54 réponses à ce sujet

[Linkenski]

The dialogue wheel was always constructed in a set of variants, whether it be the 'elaborate or cut to the chase' two-fold dialogue wheels, or the standard one with paragon, neutral and renegade (and sometimes a sub-tree with investigative options).

 

Here's what a full dialogue wheel looks like:

 

 

In Mass Effect 1 we see a lot of trees that look typically like--

 

This:

 

Or this:

                                  _____

                               /            \

Tell me more ---|               |--- Goodbye.

                               \ _____ /

 

And for the most part this is a formula that is also common in Mass Effect 2, except in a lot of the trees there will only be two options on the right side, like a neutral and a paragon, or a neutral and a renegade. Of course these wheels freely vary completely depending on what the context is and usually they have a set of dialogue options that will satisfy our curiosity and our mindset by letting us express ourselves in more than one way.

 

Then how come that we got this in what Bioware, at the time, hyped up to be the "biggest sequel ever!"

 

and in rare cases a "full ME3 dialogue wheel"

 

(and these often have a singular extra option in the middle at the left side, like an "elaborate plz" option)

 

As a rule there is never a neutral middle option, unless it's the scene with Liara asking you about what to input about yourself in her capsule  wannabe Prothean beacon thing, but I don't get it. What is so wrong about being indecisive about something? What is wrong with letting me say "I don't care, I'll just go along with it" with a neutral dialogue option? Was it really that hard to occasionally add that extra choice?

 

But even worse, why are the dialogue wheels no longer flexible? Why is it so rigidly designed with predictable options in their slots almost every time a wheel appears? What happened to contextual dialogue and dialogue options that let us peek our curiosity like in 1 and 2? Seriously, Bioware. Your Dialogue wheel from ME1 and ME2 was the best design choice I have (almost) ever seen in an RPG. Why did they skimp on their best feature, and what was, for me, the main selling point? ME1's dialogue wheel seemed to have the rule that all choice trees should have all three options, and likewise ME3 seems to have the same rule just with Paragon and renegade and no neutral, but ME2 was flexible; it had the options that "we'd want to say" depending on the context (FOR THE MOST PART IMO) and it seemed like a very concious design choice from Bioware.

 

And better yet: Will they reduce or increase the potential for the dialogue wheel with Mass Effect 4? I say, if Bioware can get Halo 4 Lead Writer on board, they damn well can get Armando Troisi back too because he did wonders for ME2.

[Lee T]

The weirdest thing about the dialog wheel is to see the ME team, who invented it, slowly stripping it of content and while the DA team was trying to improve and develop it by adding new stuff through tone and icons.

[Farangbaa]

ME3 has more words than ME2, way more.

every extra option is more voice work

[ZipZap2000]

Conversations seemed to have more depth in general in ME2 they were more personal, I can see exactly what you mean with the wheel too Conversations with Mordin and Samara spring to mind immediately. ME1 seems to have the most options on the wheel for me but less unique responses. ME3, meh. The dialogue wheel felt a bit off and I felt you couldn't have those deeper more personal conversations because you stayed in 3rd person, where as in ME2 you were actually watching two people having a talk and directing that talk as you see fit.

 

Not a fan of removing the dialogue wheel in favour of predetermined conversations between Shep and his crew,, particularly with Ashley I might not like her much but I like to disagree with her anyway.

[Drone223]

In ME2 you had to chose either all paragon or all renegade in order to pass the loyalty checks. So ME2's dialogue wheel is by no means balanced.

[RoboticWater]

I'm pretty sure that ME2 just seemed like it had more dialog. Voiced RPGs have a tendency to massage the actual amount of dialog options by sprinkling in neutral options which lead to the exact same VO result (either good or bad given the context).

 

Of course, that's no reason MENext can't have more extensive dialog. I'd like to see deeper and more numerous "investigate" options and significantly less auto-win options. 

[Revan Reborn]

It should be noted that ME1 had a four year development cycle (after the release of KotOR in 2003), ME 2 had a three year development cycle (after the release of ME1 in 2007), and ME3 had a two year development cycle (after the release of ME2 in 2010). If we are to use time as a way of drawing correlations, BioWare just simply did not have enough to fully realize the dialogue wheel in ME3. In fact, we know quite a bit of dialogue and voice acting was cut from ME3 before it was released (Anderson, for example, was supposed to have a much larger role).

