293 réponses à ce sujet

[SofaJockey]

What Bioware needs to NEVER EVER EVER do again is the crap they pulled in Dragon Age Inquisition.  Literally spelling out what each dialogue option will do in romancing characters. 

 

This is why you're alone <------- Picking this will not get you laid. 

I can try to be that man.  <------- Picking this will LOCK IN THAT ROMANCE, WOOOO!!!!

 

Really Bioware?  Way to completely make the role playing a brain dead experience. 

 

Wasn't this entirely in response to player feedback, not to make such outcomes unclear?

[Nomen Mendax]

So if you acknowledge it's an illusion then where does the forcing part come in? At the end of the day you are still limited to choosing a limited number of options and "forced" to do so to progress (if you want to look at it that way). But I would imagine that even in tabletop, you are constrained from doing or saying certain things for the sake of progressing the adventure. So what is this unacceptable "forcing", really?

 

 

The problem is that when they give you the full lines...you still aren't saying what you want to say. I don't even waste my time really reading the full text on the wall of text, I am looking for the yes and no or the I'll help you or I will rob you option. You never say what you want to say in a CRPG because short of a very simple yes/no what the writers write out is what they want you to say not what you want to say anyways.

People who don't like the full lines of dialog and somehow are "surprised" by them somehow think reading the line they don't like before selecting it makes it all better? Again. You are picking from distinct intents with lines not shades of grey. There is no "yes" that is so wrong you will pick "no".

My issue, which I guess I can't have explained very well has nothing to do with picking from a limited set of options (although having more options would almost always be good). Since, and you'll have to take my word for it, I'm not a complete drooling idiot I am well aware that I'm selecting one from a set of options chosen by the writers. I'm OK with that since there isn't any reasonable alternative.

 

What I don't like is when the option that I select turns out to be somethiing different from what I thought it was (i.e. when the paraphrase is misleading or ambiguous or when I just wasn't on the same wavelength as the writer). Once I choose the paraphrase I form an expectation of what the PC is going to say, if that expectation is incorrect it is disconcerting and damages the illusion that I'm the one in control of the PC. For those of you who don't mind finding out that what the PC says is different from what you imagined this is not a problem. Having paraphrases means that Bioware are essentially forcing me (or at least trying to force me) to play with a certain mental state that is different from how I approach these games.

 

Which is why I want to be able to see the full text. As an aside, I also realize that seeing the full text isn't perfect but its a lot better than what we currently have.

[ExoGeniVI]

Imagine the Renegade possibilities!

[Sylvius the Mad]

Wasn't this entirely in response to player feedback, not to make such outcomes unclear?

That feedback was stupid.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The problem is that when they give you the full lines...you still aren't saying what you want to say.

What do you mean by "what you want to say"?

In any situation, there are a wide variety of things I could say without breaking my character. Seeing the full line lets me know which of the available options falls within that group.

Withouthe the full text, I can't tell whether any given option is character-breaking.

People who don't like the full lines of dialog and somehow are "surprised" by them somehow think reading the line they don't like before selecting it makes it all better? Again. You are picking from distinct intents with lines not shades of grey. There is no "yes" that is so wrong you will pick "no".

Actually, DA2 had just such a line. There was a Yes so wrong that I wish I'd picked No.

I will never concede that we don't have control of the intent when picking the full line. There's simply no reason to believe that.

[pdusen]

I will never concede that we don't have control of the intent when picking the full line. There's simply no reason to believe that.

Not that I expect you to ever see reason on this, but its perfectly obvious that we don't. When I make a joke wink wink nudge nudge and a character reacts as though I just poked him in the eye, there is an intent problem.

There is a social contract at work between any two people who speak to each other, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. When someone's response breaks that contract, you know that the writers have not communicated the correct intent of the chosen line to you.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Not that I expect you to ever see reason on this, but its perfectly obvious that we don't. When I make a joke wink wink nudge nudge and a character reacts as though I just poked him in the eye, there is an intent problem.

