293 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

1. I can pretty much guarantee you you don't, unless you've managed to find a way to live without anyone initiating conversation with you unexpectedly, or at all.

I make people wait for responses. I conduct most conversations in writing. I have practiced responses to predictable openings, which buy me time to compose a follow-up.

2. I find this almost as hard to believe. Misunderstandings alone would prove you wrong.

Misunderstandings are irrelevant. How someone interprets what I said has no bearing on whether I meant to say it. The constraints of linear time guarantee that.

I think the issue is too much attachment to preconceived ideas about what the character is thinking/feeling in a given moment.

That's all roleplaying is. If I'm not inhabiting the mind of my character, then there's no point playing the game at all.

If a line comes off angrier than you thought it would, go with it. Try to rationalize or accept the fact that even in real life we can react weirdly at times and then wonder why we did what we did. Surely you've had times where something pissed you off more than you thought it would and more than it would in other circumstances. Be more fluid.

Tone is rarely my problem. My concern here is the literal meaning of the line.

A given line might be intended a great many ways, but we can't craft that intent without first knowing the line.

If a line is truly atrocious, you'll know to avoid it next time.

When I immediately reload?

There should be an autosave at the start of every conversation. Or a rewind feature.

[Steelcan]

And every time they do, I want the consumers to be aware of the costs of that decision.

We've lost control over our characters.

we never had it in many cases, Shepard and Hawke are the most obvious examples, they aren't blank slates and they aren't supposed to be

[Sylvius the Mad]

we never had it in many cases, Shepard and Hawke are the most obvious examples, they aren't blank slates and they aren't supposed to be

You're confusing two issues.

A blank slate gives us design freedom. I'm not asking for that here (though it would be nice). A set character like Shepard or Hawke denies us that freedom.

But the paraphrase robs us of control. Even if we're limited to a narrow range of options (as we are in ME), full text would still let us choose among those options.

But the paraphrase denies us this by hiding the options. We're not choosing what Shepard does. If we were, we'd never be surprised by it (because we'd have chosen it).

The paraphrase forces us not to choose, but to guess. We're not selecting the option we want; we're opening door #3 and hoping to find it there.

Shepard and Hawke, by necessity, take away our freedom. The paraphrase, unnecessarily, takes our control.

[Steelcan]

There's not much to be surprised by, top right tone is polite and helpful/moral, middle right is neutral, bottom right is angry/sarastic

 

You can usually gauge what the option is going to look like before picking it, its not always perfect admittedly

[Former_Fiend]

I will say that Bethesda moving in Bioware's direction of not giving the full line, just the gist of what it's meant to convey, is one of the only things that has me disappointed about Fallout 4, a game that I am otherwise all aboard the hype train for. 

 

One of the things I loved about New Vegas - which Bethesda did not make, just publish -was the various different dialogue options. One of my favorites was how when it was a skill based option, the line displayed would actually change depending on how high your skill was; if your skill didn't meet the cut, it would show something obviously unconvincing, something that showed you were trying to pass yourself off as more knowledgeable than you really were. Was one of those great little touches.

 

Related was how you could use different skills in dialogue. One quest had you training a group of rookie cadets with dialogue options made via weapon skills; again, if your skill wasn't high enough, it showed you really didn't know what you were talking about. Another NPC had to be convinced that you were capable of handling yourself and solving his settlement's problems; you could do this with a speech check, but you could also do it with a check to show how much you knew about guns or wilderness survival. 

 

And of course, you could talk your way out of the final boss with speech or barter checks.

 

That was probably my favorite aspect of New Vegas, where the skills had greater utility and it showed that having points in those skills represented more than the weapons in question being more accurate and doing more damage when you shot people with them; it showed you actually knew what you were doing. Probably my biggest disappointment with Skyrim was that Bethesda didn't ape this feature from Obsidian. 

 

Of course, it's impossible to say that Bethesda won't use some version of this. We've only seen one conversation from the game fairly early on. Others might involve skills in some capacity like this, which would be awesome. 