 

That being said, I always felt the dialogue wheel, itself, was rather simplistic due to the Paragon/Renegade format. While it could be entertaining or even funny, it certainly wasn't believable and left a somewhat shallow experience as a result. I would have much preferred Shepard would have had to deal with more moral dilemmas (Arrival DLC as a perfect example) and having choices that weren't necessary "right" or "wrong." I think it leads to a more interesting and compelling experience when we have to think about our choices and we aren't just choosing a choice because it happens to be in a certain place on the wheel giving me certain "good" or "evil" points.

 

The dialogue wheel was an amazing innovation and took BioWare storytelling to a new level. That being said, I don't believe Mass Effect, as a whole, has used the feature that well. I'm hoping that Dragon Age, which doesn't have Renegade/Paragon, will have choices more akin to The Witcher series, where we aren't necessarily making morally black or white options. I thought DAO handled it rather well, while DA2 relied on ME conventions through the diplomacy/aggressive/humorous personalities. That still isn't as morally transparent as Mass Effect, but I'd like to see BioWare make our choices more complex and difficult and not always lead to predictable scenarios.

 

Otherwise, we aren't really choosing choices at all. We are just making choices BioWare obviously wants us to make whether we make a stereotypical good guy or bad guy. The system needs to be much more flexible and interesting.

[Probe Away]

In ME2 you had to chose either all paragon or all renegade in order to pass the loyalty checks. So ME2's dialogue wheel is by no means balanced.

 

Don't blame the wheel, man.  It's just the messenger, not the morality points system.

[Farangbaa]

In ME2 you had to chose either all paragon or all renegade in order to pass the loyalty checks. So ME2's dialogue wheel is by no means balanced.

 

Not true.

 

 

No cheating (i.e. editing saves). Final persuasion check in the game, for me.

 

This is how it works:

 

 

It's not about how much points you have, but about how you have/how much you could've gotten. Like this:

c = check
x = score
y = points you have
z = points you could've gotten

x = y/z and x > c to pass the check
separate values for renegade and paragon, we'll call them x® and x(p), for lack of subscript

Fresh characters (non-import) start off with y = 0 and z = 0
First time you can score points (conversation with Jacob) you can get 2 renegade at your first dialogue choice and 2 paragon or renegade at the second.

For the first:

You pick the renegade, renegade value changes to this:

x® = 2/2 --> x® = 1

Picking any other option:

x® = 0/2 --> x® = 0

For the second (assuming you picked the renegade first)

Picking paragon

x(p) = 2/2 --> x(p) = 1
x® = 2/4 --> x® = 0,5

Picking renegade:

x(p) = 0/2 --> x(p) = 0
x® = 4/4 --> x® = 1

These x values determine whether you pass a check. Check values are between 0 and 1 (with 1 most likely never happening, but I have no hard values for c). If you picked renegade twice you'd pass all renegade checks at that point and no paragon checks. Picking renegade first and paragon second you'd pass all paragon check ( x(p) being 1!) and most renegade checks. Picking all top options you'd pass no renegade checks and all paragon checks.

Imported characters with 50% bars filled in ME1 get 190 points added to their y values (points you have). Pure ME1 paragons will only get 190 added to paragon, pure renegades 190 to renegade. You only need about 50% of the bar filled though. This then changes like follows:

First option, picking renegade:

x® = 192/2 = 96

Any other

x® = 190/2 = 95.

Not gonna bother to write out the rest, but you can see this allows way more leniency in mixing it up. Remember that c is a value between 0 and 1.

The bars you see on the character screen only show the y value, the z and x values are hidden

Hmm... dit not expect x(.r) without the dot to change to x® lol.

[AlanC9]

I'm pretty sure that ME2 just seemed like it had more dialog. Voiced RPGs have a tendency to massage the actual amount of dialog options by sprinkling in neutral options which lead to the exact same VO result (either good or bad given the context).

 

Of course, that's no reason MENext can't have more extensive dialog. I'd like to see deeper and more numerous "investigate" options and significantly less auto-win options. 

 

Yep. Everyone who's ever looked at the .tlk files discovers that the amount of dialogue increased with each game.

 

However, ME3 did have fewer "investigate " options. Instead, that information is simply served up in a conversation without the player having to explicitly make Shepard ask about the topic. In effect, this trades off interaction with the dialogue wheel for conversation flow. Whether this is good or bad is a matter of taste. I'm personally fine with it, since with one or two exceptions -- like the really stupid questions Shepard can ask in ME1 -- I would just run through all of the investigate options anyway. And in top-to-bottom order, since I've found that the writers often have the lower node dialogue assume Shepard's heard about stuff mentioned in the upper nodes. So those wheel actions were generally pointless for me anyway, since I was just going to click 1-2-3.

[MegaIllusiveMan]

Yeah, there are a bazillion options for the ME1 Dialogue Wheel.

