But that's not a complaint against a "wheel". CDPR could have had all the options on one list. They didn't. They handled their branch differently, with some options being dead ends earlier on.
They could use a wheel, a list, a square, or a zig-zag, and it would amount to the same thing. What matters is the dialogue pathing.
What matters is the dialogue not all leading to the same endpoint
What matters is the dialogue not all leading to the same endpoint
Bioware doesn't need to remove the dialogue wheel at all, instead make a better branching narrative.
Bioware doesn't need to remove the dialogue wheel at all, instead make a better branching narrative.
Having a branching narrative at all would be an improvement.
Its a lot about how the side quests actually have cutscenes, or more properly worded, zoomed in camera when talking to people, proper storytelling in side quests and integration into the main story even if their optional, as well as with gameplay that doesn't try to be 2 genres all at once and thus flows better for an action game.
I don't want to defend the Witcher 3 but it does do some things that Bioware does well. Witcher 2 was ok, it does the Medieval Clint Eastwood thing quite well but Biowares products are consistently better than Witcher 2, in my opinion. Witcher 3 represents a learning process, they have noted what Bioware does successfully and learned from it. The Witcher 3 has a number of characters written well, on the main quest line, which takes shape during many hours of play time, thus the player will experience the dialogue, with regards to the degree of choice, that may be more illusionary, I suspect the relationship doesn't really change that much as the dynamic remains consistent but what it has been written for the characters works quite well. They have a group of Morrigan esq witches who have various flaws and traits that represent the range of personality traits found in Dragon Age. In fact the Yennifer character, who is the protagonists love interest, is pretty much the same archetype (if appropriate, or same type of character) as Morrigan. What is amusing is they managed to make other witch characters that make Yennifer appear more empathetic in comparison, which is hilarious. But the main story line is pretty linear, despite the illusion of choice. There are dwarves and elves with a racial holocaust and even a kind of ambigous Solas type character. So relatively linear main story line, meshed on top of a kind of Skyrim exploration. Skellige, a later stage environment that channels a celtic/ irish culture definitely evokes Dragon Age : Origins, even the background music evokes the same aesthetics.
They have a group of Morrigan esq witches who have various flaws and traits that represent the range of personality traits found in Dragon Age. In fact the Yennifer character, who is the protagonists love interest, is pretty much the same archetype (if appropriate, or same type of character) as Morrigan.
I don't know much about Morrigan, since I did not play DA Origins or DA II, and she has a rather short role in DA:I.
But Yennifer does some truly evil (or, say, dark grey) things in Skellige: Stealing a powerful artefact, using it despite being warned about the serious consequences (and then not caring much about the havoc she caused), destroying a sacred grove by using forbidden necromancy etc. Of course, Geralt still sides with her, as this is an important facet of his character, and it would seem that many players are coerced by the game to side with Geralt 
.
If she had been killed by an angry mob in Skellige, she would have had it coming 
.
So, that's an example of the moral "greyness" in the W3 world. In contrast, everybody surprised my renegade Shepard in ME2 by warning about giving Cerberus the Collector base, even Cerberus' cheerleaders Miranda and Jacob. Both had admitted that certain cells went rogue, of course, but Shepard gave the base to TIM, not some random cell...maybe I had used "unity" too often on them?
I won't hit on the specifics of quest design, or cutscene prevalence, or things like that, because I feel that it has been said often enough throughout this topic and others like it. There are elements that the Witcher does better than DA or ME and there are areas where BioWare shows up CDPR. One area that I will say that the Witcher has above and beyond any of the recent BioWare titles is a sizable other or 'alien' nature to their setting.
What I mean is: Playing Witcher 3, I was able to come across disembodied spirits, golems, dryads, werewolves, etc. and I could actually talk with them, I didn't have to resort to killing every non-human beastie I ran across. The option to kill them was there, but I could decide to hear things from the monster's perspective, and in many cases they were more reasonable/understanding than the people that hired me to kill them in the first place. More than that, many of these creatures and beings were foreign to our (see human-like) way of doing or perceiving things. Was that spirit anchored to the tree nightmare like in appearance? Yes. But did it want to run around and eat babies and indiscriminately kill? No.
Sure there were mindless monsters, and there are beings that take pleasure in causing suffering and death, but at least the Witcher 3 took a balanced approach to the setting. There was more to the world than what the humans, dwarves, and elves cared about, and that is something that I feel has been sorely lacking in recent BioWare titles.
