51 réponses à ce sujet

[The Night Haunter]

I can't tell you the number of times I heard 'How can I help?' or 'At your service.' or some other opening line instead of looting a chest or picking a lock in DAO/KotOR/ME. I think DAI's system will be perfect, it gets the best of both worlds. You can talk to them anytime (so long as you are in the keep) and go over some topics again (same as in DAO/ME/KotOR), and while out adventuring you won't mistakenly begin a conversation instead of looting/interacting with an item.

[ClericalRodent]

I kinda miss them and kinda don't. 

 

It used to annoy me to no end in Origins that one of my companions would inevitable walk in front of the cursor split second before I clicked it. So a lot of the game went something like this:

Me: *attempts to loot*

Companion: Sup?

Me: Nothing! Go away!

I always felt kinda bad telling them off all the time.

 

But at the same time, DA2's companions really don't speak to you outside quests. It would be nice to have random conversations with them at random times instead of scripted events.

[Snook]

Sure, though it kind of lead to a lot of repeats.

"Welllll, aren't you sweet and attentive?"

"Of course I am. But we should move on."

"Welllll, aren't you sweet and attentive?"

"Of course I am. But we should move on."

"Welllll, aren't you sweet and attentive?"

"Of course I am. But we should move on."

"Welllll, aren't you sweet and attentive?"

"Of course I am. But we should move on."

"Welllll, aren't you sweet and attentive?"

"Of course I am. But we should move on."

[seraphymon]

I miss it too. I wish it was anytime anywhere, I mean they arent even doing much cinematics anymore it seems, which sucks. I liked the instances like with Leliana. Its probably better than DA2 though, so theres that.

[GloriousDame]

I absolutely miss it.

Inquisition looks amazing, and I'm already loving it despite not having played it. However, my biggest disappointment in DA:I is the fact that the "anytime, anywhere" aspect of getting to know your comrades is gone and unlikely to come back. I understand the reasoning behind the devs choosing against it, but I'm certain they could have worked around the disadvantages. I just wish they had.

 

[CrazyMooNew]

Not really...at times it could really screw with the momentum of the game, and it also seemed out of place....having a hub where you're able to chat and talk about their past/decisions makes more sense...and the banter between part members in the 'field' is a great replacement for that old system.

[ParagonStovus]

  I'm just glad that we can at least have some kind of conversation with companions/advisors anytime we like in Skyhold. It really annoyed me how in DA2 you could supposedly become really good friends with someone like Varric, but then they would never stop to have a conversation with you unless they needed a favour of some kind.

 

   Anders had to be the worst offender, especially as an LI. If you refuse to help him put his little bomb in the Chantry, he's stuck on the same stupid line for the rest of the game no matter what you do. "Thank you. I wouldn't have asked just anyone to [dig through crap to help me build a bomb]. Argh...that bug made it so much easier to knife him.

[Lady Luminous]

Yes, so much yes. I loved being gore-spattered and grabbing Morrigan to kiss her. I miss Alistair giving me a rose in the library of the Circle.

 

And I would much rather check whether Sten has conversation options than get a stupid line from Merrill about why her house isn't clean! 

[Lady Luminous]

I can't tell you the number of times I heard 'How can I help?' or 'At your service.' or some other opening line instead of looting a chest or picking a lock in DAO/KotOR/ME. I think DAI's system will be perfect, it gets the best of both worlds. You can talk to them anytime (so long as you are in the keep) and go over some topics again (same as in DAO/ME/KotOR), and while out adventuring you won't mistakenly begin a conversation instead of looting/interacting with an item.

 

Oh good, I hadn't heard exactly how DA:I would work. That is a relief. 

[Lady Luminous]

Not particularly, no.

 

I had a bad habbit of accidentally clicking my party members, so there'd be really, really awkward moments when I and my LI were discussing our ~*relationship*~ right in front of the rest of the party, covered in bandit / darkspawn entrails.