 

Bringing this back to Bioware, this has never really been a thing in ME, so I won't be heartbroken about them sticking to their usual methods, so long as they make the intent of the line clear and I don't end up yelling at a krogan not to start a fight with a turian when the option suggested a simple question.

[Nomen Mendax]

I think the issue is too much attachment to preconceived ideas about what the character is thinking/feeling in a given moment. If a line comes off angrier than you thought it would, go with it. Try to rationalize or accept the fact that even in real life we can react weirdly at times and then wonder why we did what we did. Surely you've had times where something pissed you off more than you thought it would and more than it would in other circumstances. Be more fluid. If a line is truly atrocious, you'll know to avoid it next time. Just hope there's enough dialog options in general to allow this. Later games have unfortunately cut down on some of these options.

But this isn't how I play these games. I would like the option to be able to play how I want (at least as much as possible). Not providing the option to see the full line is an attempt to force me to play the game the way Bioware expects. A better design would be to allow, or even encourage, multiple playing styles.

[Sylvius the Mad]

There's not much to be surprised by, top right tone is polite and helpful/moral, middle right is neutral, bottom right is angry/sarastic

You can usually gauge what the option is going to look like before picking it, its not always perfect admittedly

I don't care about the tone. I care about the words.

I generally think tone doesn't matter, so that cannot be the basis for my decision-making.

[Steelcan]

I don't care about the tone. I care about the words.
I generally think tone doesn't matter, so that cannot be the basis for my decision-making.

well sorry to say but once again you'd be wrong.

I know you have an extremely limited view of how to convey meaning, but its not limited to just words spoken. Tone, pitch, insinuation, and thats not even touching body language or other non verbal cues.

[Sylvius the Mad]

well sorry to say but once again you'd be wrong.

I know you have an extremely limited view of how to convey meaning, but its not limited to just words spoken. Tone, pitch, insinuation, and thats not even touching body language or other non verbal cues.

Do we get to choose those? No?

Congratulations. You just made the problem worse.

[Chealec]

Then I don’t see why I would even bother playing it.

 

Fun?

 

Mass Effect isn't really a deep enough RPG to really RP it... not sure there's a computer game that actually is tbh.

 

I used to paper 'n' pencil game back in the day (Shadowrun, Palladium, WFRP, Star Wars and so on); when the scope of the RP is limited by the game, as it is by necessity with computer RPGs, then you can never really RP the character as you might... you never have full control over your character or their actions. So I don't worry that shooting Conrad Verner isn't totally in-keeping with a paragon play through when, honestly, it's funny as all hell.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Come on people. If there were no surprises, no one would have selected this gem: "I thought asari needed other species to reproduce."

 

They can make an otherwise absolutely boring information dump humorous. Especially when you hear the response.

[CrutchCricket]

I make people wait for responses. I conduct most conversations in writing. I have practiced responses to predictable openings, which buy me time to compose a follow-up.

So if someone bumps into you in the hallway and goes "sorry, didn't see you" or "how's it going?" "it's the feds, cheeze it!" you just stare blankly at them for a good 10-15 seconds, while you compose a reply word for word? I'm sorry, as funny as that is to imagine (you realize you're saying you literally "Bioware" real life conversations, right?) I simply don't believe it.
 

Misunderstandings are irrelevant. How someone interprets what I said has no bearing on whether I meant to say it. The constraints of linear time guarantee that.

Sorry, but meaning stems from interpretation, on both sides. If you say something you consider fitting, but everyone else considers pompous, guess what? Your reply was pompous. More to the point though, the mere fact that words are themselves arbitrary expressions of ideas that can change with context already throw your theory out the window.
 

That's all roleplaying is. If I'm not inhabiting the mind of my character, then there's no point playing the game at all.

If you can't roll with the punches, you're not doing a very good job of inhabiting the mind of the character are you? Roleplaying is playing a role. Nowhere in that description do I see a requirement that you like where that role takes you at all times.
 