 

They all end up (in majority of the Case) in Shepard saying the exact same thing, but the difference that choosing the bottom gives you Renegade and the Top, Paragon and the Middle, neither.

[SNascimento]

For me, ME2 dialogue system felt the best of the trilogy by a long shot. It felt much more natural than ME1 which a lot of times had Shepard either saying almost the same thing or just asking question. Compared to ME3 it had much more options, at least I felt my Shepard was at his best in the second game. I really felt I shaped the character the way I wanted. That didn't happen in ME3.

Also, let's not forget interrupts! They were brilliant in ME2 and there are lot of memorable moments from them. They were there in ME3 but they felt so lazy, so without inspiration... I don't know why. 

[CroGamer002]

ME3 has more words than ME2, way more.

every extra option is more voice work

Meanwhile at Dragon Age, they're giving you option for two different voices for male and female PC. So 4 voice actors doing massive voice work, yet DA team is expanding on dialogue tree.

[Farangbaa]

Meanwhile at Dragon Age, they're giving you option for two different voices for male and female PC. So 4 voice actors doing massive voice work, yet DA team is expanding on dialogue tree.

 

Never said it was impossible, I just gave the practical reason why they didn't.

 

besides, you have no idea how many words there are in DA:I. For all we know, even with 4 voice actors for the PC, there could be less words.

[MrFob]

In ME3, it was a very difficult issue. As Psychevore says, there was heaps of dialogue in ME3. There is always a trade-off between how varied player agency can be and how varied the plot can be. In ME3, the plot already had to take into account a lot of variables that accumulated from the previous two games, so the plot was extremely varied. It is therefore no surprise that Shepard's responses had o be limited to some extent.

 

BTW, ME2 also had many situations where you do not get a full dialogue wheel (there is the infamous screenshot from the start of the Purgatory mission, where you can basically choose between "No" and "No way" for example).

And as MegaIllusiveMan says, the options on the dialogue wheel in ME1 would often end up with Shepard actually saying the same line.

 

That said, when first playing through ME3, I also immediately and negatively noticed the constraints in the dialogue wheel (more than in ME1 or 2).

In ME1, even if Sheprd would say the same line, the different options on the wheel put that line into a different context in my mind. While I would notice the "false" diversity in subsequent playthroughs, this illusion actually worked rather well and I personally would maybe even have preferred it in ME3. I know that a lot of people criticized this false diversity in ME1 and with good reason. I am just saying that it was ok for me.

 

In ME2, while the wheel was often more constraints, the design of the dialogues was very well crafted, so that I almost never missed an option. While often, there would only be two options, I hardly ever had a situation where I wanted to say something else. This is a tribute to the dialogue writers I guess, who did a really good job in working within the limitations they had. You have to give them kudos for that because I imagine it is really difficult.

In ME3, I had several instances where I was looking of a third option because I couldn't find the line for the opinion, that I thought "my" Shepard would express in that situation. Maybe this is because the dialogue design was worse than in ME2 or maybe that is because after ME1 and 2, my Shepard is better defined as a character and therefore, I had a more particular idea of what that Shepard would say in a given situation. I don't know, the problem is probably a mixture of these two points but the fact remains, whenever I cannot find "my" dialogue option on the wheel, this really breaks my immersion in the game world.

 

So for ME Next, I do hope that - with a new plot that won't have to take so many variables from previous games into account - they will give me a better filled dialogue wheel again and I also hope that - with a new "blank slate" character - I will not encounter as many situations where I can't find the option for what I want to say.

And of course, with less hardware limitations on the new consoles, I hope they'll make it all "bigger, better and more interactive", including the dialogue system.

[cap and gown]

 

In ME3, I had several instances where I was looking of a third option because I couldn't find the line for the opinion, that I thought "my" Shepard would express in that situation. Maybe this is because the dialogue design was worse than in ME2 or maybe that is because after ME1 and 2, my Shepard is better defined as a character and therefore, I had a more particular idea of what that Shepard would say in a given situation. I don't know, the problem is probably a mixture of these two points but the fact remains, whenever I cannot find "my" dialogue option on the wheel, this really breaks my immersion in the game world.

 

I think this goes to the core of the whole problem, and that is there was no constancy in the themes addressed across the trilogy. In ME1 a major theme available to RP around was humans first/on-our-own vs cooperation. But that gets dropped in 2 & 3. There seemed be no thematic coherence in 2 and not much in 3. Each dialogue was its own little world with psycho Shep vs angel Shep as your two options. Only with Mordin was there much thematic consistency: pro- or anti-genophage, and even then some of what looked like investigate options came out as anti-genophage.