 

The one that takes the cake is Alistar's hissy fit in the middle of the Deep Roads where he wanted to have the "are we a thing or do you fancy Zevran" convo. The kicker? I had talked to Zevran like three times, and two of them were gift-related. I hadn't even flirted with him, for Maker's sake!

 

But those are the best parts! I loved grabbing Morrigan and kissing her while we were both covered in blood! 

[TheChris92]

If I engage in conversation with them, and notice they have no new dialogue to add, then I stop clicking on them.

It's almost as if people feel the game compels them to go through the same expositive dialogue again.

[Lady Luminous]

It's almost as if people feel the game compels them to go through the same expositive dialogue again.

I was just about to say this! 

[EmperorKarino]

I've been playing some of my older games to save money as of late.  It's been a lot of fun.  After finishing KotOR on PC, I turned on my attention to Dragon Age: Origins.  Outside of combat, you could talk with your party members wherever and whenever you wanted to, and that was something I really enjoyed.  It felt dynamic and made the experience feel more unique to me, the player.

 

Obviously, this was a feature that was phased out over time.  Does anyone miss it?  Would anyone like to see it come back?  Anyone know why it was taken out of later games?  Would anyone have liked to see in Inquisition?

 

its a good system which i like, but i like the new system too where you talk to them at specific areas at certain times, it helps you know if you are progressing in their story or not. hopefully they can get to a point where you can choose which option you prefer before you start the game. that probably won't be soon, if they cared to do it.

[dsl08002]

I prefer the old ways compared to the stupid auto dialouge system

[craigdolphin]

I missed them enormously in DA2. I know that for many the repeated environments etc were the biggest issue with DA2, but for me, the conversation system changes were the thing that undermined what is, IMO, the most important aspect of Bioware games: the believability of the characters as 'people'.

 

Granted, the implementation in Origins was not perfect. Yes, you could binge on the conversations and eventually run out of new material. That's the downside and I do not minimize it. (I do think a different solution to that problem could have been developed than the one they chose which removed player agency from the ability to initiate conversations).

 

Since the player could never initiate conversation outside their little 'conversation theatre', it felt to me that the party members were nothing more than walking combat assets while on the road. NPC's could initiate conversations if triggered, but never the reverse. For me this removed the two-way street of the relationship. For example, I had Aveline in my party. I get a message that Aveline wants to see me in her barracks. Could I turn to Aveline and say 'What's up?' even when she is right beside me? No. FFS. How absurd is that? If I could have asked and just got a repsonse like 'Not here, I need to speak to you privately...' as a response that would have added a much greater sense of believability to the relationship than the way it was actually implemented.

 

The whole point of the removing this ability that was stated in the past was to increase the cinematic feel of the conversations because the devs felt that it was too 'jarring' to have some conversations that are fully staged (characters interacting within a specific envirnment where camera angles and environmental object can be opart of the scene) versus the 'talking heads' unstaged conversations of DAO. This is part of the grand design emphasis on making the game a more cinematic experience. Unfortunately for me, everytime they make a design tradeoff to accomodate their desire to make the games more cinematic, it feels like it is always player agency that suffers.

 

I think it absolutely sucks that player agency in the conversaation system has been gutted since Origins. I feel like it really harms how I feel about my companions as the game wears on. In DAO I felt like the party members were almost friends as well as allies on a dangerous journey. In DA2, I barely gave a crap about them as every time I left their little 'conversation theatre box' they ceased being 'people' and just turned into combat-focussed 'assets'. It partioned the game into two parts: 90% combat missions, and the seemingly much less important 10% of getting to know these part-time people.

 

And honestly, after watching the gameplay videos, I'm highly sceptical that the 'jarring' aspects of the staged vs non-staged conversations is any worse than what I feel is jarring about the current setup. For example, in the Skyhold stream, there's a part where the PC walks up some steps to an area in Skyhold where one of the party members hangs out. As you head up the stairs you see the party member standing by themselves. Then the cinematic conversation starts and suddenly you see the NPC sitting down playing chess with another NPC who was not there 1 second previously. Sure, it's a lovely cinematic scene. But where the heck did the other guy come from? How did the original NPC teleport from where he was standing to where he was now sitting. And clearly the chess game is nearly over when the scene starts. So we now have a skip in both spatial and temporal expectations set by what you could see as you walked up the stairs. Is this game breaking? No. Does it end up create a jarring experience between normal gameplay and the conematic scene? Absolutely it does. All they've done is trade one supposedly jarring experience for another type of jarring experience.