Tone is rarely my problem. My concern here is the literal meaning of the line.

A given line might be intended a great many ways, but we can't craft that intent without first knowing the line.

Congratulations, you've just contradicted yourself. If your concern is the literal meaning of the line why are you talking about intent all of a sudden?
 

There should be an autosave at the start of every conversation. Or a rewind feature.

Here I agree. Hence my suggestion to port the "escape to reset" feature from TOR.
 

But this isn't how I play these games. I would like the option to be able to play how I want (at least as much as possible). Not providing the option to see the full line is an attempt to force me to play the game the way Bioware expects. A better design would be to allow, or even encourage, multiple playing styles.

How does it force you to play the game the way Bioware expects? Do they know which option you're going to pick at any given time? Giving you options at all is the complete opposite of what you're saying. The only time Bioware forces you to do anything is autodialogue or those infamous ME1 situations where all dialogue options actually said the same thing (word for word in some cases).

[Kappa Neko]

Come on people. If there were no surprises, no one would have selected this gem: "I thought asari needed other species to reproduce."

 

They can make an otherwise absolutely boring information dump humorous. Especially when you hear the response.

Exactly. Wasn't sarcastic Hawke all about making you laugh when you heard the actual line?

The dialogue wheel tries to blend the gaming experience with a good movie. It tries to keep the movie fun of not knowing what characters will say while still giving the player some kind of choice how it's going to play out. Without actually saying before-hand how it will play out exactly.

 

It would be frustrating to not know what exactly your character is about to say without any morality system in place that lets you know what kind of response to expect. That's why either a paragon/renegade or diplomatic/sarcastic/aggressive system is necessary. 

 

The paraphrase system is good for what it tries to accomplish. The downside is that you stop thinking about what to say and just click on your preferred tone. And as long as either approach means success, there really is zero incentive to ponder a decision from a gameplay point of view.

 

I am fine with paraphrases and morality, but would like to see some changes. Ditch a morality meter that you HAVE to fill up or you can't get the best result later on. THAT was the biggest problem. You were forced to play full-blown paragon or renegade. So the freedom to answer whatever you like got immediately neutralized.

I want to have lots of situations where only one tactic will work. I want situations where a nice character will have to be a jerk to get results.

I want to have to consider a situation/opponent carefully and what kind of behavior will work best. Or at all. And if I get it wrong, I want serious consequences.

[The Heretic of Time]

OP which game is that?

[Lady Artifice]

It was blatantly obvious, the way you were backing the dude up that he might take the short way down. Conversely, pushing a dude out the window is and should be a shocking moment. If you get a tip along the lines of "Plummet occuring in 3..2..1" it takes some the impact away.

 

Not seeing the line verbatim allows conversations to feel more natural. Really, even when you talk IRL you're not thinking "I will say this exact thing next, word for word". You have an idea of what to say and the words just come. Maybe some improvements could be made where the "ideas" of the dialogue wheel match up with the delivered line more. But I would not want verbatim lines to select.

 

 

1. I can pretty much guarantee you you don't, unless you've managed to find a way to live without anyone initiating conversation with you unexpectedly, or at all.

 

2. I find this almost as hard to believe. Misunderstandings alone would prove you wrong.

 

I think the issue is too much attachment to preconceived ideas about what the character is thinking/feeling in a given moment. If a line comes off angrier than you thought it would, go with it. Try to rationalize or accept the fact that even in real life we can react weirdly at times and then wonder why we did what we did. Surely you've had times where something pissed you off more than you thought it would and more than it would in other circumstances. Be more fluid. If a line is truly atrocious, you'll know to avoid it next time. Just hope there's enough dialog options in general to allow this. Later games have unfortunately cut down on some of these options.