When that happens in the real world, do you think that maybe you didn't intend what you thought you did?

It's not an intent problem; it's an interpretation problem. But that's how real world conversations work, too.

There is a social contract at work between any two people who speak to each other, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

How does that make sense?

[Gothfather]

To whom? They did ever clarify why this couldn't be included as an option?

 

I don't why see why it can't be tested again for MEA.

The more the system has evolved the fewer WTF moments have resulted from the dialogue wheel. I recall hating the wheel in ME1, as there were so many WTF moments when making a choice was radically different from the results. I can't recall any WTF moments in DA:I from the Dialogue wheel. Not saying there weren't any only saying they didn't resonate to me. The system has improved.

 

They tested the method you wanted and the results are contrary to what you wished them to be. So now you have to ask yourself do you want to make an emotional argument based on you simply getting what you want because hey you want it? Or do you want to be EVIDENCE based and accept that your preferred method actually turned out to be a failure so they should work on different ideas to refine what works? In other words do you want to be more like a preacher or scientist?

[Gothfather]

You know, I was actually thinking about this when playing PoE where some of the NPC dialogue is recorded in addition to written and sitting there and listening to them go on while having already read all they are going to say just became a chore at times.

I agree. And because it wasn't consistent you HAD to read everything or you'd miss some things. It was jarring. One of the reasons I ended up thinking PoE was a meh experience. would have loved it 15 years ago, today it just reminded me how far game design has improved in UI and direction (Direction as in a director of a movie controlling scenes.)

[Sidney]

What do you mean by "what you want to say"?
In any situation, there are a wide variety of things I could say without breaking my character. Seeing the full line lets me know which of the available options falls within that group.
Withouthe the full text, I can't tell whether any given option is character-breaking.
Actually, DA2 had just such a line. There was a Yes so wrong that I wish I'd picked No.
I will never concede that we don't have control of the intent when picking the full line. There's simply no reason to believe that.

I'd call BS on your second comment. It literally can't be "character breaking" if you are the good guy and helping someone is the right thing to do, or the good thing as it were, no cant be an option. Even if the "yes" is "I will but pay me" type thing that is sorta not nice the no is obviously not helping at all. The latter is even worse than the former.

You have the same issue if the dialog options are written out and they are 1-3 ALL of them in theory could be "character breaking" because they are not you writing them. You do not have that level of control and your delusion that you can control intent with full lines is just that, a delusion. I can sit here and recall several times in POE that none of the the options were really what I wanted to say beyond the generic "yes/no" type things and because I know I am really just picking intent I went with the one "closest" to what I wanted to say which is all any of us every do in any game we select dialog.

[CrutchCricket]

But with the paraphrase, we don't even get to choose among those limited options.

Guessing isn't choosing.

Yes, you do get to choose and quit pretending the prompts are hieroglyphs. If the prompt is "I'll help you" it makes no difference if the line is "Let me assist you" or "I'll lend a hand.". Unless you have specific examples of consistently being presented a prompt of "I'll help you" but the line is "Time to murder puppies", there's no point going on about this.
 

No, you're not. Sometimes, as a result of your choices, you simply don't progress in the adventure.

Sadly, in CRPGs, often the only way to do this is to die.

That's still a constraint. According to your crazy standards, I should be able to put on a tutu and have ice cream at any point, because that's what my character does.
 

A habit I consciously cultivated in order to avoid those awkward silences you described.

Without me choosing to develop that habit, I wouldn't have it.

You can keep believing this if you like. You can also believe you consciously choose to draw each breath, it's almost the same thing.
 

That is not a separate issue. That is the entire issue.

It's irrelevant because it's inevitable. It happens almost constantly. It has to be irrelevant for people to think they're making any conversational progress at all.

Wat
 

And again, the problem with the paraphrase is that we can't change anything. Things might change, but the player cannot reasonably claim to be the one doing it.