 

Not everyone will care about that, but for me it does matter when the stated reason for removing a feature I really liked is to avoid having a jarring experience by allowing unstaged and staged conversations to coexist in the game. So we've lost player agency and we still have jarring experiences. Where's the upside?

 

I think that it would have been better to refine the conversation system to provide a better range of contextual parameters that would dynamically enable or disable conversation options, and to have permitted unstaged conversations on the road, to coexist with fully staged conversations in predictable locations. It really would not have been that cenceptually difficult to disable conversations in the presence of hostiles, or to gate specific conversation topics based on factors such as private versus public locations, or presence of absence of specific NPC's, as well as quest flag status etc.

 

I don't think that would have been any more jarring than what we have ended up with in DAI. And perhaps they could have put more resources into developing procedurally generated cinematics per John Epler's long-ago comments, if they really wanted to improve on the feel of the unstaged conversations. However, I'm obviously not the game's lead designer or producer and they went in the opposite direction and prioritized cinematics over player agency. That's their call to make but I really hate it For me, I feel like that aspect of their top level design document has been the central thing that has driven so many of the changes to the succesful DAO formula into the flawed DA2 one. And I'm not yet convinced that prioritizing cinematics and iconic appearances is really as beneficial as they still seem to think, as it always comes at the cost of what historically separated their games from the herd: namely creating great characters and respecting player agency.

 

So yeah, I really miss the anytime anywhere conversations. I've been concerned about this aspect since my experience with DA2 and I recall lamenting their demise and pleading with devs like David Gaider for more freedom to initiate conversations. I am doing my best to keep an open mind with regard to how DAI's conversation works, but I am still very worried about whether the disjointed experience with your companions that was the DA2 experience will carry over into DAI.

 

There's a lot that looks great about DAI, but this aspect is one of the few things still holding DAI back from being able to compete with Origins for me.

[katerinafm]

Yes, I loved it and I'm sad that it's gone.

[Revan Reborn]

Here's the issue. Those in favor want to have suspension of disbelief that there companions are actually living and and are responsive individuals. They see it as restricting and breaking immersion that they can only have in-depth conversations either at Skyhold or during important story plots. Those against grew tired of the lack of dialogue and redundancy of what the companions would say overtime (especially in DAO, companions generally never had anything new to add other than describing the scenery of a new location).

 

What would be ideal? Overall more dialogue to prevent looping and to create more variety. It would also be nice if we weren't forced into the cinematic camera if conversation was a mistake by just having a dialogue from the in-game perspective (which DAI is incorporating). Ultimately, Dragon Age is a RPG where combat will be a majority of what we participate in. Yes, the story, characters, and dialogue are important. However, this isn't a book. This is not a movie. We are not participating in some sort of friendship or dating simulator. These elements are meant to add to the experience, rather than consume it.

 

I don't believe anyone is arguing that there isn't room for improvement on BioWare's part. That being said, I believe it should be put into perspective that the "nostalgic days" of on-the-fly dialogue wasn't as wonderful or amazing as some here are posing it as to be. I'm all for dialogue and choices, but only if it's done in an organic and consistent way.

[natalscar]

Yes

[sylvanaerie]

Some were better than others.  My favorite was the girl talk between a Lady Warden romancing Alistair and Leliana who asks about his 'performance'.  

It was even better if Alistair is in the party as well.

 

[Face of Evil]

Not me. I rarely stopped to talk to companions unless I had to. I preferred to have conversations in camp.

 

I'm not certain how it's more realistic to give party members the opportunity when we're, say, trudging through a haunted forest hunting werewolves. And then there were the accidental clicks.