 

 

I can guarantee you that some of us do. Learning to weigh words before you say them is one of the essential aspects of learning good oratory and communication skills. Read almost any book about successful communication or take a course on public speaking, and they will tell you to eliminate the common bad habit of speaking before you know what you intend to get across and planning your words accordingly. It's usually a matter of discipline and practice, and there are absolutely people who take that kind of care. 

[Lady Artifice]

If they made the paraphrase more consistently accurate, I'd be content. 

[The Heretic of Time]

If they made the paraphrase more consistently accurate, I'd be content. 

 

I'd also be fine with the way Life is Strange did it (horrible game, but the dialogue wheel in it is good).

 

To further elaborate: In Life is Strange, when you have to choose a reply, the dialogue wheel won't show you the entire lap of text that Max is about to say, but it will show you the complete first sentence of what Max is about to say. Often seeing the complete first setence is enough to have an accurate idea of what Max is going to say and what her tone is going to be.

[Enigmatick]

OP which game is that?

 

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

If they made the paraphrase more consistently accurate, I'd be content. 

They'll never be good enough for me.

[Lady Artifice]

They'll never be good enough for me.

 

Mostly, I agree. I can't really say I understand this appeal of having the protagonist's dialogue be this wild card. I think responses and consequences should absolutely be surprising and immersive, because that's a lot of fun, but not being able to predict the PC's behavior usually just damages the experience for me. 

[Nomen Mendax]

How does it force you to play the game the way Bioware expects? Do they know which option you're going to pick at any given time? Giving you options at all is the complete opposite of what you're saying. The only time Bioware forces you to do anything is autodialogue or those infamous ME1 situations where all dialogue options actually said the same thing (word for word in some cases).

Your missing my point. There are probably many different ways of approaching CRPGs. One way is play it in a similar way to P&P games, where the player decides what the PC says and does. Obviously in a CRPG this is an illusion but its an illusion that can be encouraged by the designers. Having the player choose a paraphrase where the spoken line doesn't match what the player imagines the PC is going to say breaks this illusion.

 

An alternative is to view it as if you are giving vague directions to an actor who then interprets them in some way - in this model sometimes being surprised is OK, and possibly even a good thing. Bioware is trying to force us to play their games in this second way.

 

As an aside, I'm replaying ME1 and those incidences of identical dialogue with three different paraphrases are just weird.

[Lady Artifice]

Your missing my point. There are probably many different ways of approaching CRPGs. One way is play it in a similar way to P&P games, where the player decides what the PC says and does. Obviously in a CRPG this is an illusion but its an illusion that can be encouraged by the designers. Having the player choose a paraphrase where the spoken line doesn't match what the player imagines the PC is going to say breaks this illusion.

 

An alternative is to view it as if you are giving vague directions to an actor who then interprets them in some way - in this model sometimes being surprised is OK, and possibly even a good thing. Bioware is trying to force us to play their games in this second way.

 

As an aside, I'm replaying ME1 and those incidences of identical dialogue with three different paraphrases are just weird.

 

I remember feeling a little angry when I discovered that on my second play through. As much as I liked the concept of playing paragade that time around, it was far from what I had in mind. 

[LightningPoodle]

What the? No, this will not happen. If it did, they might as well go back to silent protagonists.

[The Heretic of Time]

What the? No, this will not happen. If it did, they might as well go back to silent protagonists.

 

I don't get this argument at all. Why would it be bad to show us the entire line that the protagonist is about to say and how do you go from there to silent protagonists? I don't see the connection at all.

[Kappa Neko]

What the? No, this will not happen. If it did, they might as well go back to silent protagonists.

Gawd, please no...

 

 

I don't get this argument at all. Why would it be bad to show us the entire line that the protagonist is about to say and how do you go from there to silent protagonists? I don't see the connection at all.

The connection is that it sucks to read a line and then hear it again being said. Which is why Bioware dropped that idea. And I'm glad for it.

This problem didn't exist with a silent protagonist...

[FKA_Servo]

It's baffling to me that people could possibly be that bothered by it, but ok.