You never could. And yet you were choosing, with every option. That's what I'm trying to tell you. What you want did not, does not, will not, and could not exist. For any given conversation you have three, possibly six responses- a nice response, a neutral response, a dick response, a stronger version of each with a Jedi Mind Trick behind it and sometimes the ability to ask some questions. That's it. You will never get more. And yet you still choose among them, and will always choose among them if you wish to proceed.

As much as I knock video game moral choice systems and the false dichotomy they present, maybe for people like you enforcing them more strongly would be a good thing. If the top of the wheel is always the nice choices and the bottom the dick ones and all responses are consistent with that, and with each other, then maybe you'll finally accept that there's no ambiguity, and they didn't have to spoonfeed you the line to achieve this.
 

I also think you're grossly overstating the necessary level of pre-definition. Take any character you've played: what was his position on property rights? What was his favourite colour? Favourite food? Is he predisposed to he nice to people? Maybe just some people who remind him of his father? Does he approve of nightclubs? Prostitution? Slavery? War? Intoxicated? Why? What ties those preferences together?

Irrelevance (unless you're playing a game where you deal with property rights, prostitution, slavery and war). Character decisions ultimately boil down to two categories: decisions about specific issues and situations in the game which get addressed or there's a reasonable expectation that they'll get addressed, and things that won't get addressed because they're too generic or removed from the narrative. The latter is widow dressing. Stuff like favorite color, favorite food, relationship with your father (unless that's a plot point) does not matter and is merely there for flavoring the roleplaying. They can be anything.
 
Game-relevant preferences however will always be limited. And these limits will come out in more than just dialogue. Some limits may be more obvious and annoying than others, but even if they aren't the limits are there nonetheless. We know Shepard can't hate the asari and we constantly chafe under that. But a less obvious but no less strict limit is that Shepard can't really be apathetic. Whether he's a idealist or cynical dickhead he still actively takes up arms to save the galaxy.
 

There's much we might get to decide.
If there's something specific you want to avoid saying, how can you tell if the line you're choosing includes it?

Because the context will tell you all game-relevant preferences to be chosen. Unless again, you have concrete, consistent examples to the contrary. Which even if you do, simply means they need to improve the paraphrasing and staging of the scene in order to better convey that. As for "other" preferences, it's highly unlikely any will be contradicted by one line of dialogue. Somehow I don't picture a prompt of "I'll get help" leading to "I'm calling in the calvary, and also my favorite color is blue" and then to you flipping the table because you wanted your favorite color to be red.
 

I don't think the player character intent has ever been conveyed to us at all, and I wouldn't want it to be. If I'm not in control of my character's state of mind, then I'm not roplaying him, and thlat's literally the only thing I'm trying to do in these games. I do not care if I advance the story, or ever see the end of it. I don't care if my characer lives or dies. But I want those things to arise as a result of the personality I'm roleplaying.

You never were and never will be in control of the character's mind the way you're describing. Practically you're only choosing from a limited number of responses. The state of mind and immersion come almost retroactively, based on what's happening in the scene.
 

I won't be satisfied until I can predict the full line word for word, and choose the tone independently from the line.

Until then, the silent protagonist is better.

Well then I guess you'll never be satisfied. And that suits me just fine. No offense but I find your insistence on total control a little disturbing. 

Immersion=/=control. A silent protagonist that is actually drawn into conversations repeatedly is one of the most immersion breaking things I've ever seen, in any media and I'm glad they're extinct.
 

What I don't like is when the option that I select turns out to be somethiing different from what I thought it was (i.e. when the paraphrase is misleading or ambiguous or when I just wasn't on the same wavelength as the writer). Once I choose the paraphrase I form an expectation of what the PC is going to say, if that expectation is incorrect it is disconcerting and damages the illusion that I'm the one in control of the PC. For those of you who don't mind finding out that what the PC says is different from what you imagined this is not a problem. Having paraphrases means that Bioware are essentially forcing me (or at least trying to force me) to play with a certain mental state that is different from how I approach these games.
 