We don't get to see a nuanced world for settings like DA:I; it basically boils down to Not human/elf/dwarf/qunari = mindless monster to kill for xp. Even ME suffered from that trend. Look at the variety and balance appropriated to the more 'alien' aliens like the Hanar, Elcor, and Rachni in the first game compared to the third. If there is one area that I would like BioWare to look at and try to emulate from the Witcher, it would be bringing the non-human elements back, and making them have more of an impact, or at least more of a presence other than: "Rrr! Monster Bad! Monster Smash!"
Ah, yes it did.Was that spirit anchored to the tree nightmare like in appearance? Yes. But did it want to run around and eat babies and indiscriminately kill? No.
Ah, yes it did.
It created the plague that killed indiscriminately, & if you set it free, it killed every man, women, & child in Downwarren.
Are we talking about the same spirit? The one I was referring to was the one that
Then again I haven't gotten that far into the game's story. Even if the outcome of helping that particular creature turns out bad there are several other encounters that can be resolved peacefully. And really I am not asking for every alien being that the player encounters to have a pure altruistic reason to help the PC or even that they automatically get along peacefully with everyone else in the setting; I just want the option to, and more importantly I would like said beings to have more depth to them.
Do some of the interactions with the non-human creatures turn out bad in the Witcher 3? Sure, but at least there is the option to parley with them, and at least see their side of things. Going by BioWare's recent titles, you wouldn't have even gotten the option to talk, it would have essentially boiled down to: "You a mindless beast and/or are different from me so I must kill you."
I agree with what you are saying.
You just picked a bad example.
That creature created the crones, & is probably the most evil entity in the game.
Many places around Velen you can find a book called "She who knows" which gives her background & why the locals see the crones a saviours.
But just going back to Downwarren & talking to the alderman after setting her free will give you a good idea.
Thanks. My experience with the Witcher 3's campaign is pretty much nonexistent haha, so I don't really know the long term repercussions of a lot of the choices.
Still it was a refreshing change of pace to encounter creatures that had actual depth to them. BioWare does good companion interactions, but dear God they leave much to be desired when it comes to making a setting feel varied; too much focus on human issues and soapboxing on political/social topics IMO.
P.S. "She who knows"... Now I am almost glad I set the spirit free 
The world could do with a few more Great Old Ones. 
I really like the dialog systems in Pillars of Eternity.
You don't habe symbols etc. to shown you the nature of youre answear. When you pick as example the honorable answear many times, your charater earns points in this section and get believable if he choos this kind of anwear in other dialogs. Other who didn't have this reputations, get other reactions from the NPC for the same answear.
There are many littel and big fights you can end peacfully.
And you don't see which answer you give is good or bad like paragon/renegade wheel blalbla.
There also unknown if your well-intentioned decisions end good.
What matters is the dialogue not all leading to the same endpoint
But it will by design anyway most of the time.
The narrative structure is pretty much what is in place to change.
If the question you are asking is do we do two separate Act IIs in Mass Effect, I can see that as a possibility. But it will lead to the same endpoint regardless. So really, your concern feels misguided, and not a problem of the dialogue wheel or anything like that, it's a general issue with the game design and how it's presented to the player more than anything else.
In that way there can be improvements, but the trick then is what can actually be done? Those two diverging paths is one option at least, but that might only work if the world is self-contained.
I look forward to Fallout 4's release and people making threads asking for every game to be more like FO4. W3 was a fantastic game and easily my GOTY, but I don't think Bioware should try to imitate them, Their games, and CDPR's games are very different, one focuses on a custom protagonist and his/her group of companions, the other focuses solely on a set character, and his interactions with the world. The only thing I wish Bioware would copy is not having an ancient evil be behind everything.
I really like the dialog systems in Pillars of Eternity.
You don't habe symbols etc. to shown you the nature of youre answear. When you pick as example the honorable answear many times, your charater earns points in this section and get believable if he choos this kind of anwear in other dialogs. Other who didn't have this reputations, get other reactions from the NPC for the same answear.
There are many littel and big fights you can end peacfully.
And you don't see which answer you give is good or bad like paragon/renegade wheel blalbla.
There also unknown if your well-intentioned decisions end good.
You absolutely have symbols: they're those things that say [Rational] or [Passionate]. That some RPG fans will ignore the fact that each line was designed with a pre-written tone in mind doesn't change that, in POE, each line had a predetermined tone. It's exactly like DAI in that regard, expect DAI defaulted to some tone indicators being ON rather than OFF as the default.