 

If you want this stuff to carry over, if you want a consistency in your character across titles, then the developers need to settle on some themes around which the character can choose sides and carry those themes through to subsequent titles. I thought DA2 made a stab at this with the Templar vs Mage positioning Hawke could take. Instead of each separate dialogue living in it own little microcosm of jerk vs angel, they need to be tied into a wider theme so that they are are related to each other and help develop an overarching profile of the PC's world view.

[dreamgazer]

In ME2 you had to chose either all paragon or all renegade in order to pass the loyalty checks. So ME2's dialogue wheel is by no means balanced.

Indeed.

ME3's dialogue wheel was streamlined a bit too much, and I hope they beef it back up in ME4, but ME2's bipolar wheels and its P+R balance are faaaaaar from ideal.

[Drone223]

*snip*

It is true, especially for those with no imports and who play on consoles. You practically have to max out the paragon/renegade bars in order to even pass the cheeks. Also PC tend to mod their games to have max paragon/renegade points from the get go so they don't have to stick to either the top or bottom right options for the entire game.

[SerTabris]

Playing both missions late in the game, I found that I was able to pass the Tali/Legion Paragon check but not the Miranda/Jack one.  I got the Miranda/Jack option a little earlier, but the biggest thing I did in between was Legion's loyalty mission, and I took the Renegade option for that one.  Going to see Miranda after the Tali/Legion check, I found that I wasn't able to pass her 'reconciliation' Paragon check either.  I thought that the contrast between the two was odd.

[Farangbaa]

It is true, especially for those with no imports and who play on consoles. You practically have to max out the paragon/renegade bars in order to even pass the cheeks. Also PC tend to mod their games to have max paragon/renegade points from the get go so they don't have to stick to either the top or bottom right options for the entire game.

 

I didn't mod anything, being on a console or not has nothing to do with it. I just imported a Shep with nearly full paragon and renegade bars in ME1. How that gives me a lot of extra options to deviate from a 'pure morality' path is explained in the post.

 

I don't take non-import games seriously

[Fixers0]

People can complain about the ME1 dialogue wheel all they want but may I remind you that if you were to cut all instances where all options on the wheel would lead to the same line of dialogue you'd still end up with more dialogue options than in ME3. That is because relative to the total amount of dialogue option present in ME1, the amount of times all options would lead to the same line is rather insignificant.

[JeffZero]

It should be noted that ME1 had a four year development cycle (after the release of KotOR in 2003), ME 2 had a three year development cycle (after the release of ME1 in 2007), and ME3 had a two year development cycle (after the release of ME2 in 2010). If we are to use time as a way of drawing correlations, BioWare just simply did not have enough to fully realize the dialogue wheel in ME3.

I have to stress that the amount of time represented merely by glancing at release years is very misleading. Much of the time spent between KOTOR and ME1 involved the design of a brand new universe; pre-ptoduction and "concept seeding" took awhile because BioWare (rather remarkably) gave itself the appropriate length of time for such a thing. Flashes of this are evident all across the trilogy. It's also a large part of why I consider NME's extensive production time completely reasonable, but I digress.

Anyway, ME1 was released in November 2007. 26 months passed before January 2010's ME2. ME3 was then released 26 months later, in March 2012. This is very easy to miss but very important to bear in mind.

Now, the argument can surely be made that ME3 could have used an additional six months in the cooker considering its goals. Cut content demonstrates that. I don't disagree. But it's equally imperative to note that we'll never know how much additional content was planned for ME2, and what little we do know of ME1's internal data illustrates how much could have been there as well.

[SwobyJ]

Only things that ME3 failed more at is lack of options and a wee bit too much 'guidance' (autodialogue) of how Shepard acts.

 

But the outcomes of the options themselves were more pronounced and imo interesting than ME1-ME2. Especially ME1, where most options would essentially be the same thing.

[JeffZero]

Only things that ME3 failed more at is lack of options and a wee bit too much 'guidance' (autodialogue) of how Shepard acts.

But the outcomes of the options themselves were more pronounced and imo interesting than ME1-ME2. Especially ME1, where most options would essentially be the same thing.

I concur.

[Farangbaa]

People can complain about the ME1 dialogue wheel all they want but may I remind you that if you were to cut all instances where all options on the wheel would lead to the same line of dialogue you'd still end up with more dialogue options than in ME3. That is because relative to the total amount of dialogue option present in ME1, the amount of times all options would lead to the same line is rather insignificant.

 

I counted like 10 instances until becoming a Spectre. And by 'counting' I mean 'noticing'. I'm certain that if I actually looked for them I'd find a lot more.