Which is why I want to be able to see the full text. As an aside, I also realize that seeing the full text isn't perfect but its a lot better than what we currently have.

I don't know about others but I mainly take issues with your continue use of the word "force". You said it yourself, paraphrases may be ambiguous or you may simply not be on the same wavelength. I don't think assuming their purposefully misleading you is reasonable.

 

But surely you realize that just as you can interpret a paraphrase a number of different ways, so too can you do so with a spoken line. Your assumption then becomes there is one unified vision or "mental state" Bioware wants you to have at one time. Which is ludicrous because a) you may not even pick that line and even if you do you have several ways you can interpret the line itself. Maybe not as many as a shortened paraphrase, but there are multiple options nonetheless.

 

So I ask again, what exactly are you being forced to do? It's not "entertain a specific mindset" because there is no single, specific mindset.

[Nomen Mendax]

But surely you realize that just as you can interpret a paraphrase a number of different ways, so too can you do so with a spoken line. Your assumption then becomes there is one unified vision or "mental state" Bioware wants you to have at one time. Which is ludicrous because a) you may not even pick that line and even if you do you have several ways you can interpret the line itself. Maybe not as many as a shortened paraphrase, but there are multiple options nonetheless.

 

So I ask again, what exactly are you being forced to do? It's not "entertain a specific mindset" because there is no single, specific mindset.

I would take issue with the part you've bolded, which is, to use your word, a ludicrous argument as you are essentially saying that the game can't be perfect so I might as well give up on trying to improve it (from my point of view that is). To address another of your points, since the paraphrase system fails to support the mindset I have when I'm playing the game, the fact that there are many possible mindsets is irrelevant.

 

I'll concede that word force may not have been the best choice. I'm not sure where you get the idea that I'm suggesting that Bioware are intentionally trying to mislead me - its certainly not from anything I wrote.

 

I know that I find the result of picking a paraphrase surprising often enough to interfere with my enjoyment of the game. I firmly believe that I would find the game more enjoyable if I got to see the full text before selecting an option. These should not be profoundly difficult things to understand so I suspect that we've reached an end point here.

[AlanC9]

I still don't get what "entertain a specific mindset" was supposed to mean there.

It strikes me that there are two separate problems with "surprise" here. One is where you get a line that's so far off that you would have picked a different one. This is bad for most everyone, but only happened to me twice -- once in ME1 and once in DA2.

The second problem is breaking the illusion of control. This is only a problem if you actually have that illusion in the first place.

[Nomen Mendax]

I still don't get what "entertain a specific mindset" was supposed to mean there.

It strikes me that there are two separate problems with "surprise" here. One is where you get a line that's so far off that you would have picked a different one. This is bad for most everyone, but only happened to me twice -- once in ME1 and once in DA2.

The second problem is breaking the illusion of control. This is only a problem if you actually have that illusion in the first place.

I've kind of figured that I failed to explain it very well, and I'm not sure I can be bothered to keep trying ...

 

I agree that there are two separate problems. I'm not too concerned about the first problem since, as you suggest, it doesn't happen very often. I also think they are getting better at the paraphrases, although I was still unpleasantly surprised by some things the PC said in DAI. It is the second problem that is an issue for me since I want the game to support the illusion of control as much as possible.

 

In essence this is what I was referring to when I talked about entertaining a mindset. My mindset is that I am in control of the PC, (even though I know that it is an illusion) and the paraphrase system does not support it as well as a system that allows you to see the full line.

[pdusen]

When that happens in the real world, do you think that maybe you didn't intend what you thought you did?

In the real world I have plenty of tools at my disposal that a video game can't give you. These include my tone of voice, my use of body language, my perception of another person's body language, and my impression of the mood of the person I'm talking to. And finally, with all of that, if I STILL somehow come across in a way I didn't intend, I can backtrack and explain what I actually meant to defuse the situation. All of these things are absent in a game.

How does that make sense?

It makes sense by virtue of being true? You'll have to be more specific.