Though POE then has the huge plot hole of the psychic NPCs being able to figure out your reputation at terrifyingly blinding speeds. That would barely work in the modern era with our expansive telecommunications net. Back in a medieval-ish period (or more accurately a renaissance period) that's not possible.
Those tags aren't there if the player choose to turn expert mode on, it might be possible he never played the game with it off.
hmm... i never seen this tags in PoE, and i don't have miss them.
In ME:2 this renegade/paragon chois thing was terrible, you where damnd to stick to one side to solve other quest later. And the "neutral" Dialogoption is totaly lost becouse no one use them.
Those tags aren't there if the player choose to turn expert mode on, it might be possible he never played the game with it off.
True, but that's just another example of why silent VO is flawed: important information is hidden from the player. Because the NPC reaction is always consistent with the hidden tone. And it can lead to complete insanity if you're not aware of what's happening. It's a con, is where I'm going with all of this.
It depends a lot on the developer, it works better for Obsidian to have mute player protagonists, because they have more limited funding and not having to voice everything gives the chance to have more expansive dialogue at a lower cost.
That said, I agree for a company with the funding Bioware have when being backed by EA that is no longer the best option available to them, they can have both at this point, that being expansive dialogue and voice acting.
There's a lot of stuff in the Witcher series that wouldn't translate well to Mass Effect; the Witcher is a carefully crafted story focusing on one very specific individual. Whilst the ME trilogy was based around Shepard there was no definitive Shepard - (s)he could be a soldier or a space wizard, a paragon or a pariah, ruthless or compassionate... the character aspects are totally different between the games.
However, what the Mass Effect series could take on board from The Witcher 3 (not The Witcher 2, that was the weakest in the franchise IMO) would be some of the sense of scale, the use of audio (there are some quite creepy bits in The Witcher 3 massively enhanced by the soundtrack) and, especially, the attention to detail.
ME1 almost has scale - it feels big yomping around a planet in the Mako, despite the fact that it handles like a drunken walrus on a bouncy castle, but you find "commander, you have to turn back, you're leaving the area of operations" all too soon. The same happens in TW3 but it's a much bigger playground... often, if you can see something you can get there - eventually.
The attention to detail in TW3 is a biggy for me, ears hanging on trees, all the buildings being slightly unique (including the wonky building), dynamic day/night cycles and weather, the fact that the environment almost hints at what you'll meet... the way the light catches the water, or how different it looks in calm weather to a storm, "random" whales, corpses hanging from gibbets and (almost) everything has a story behind it. The game feels like life would go on for the inhabitants if you weren't there... especially when you find things like wolf corpses around the elven encampment; shot by a scout.
If they can capture that feeling of scale, the sounds and the attention to detail, the feeling of "life" - where wild "animals" will hunt and kill each other and aren't just there to harass the player... and mash it together with ME3 gameplay and characters... it will be spectacular.
That, however, is a big ask.
It depends a lot on the developer, it works better for Obsidian to have mute player protagonists, because they have more limited funding and not having to voice everything gives the chance to have more expansive dialogue at a lower cost.
That said, I agree for a company with the funding Bioware have when being backed by EA that is no longer the best option available to them, they can have both at this point, that being expansive dialogue and voice acting.
I look forward to Fallout 4's release and people making threads asking for every game to be more like FO4. W3 was a fantastic game and easily my GOTY, but I don't think Bioware should try to imitate them, Their games, and CDPR's games are very different, one focuses on a custom protagonist and his/her group of companions, the other focuses solely on a set character, and his interactions with the world. The only thing I wish Bioware would copy is not having an ancient evil be behind everything.
geth vs quarian
Cerberus vs Alliance (made moot by ME3)
Ending debates
on top of meta issues
I did say "slightly" less.
...But I stand corrected.
I do wish people would stop advising Bioware to look at TW3.
That game is mediocre compared to TW2.
I do wish people would stop advising Bioware to look at TW3.
That game is mediocre compared to TW2.
TW3 ditched the QTEs (hated the Kayren fight and the boxing minigame was ruined), the stupid inescapable boss fights in confined spaces (Letho), allowed you to chug potions in combat again, didn't have a slightly tedious mid-game "Geralt PI" episode ... and it is somehow worse than TW2?
Don't get me wrong - I love the Witcher series but TW2 is the weakest of the 3 IMO.
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