[LightningPoodle]

I miss it as well. However, when it gets to the point where you have no more topics to discuss it can be quite annoying because you could miss something without knowing it, or you keep checking only to get nothing new. I feel like it made immersion into the game a lot better and a lot easier. Going to a companions home to do one quick little chat didn't always sit right, sometimes the discussion could have been done on the road in the middle of searching through a cave or something rather than having to travel to say, Fenris' house to give him a new sword. With DA:O, it felt easier to discuss something with companions on the road such as in Lothering rather than at camp. Such when in the Orzammar, Leliana says "Look at those subterranean bunny-pigs". You wouldn't get that when at camp.

 

 

[TheChris92]

Here's the issue. Those in favor want to have suspension of disbelief that there companions are actually living and and are responsive individuals. They see it as restricting and breaking immersion that they can only have in-depth conversations either at Skyhold or during important story plots. Those against grew tired of the lack of dialogue and redundancy of what the companions would say overtime (especially in DAO, companions generally never had anything new to add other than describing the scenery of a new location).

I don't get that part "grew tired of lack of dialogue". How is the different from DA2 or the other games? At some point the companions don't have anything new to share, which has never been different. The only real redundancy I suppose is the initiative dialogue line, with companions, whereas I see it: If that really annoys you then I imagine there'd be thousands of things there'd be even more annoying.. again that's just me of course. What's been changed is that the player is no longer in control of initiating conversation, at their own convenience, which in of itself felt nicer -- To me of course, can't speak on the behalf of others.
I suppose the restriction is always a negative but I mostly miss the atmosphere of initiating conversation with party members in eerie environments or interesting areas like the Undercity in KOTOR, or wherever in Jade Empire, Redcliffe in Origins etc. The fact that you can explore an area, your companion might comment and you talk to them and find they have a new unique dialogue open to talk about -- like Sten in Origins. There's also a neat thing with Alistair, if you romance him and you talk to Leliana while he's in the party, he'll interject in the conversation which was surprising as much as it was neat.

What would be ideal? Overall more dialogue to prevent looping and to create more variety. It would also be nice if we weren't forced into the cinematic camera if conversation was a mistake by just having a dialogue from the in-game perspective (which DAI is incorporating). Ultimately, Dragon Age is a RPG where combat will be a majority of what we participate in. Yes, the story, characters, and dialogue are important. However, this isn't a book. This is not a movie. We are not participating in some sort of friendship or dating simulator. These elements are meant to add to the experience, rather than consume it.

Not entirely sure whether you're trying to argue "what makes a game" or "what makes an RPG" either way save it for another thread. Also I generally disagree with these points. Combat heavy games are the ones you'll find being made by Platinum or From Software -- RPGs are dialogue heavier games with intricate combat systems etc. That's how I see it. But let's not get into that discussion, okay?
 

I don't believe anyone is arguing that there isn't room for improvement on BioWare's part. That being said, I believe it should be put into perspective that the "nostalgic days" of on-the-fly dialogue wasn't as wonderful or amazing as some here are posing it as to be. I'm all for dialogue and choices, but only if it's done in an organic and consistent way.

Your opinion has been noted.

[Lady Luminous]

I don't get that part "grew tired of lack of dialogue". How is the different from DA2 or the other games? At some point the companions don't have anything new, which isn't new, that's never changed. The only real redundancy I suppose is the initiate dialogue line, whereas if that really annoys you then I imagine there'd be thousands of things there'd be even more annoying.. again that's just me of course. What's been changed is that the player is no longer in control of initiating conversation, at their own convenience, which in of itself felt nicer -- To me of course, can't speak on the behalf of others.

 

I'd much rather go through Sten's let's-get-moving dialogue line than ever hear Merrill say "By the dread wolf!" ever, ever again. 

[DarkKnightHolmes]

I prefer being able to talk to companions anywhere and anytime compared to DA2's random one liners.

[Lady Luminous]

I prefer being able to talk to companions anywhere and anytime compared to DA2's random one liners.

 

Agreed. And I missed kissing my LI no matter where we were - even if that makes me some DA Sim Dater sterotype that people scoff at.