[JediMindTrix]

That feedback was stupid.

 

Isn't that an option you can turn off under the Gameplay section?

[Sylvius the Mad]

I'd call BS on your second comment. It literally can't be "character breaking" if you are the good guy and helping someone is the right thing to do, or the good thing as it were, no cant be an option. Even if the "yes" is "I will but pay me" type thing that is sorta not nice the no is obviously not helping at all. The latter is even worse than the former.

I get to decide whether my character is the good guy. I get to decide whether my character thinks helping him is the right thing to do, or if the rightness of the act is relevant.

If I ask for payment, is it because I want payment, or because I'm trying to dissuade the person seeking help from asking for it, or because I want to convince a third-party observer that I don't care about helping?

I get to decide those things.

You have the same issue if the dialog options are written out and they are 1-3 ALL of them in theory could be "character breaking" because they are not you writing them.

But it's far less likely than if I'm not allowed to see what they are.

I wanted to conceal my discovery or Tali from Udina. He asked a direct question about what I found. Two of the options mentioned the Quarian. One did not. I chose the one that didn't, and Shepard promptly introduced Tali by name.

That was character-breaking.

You do not have that level of control and your delusion that you can control intent with full lines is just that, a delusion. I can sit here and recall several times in POE that none of the the options were really what I wanted to say beyond the generic "yes/no" type things and because I know I am really just picking intent I went with the one "closest" to what I wanted to say which is all any of us every do in any game we select dialog.

It's not about what I really want to say. I don't typically need to say anything. It's about choosing the option I can tolerate, and with the paraphrase I can't tell which option that is.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Isn't that an option you can turn off under the Gameplay section?

I meant the feedback from the community that asked for it.

They complained about the wrong thing, and got the wrong solution in response.

[AlanC9]

I wanted to conceal my discovery or Tali from Udina. He asked a direct question about what I found. Two of the options mentioned the Quarian. One did not. I chose the one that didn't, and Shepard promptly introduced Tali by name.

Did any of the options let you conceal Tali's identity there?

[In Exile]

Did any of the options let you conceal Tali's identity there?

I don't see how you could think concealment was possible given the scene set up. But beyond that, this is more a complaint about the plot than a complaint about the VO. It's no different from how DAO doesn't give you an option to e.g. disparage the GWs.

[AlanC9]

Meaning that Tali could actually be standing there when the dialogue comes up, right.

I can see how dialogues could theoretically turn on such matters -- particular words turning up in some PC lines but not others, with their significance not revealed until later. I'm not aware of any RPG actually doing this. Although I've often seen the opposite happen, as NPCs know something that my PC never mentioned, or occasionally the reverse. You can often see a fair amount of effort being expended to make sure that all the plot points are hit however the player navigates through the conversation.

[Sanunes]

The more the system has evolved the fewer WTF moments have resulted from the dialogue wheel. I recall hating the wheel in ME1, as there were so many WTF moments when making a choice was radically different from the results. I can't recall any WTF moments in DA:I from the Dialogue wheel. Not saying there weren't any only saying they didn't resonate to me. The system has improved.

 

They tested the method you wanted and the results are contrary to what you wished them to be. So now you have to ask yourself do you want to make an emotional argument based on you simply getting what you want because hey you want it? Or do you want to be EVIDENCE based and accept that your preferred method actually turned out to be a failure so they should work on different ideas to refine what works? In other words do you want to be more like a preacher or scientist?

 

I agree, the games that gave me the most "that is not what I meant" moments are Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age: Origins. Now Mass Effect 2 and 3 did have those moments as well, but to me it seems BioWare is getting better at the paraphrasing. The games that have done it the best for me are Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition with the inclusion of the emotion indicator in the middle of the dialogue wheel. It shows me the intent of the comment I am about to make which allows me to get a much better indication of what is being said over just seeing the words with no intent behind them.

[Red Panda]

The devs have said that they tested this approach, and it failed. The system was apparently found to be less enjoyable with it than without it.

