into the final game.

 

Not to come across as too much of a jerk, but development is not a democracy. I also take any request prefaced with 'many people' or 'test it to get a more correct result' with a grain of salt, as the former is vague about -who-, and the latter suggests that any option that isn't the one you want is not the correct one.

 

I'm not discounting that a number of people want it. However, all features take time, and we need to be very careful about how we allocate programming and testing resources.

[CybAnt1]

I'm not clear how much confusion LoyalFan is asking to be added to the system. Would toggling the icons off actually work, or would Bio also have to randomize the positions of the lines on the wheel? You didn't really need to see the aggressive icon in DA2 because that line was always on the lower right, etc, just as you don't actually need to see the P/R colors in ME. But I suppose a player might be able to ignore the position if he really tried.

 

Edit: I guess it depends on what's actually bad about seeing the icons in the first place.

 

As I've said a couple of times on this issue, personally, no I wouldn't want all the icons to go away. 

 

That said, I would love to see THIS icon. A lot. (Or whatever its DAI equivalent might end up being.)

 

Choice Appears when Hawke can choose from multiple responses that all address the situation in different ways. May lead to a rivalry or friendship increase. Your guide should be your knowledge of the person in question.

 

Usually when the Choice icon came up, you could choose from 2 or maybe even 3 responses, that were all marked Choice. 

 

Point is, you couldn't pick the Friendly vs. Angry vs. Sarcastic response, or use tonal markings as a guide. 

 

You simply had to choose from among three alternatives, none being marked any differently from each other. 

 

That to me is what some (note I did not say all) dialogue should be like. Forcing you to choose based on something other than tone. Like the actual words that were there. 

 

I also personally think that when the Heart/Flirt option comes up, there should also be multiple possibilities for romantic dialogue, not just one. And, yes, BTW picking the wrong ones could impact the romance negatively, and the right ones impact it positively. 

 

That would provide ... verisimilitude. 

[Allan Schumacher]

That to me is what some (note I did not say all) dialogue should be like. Forcing you to choose based on something other than tone. Like the actual words that were there.

 

This is the case.

[fchopin]

There are a dozen features -I- want that aren't making it into the final game.
 
There are a dozen features every single dev on this project wants that aren't making it into the final game.
 
Not to come across as too much of a jerk, but development is not a democracy. I also take any request prefaced with 'many people' or 'test it to get a more correct result' with a grain of salt, as the former is vague about -who-, and the latter suggests that any option that isn't the one you want is not the correct one.
 
I'm not discounting that a number of people want it. However, all features take time, and we need to be very careful about how we allocate programming and testing resources.

I understand Mr. Epler and I have accepted that we will not have this feature in DAI but all I ask is to please consider it for the future.

[Darth Krytie]

There are a dozen features -I- want that aren't making it into the final game.

 

There are a dozen features every single dev on this project wants that aren't making it into the final game.

 

Not to come across as too much of a jerk, but development is not a democracy. I also take any request prefaced with 'many people' or 'test it to get a more correct result' with a grain of salt, as the former is vague about -who-, and the latter suggests that any option that isn't the one you want is not the correct one.

 

I'm not discounting that a number of people want it. However, all features take time, and we need to be very careful about how we allocate programming and testing resources.

 

I have always wondered in regards to testing minor features goes...do you playthrough with focus on one particular minor feature to see if it works? Or do you look out for several at once?  Or am I ignorantly assuming that there's a difference between minor/major features on your end?

[CybAnt1]

Not to come across as too much of a jerk, but development is not a democracy. I also take any request prefaced with 'many people' or 'test it to get a more correct result' with a grain of salt, as the former is vague about -who-, and the latter suggests that any option that isn't the one you want is not the correct one.

 

 

Fair enough, but I think it's also fair to ask when it's stated "we play-tested it and got this response from play-testers," that something is known about the player sample's characteristics. 

 

After all, bad samples lead to bad conclusions. 

 

It is legitimate for people to ask. Not to demand, but OK to ask. 

 

I mean, it is what I would ask of the presentation of any other kind of survey/test data. 

 

For example, I think fchopin was asking if everybody tested were all Americans, and not from other nationalities, as that is one form of sample bias. (Which wouldn't matter if the game was made only for Americans, but is released in several languages other than English.) 

 

I also would personally be curious (as I've said a few times) if dialogue play testing used a sample that was sufficiently varied & random on age, prior gaming experience, and preferred gaming platform. Those variables might matter. 

 

I accept that people here on the forums are probably extremely unrepresentative of the millions of buyers and players. That doesn't mean sampling doesn't become a problem if the sample you choose is something other than "BSN forumgoers". 

[CybAnt1]

This is the case.

 

Good. 

[CybAnt1]

BTW, has anybody at Bioware read the literature on groupthink? 

 

http://en.wikipedia....ational_culture

 

Where culture is strong, people do things because they believe it is the right thing to do, and there is a risk of another phenomenon, groupthink. "Groupthink" was described by Irving Janis. He defined it as "a quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking that people engage when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternatives of action." (Irving Janis, 1972, p. 9) This is a state in which even if they have different ideas, do not challenge organizational thinking, and therefore there is a reduced capacity for innovative thoughts. This could occur, for example, where there is heavy reliance on a central charismatic figure in the organization, or where there is an evangelical belief in the organization' values, or also in groups where a friendly climate is at the base of their identity (avoidance of conflict). In fact, groupthink is very common and happens all the time, in almost every group. Members that are defiant are often turned down or seen as a negative influence by the rest of the group because they bring conflict.

 

[end]

 

Just wondering. 

[David Gaider]

Just wondering. 

 

The implication being what, precisely? Do please inform me.

[John Epler]

Our focus tests tend to have a fairly wide variety of viewpoints and perspectives represented in them. We can't get every single viewpoint, obviously, but we do try to bring in as many different people as we can.

 

Beyond that, not much I can really comment on. As for the groupthink post - you're welcome to believe whatever you want, but I've been in enough lively debates and arguments that I'm pretty comfortable saying that isn't an issue.

[Darth Krytie]

BTW, has anybody at Bioware read the literature on groupthink? 

 

snip

 

Just wondering. 

 

You don't ever pull punches, do you?

[Rel Fexive]

I can only remember one instance of the spoken words being very different to the option I chose: choosing "this is what I was helping you do, Anders?" in the endgame of DA2 somehow became "if you'd told me what you were doing I might've supported you".   Um.... just, no.

 

Other than that, I don't recall any other jarring incidents.  Maybe I'm just really laid back about it or something.

[CybAnt1]

The implication being what, precisely? Do please inform me.

 

Well, the research on it tends to suggest that people who propose alternatives are viewed as adversarial. Both within, and outside, the organization.

 

Can't know what's going on within an organization besides what it's willing to reveal or tell. I can, however, observe its behavior to those outside. 

 

Loyal Fan definitely needs to move toward being constructive and not simply adversarial.

 

However, those who are not being adversarial, shouldn't be viewed as such. 

[CybAnt1]

You don't ever pull punches, do you?

 

It was just a question. 

 

After all, what one makes of a question is always subject to interpretation, and I haven't yet given the interpretation of that question someone should hold. 

 

It wasn't one of hostility. 

 

I believe it's useful reading for anybody in any organization, for-profit or not-for-profit, commercial, scientific, or religious, and I belong to several.