There is that surprise factor I guess. Thank you, you're a wonderful human being for sharing that tidbit.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In the real world I have plenty of tools at my disposal that a video game can't give you. These include my tone of voice, my use of body language, my perception of another person's body language, and my impression of the mood of the person I'm talking to. And finally, with all of that, if I STILL somehow come across in a way I didn't intend, I can backtrack and explain what I actually meant to defuse the situation. All of these things are absent in a game.

How would you know there's been a misunderstanding? In my experience, that doesn't typically become clear for several minutes, and then attempting to correct it is pointless because the other person in the conversation refuses to recall the exact words he used and the context in which he used them, which is necessary for us to parse together the meaning the conversation should have had.

This is why written communication is better. There's an audit trail.

It makes sense by virtue of being true? You'll have to be more specific.

You asserted something was true, and then furthere stated that it would remain true even if we denied it. So your claim was unfalsifiable.

If you were wrong, how would you suggest someone could persuade you under those circumstances?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Yes, you do get to choose and quit pretending the prompts are hieroglyphs. If the prompt is "I'll help you" it makes no difference if the line is "Let me assist you" or "I'll lend a hand.". Unless you have specific examples of consistently being presented a prompt of "I'll help you" but the line is "Time to murder puppies", there's no point going on about this.

Only if they would provide me with the equivalent of the Rosetta Stone would the paraphrases be as good as heiroglyphs.

In DA2, my Hawke had just completed a business deal with some slavers. A slaver then asked:

Can I go now?

I was offered two paraphrases:

Yes.
No.

I thought Hawke bore the slavers no I'll will, as they'd treated him fairly, and everything had gone well. So I chose Yes.

Hawke snarled:

Get out of my sight!

What? Had I known that Hawke was forced to dislike the slavers, I would have chosen the No option. My Hawke avoided half-measures; he never would have let the slavers go if that had been his opinion of them.

In this case, the Yes option was so wrong that I wished I'd picked No (which, based on the icon, would have started a fight).

This is but one example. In ME, ME2, and DA2, this was a regular occurrence.

That's still a constraint. According to your crazy standards, I should be able to put on a tutu and have ice cream at any point, because that's what my character does.

At no point have I suggested that you should be able to choose behaviour from an infinite set. There's a finite set, written by the developers. I would like to choose among them.

You can keep believing this if you like. You can also believe you consciously choose to draw each breath, it's almost the same thing.

I remember what it was like before I cultivated that habit. If someone greets me in some other way, I'll either just nod, or, if I have one ready, I'll use a rehearsed response that was recently tailored for that specific person.

Wat

You have no way of knowing whether the thing you said was interpreted in the way you'd intended. If you ever stopped ignoring that truth, you'd never get anywhere in a conversation.

You need to ignore the possibility of misunderstanding in order for your conversation style to work.

That's why misunderstandings are irrelevant.

You never could. And yet you were choosing, with every option. That's what I'm trying to tell you. What you want did not, does not, will not, and could not exist. For any given conversation you have three, possibly six responses- a nice response, a neutral response, a dick response, a stronger version of each with a Jedi Mind Trick behind it and sometimes the ability to ask some questions. That's it. You will never get more. And yet you still choose among them, and will always choose among them if you wish to proceed.

I cannot choose among them if I don't know what they are. What you're saying is the equivalent of cutting a shuffled deck of cards, finding the Seven of Diamonds, and then claiming to have intentionally chosen that card.

I just want to see the cards so I can actually choose the one I want.

If your character wants not to state an opinion right now, how do you do that? With full text, I could choose a question. But with the paraphrases, I can't tell which options don't contain assertions.

And if all of the options are things my character absolutely would not do (I would struggle to find more than a couple of examples like this in all of BioWare's history), then I can revise my character to suit one of the options. But again, I need to do that before I select the option because that revision will tell me what my character's state of mind is, and I need to know that in order to interpret any NPC response within a relevant context.