21 réponses à ce sujet

[King Dragonlord]

Bioware has hit a sour spot in dialog systems (and Fallout 4 had to go copy them, but at least Fallout 4's dialog system can be reverted somewhat.)

 

It comes to this, make a choice Bioware. Either give me back control of my character or take control once and for all and give me an actual character because your halfway approach is not satisfying.

 

There are a few approaches Western RPGs have been taking. I'm going to give them names for discussion.

 

1)The Player's Character - This character is fully in the player's control. The player is given many dialog options in a given situation to at least attempt to give the player a dialog option they'd want to pick. You show the player the full lines of dialog before they pick and the line is presented unvoiced. The player is left free to imagine the line delivery because its their character. You could subdivide this further into games that tried to give the player options that THEY would want to say vs option that allowed the player to roleplay their character. But that overcomplicates this discussion.

 

2) The Protagonist - A fully writer defined character. Like Geralt from The Witcher. The character's traits and backstory are completely chosen by the writer. If the player is given dialog options, its options that fit the defined protagonist letting you feel a connection to the role. 

 

3) The Mutant - Bioware's approach, stuck halfway between 1 and 2. Player often finds that they don't have the options they'd want to say because it doesn't fit Bioware's loose idea of what the character should be. Player isn't allowed to see what the dialog will actually be before chose, they're given a list of one or two word phrases and symbols and left to hope that the line they get is somewhat like what those words indicate. 

 

I got to play all three types last year between games like Pillars of Eternity and Wasteland 2 embodying type 1, Witcher 3 embodying type two and Dragon Age Inquisition embodying type three.

 

I'd been stuck with type 3 for a while so it was refreshing to see what it was like to either have actual control of a character or to play an actual character. Type 1 and Type 2 are both better than Type 3.

 

Type 3 promises player control but doesn't deliver. I seldom felt that the Inquisitor really my character. No matter which voice, race, and class I picked, the personality was similar. The lines sort of loosely fell into the range of one specific character and you either got to play the angry version of that character or the nicer one. Or maybe the more reluctant one in some cases. This is why I petered out after my second playthrough (I normally play an RPG a lot more than twice) I'd basically just gotten done playing the same person. The lets plays I saw showed its pretty much the same person with different backgrounds, race or gender. 

 

Adding to the feeling that it wasn't my character was, of course, the dialog system. I didn't feel like i was really in control of what my character said.

 

If you want control of the character, take control and give me a character. Playing Geralt was so much more satisfying than playing The Inquisitor because Geralt actually has a personality. 

[KaiserShep]

To be perfectly honest, I find Geralt to be massively overrated, to the point where his constant mention around here compels me to think: F*ck Witcher. I like the game and don't want to feel this way, but it seems like he's being trumped up more than he's worth. I mean really, Geralt as a personality, to me, seems to jump between indifference/boredom and irritation most of the time, and his being a fixed protag doesn't seem to help with that in the slightest. 

[wright1978]

Personally i thought they hit a sweet spot in ME1/2. I'd consider that the goldilocks zone rather than mutant. I really don't want a repeat or expansion of ME3's extreme definition. Nor do i think the other extreme works Well.

[Joseph Warrick]

  you're joking. It's very easy and fun to create a distinct personality for Shepard. Bioware did something great as seen in many threads where people talk about their Shepard, feeling Shepard is their character.

 

You want to play fixed protagonists like in Tomb Raider, or Batman, or The Witcher, you go ahead. There's room for all.

[agonis]

I´m ok with all three approaches. But I think the third version which you call "Mutant" worked best in Inquisition and worst in ME 3.

 

The first option "The Player´s Character" wouldn´t be sufficient for me anymore. Played a lot of such games, but voices are very important for me personally and it feels strange to be the only silent character.

 

(Still better to be silent than stupid and without any personality. I´m looking at you Drakensang I and II.)

[Sanunes]

The problem with what you are saying is that it is a personal experience for each player.  For me I got tired of feeling like in the Witcher I never was able to say what I really wanted to just like how you describe Mass Effect 3.  It always felt like I was picking the exact same dialogue just with varying levels of negativity or indifference.

[Revan Reborn]

Not another "silent protagonist versus voiced protagonist" thread...

 

Whatever your personal opinion on BioWare's dialogue and voiced protagonist with some attributes defined, it's a system they have used in all of their games (besides DAO) since ME1. It was massively popular and made BioWare far more bigger and internationally recognized than ever before. It's funny you mention TW3 because CDPR took their dialogue approach from BioWare. The same is the case with Fallout 4, which BGS did a pretty terrible job of executing dialogue.

 

It's not going to change. BioWare isn't going back to a voiced protagonist. They also aren't going to take away character creation or our ability to define the protagonist to a degree. If you can't accept that, I'm not sure BioWare games are for you.

 

For the record, the Inquisitor wasn't a bad protagonist because of BioWare's system. The Inquisitor was a bad protagonist because the main story of DAI was idiotic and he never had much of a place or a purpose. Not to mention, his advisors actually did all of the work, so the Inquisitor always felt like a second fiddle.

[N7Jamaican]

I am getting tired of The Witcher comparisons.  Anyways, I thought ME1/2 was good. ME3 was too much auto-dialog, and felt more of a space shooter than an actual RPG.  Which, was disappointing, despite it still being a good game.

 

BioWare needs to nail down how they want Andromeda to be, an RPG with shooter elements, or a shooter with RPG elements.  Then they need to find the direction that they want to go in for their protagonist.

[AlanC9]

I thought DAI worked just fine, thanks. Better than ME -- I don't like morality systems in the first place , and I like them infecting dialogue even less.

[Beerfish]

Well they probably have gone down a path they can't go back from now.  A voiced character is now the norm.  It's simply that continuing struggle between freedom of action and taking control as has already been pointed out.  The more control the game maker has over a character (ie Geralt) and the less the player gets the tighter the story can be.  The more freedom you give to the players via a character the looser the story is going to be.  The never ending struggle.

[AlanC9]

Just as a technical matter, the italed bit below doesn't make sense as a description of Bio's design approach:

1)The Player's Character - This character is fully in the player's control. The player is given many dialog options in a given situation to at least attempt to give the player a dialog option they'd want to pick. You show the player the full lines of dialog before they pick and the line is presented unvoiced. The player is left free to imagine the line delivery because its their character. You could subdivide this further into games that tried to give the player options that THEY would want to say vs option that allowed the player to roleplay their character. But that overcomplicates this discussion.

Bio's never written that way. Their lines have always had an implicit tone, which is what the NPCs react to.

This is not a substantive objection because the design intent isn't all that important. A player can take your approach to playing unvoiced games whatever the designers thought they were doing. Of course, this will make it more difficult to understand the NPCs reactions since now you're introducing garbage data into your model, but if you don't mind inaccuracy or don't think such modelling is possible in the first place (hi, Sylvius), this is a nonissue.

[Sanunes]

 

-snip-

 

For the record, the Inquisitor wasn't a bad protagonist because of BioWare's system. The Inquisitor was a bad protagonist because the main story of DAI was idiotic and he never had much of a place or a purpose. Not to mention, his advisors actually did all of the work, so the Inquisitor always felt like a second fiddle.

 

If anything I prefer the dialogue wheel of Inquisition (and Dragon Age II if I remember correctly) for there was more options for tone then just Diplomatic and Forceful.  Which is something I hope they look at working into Andromeda for that can help the monotony of "upper left" or "lower left" being how people picked their dialogue choice.

[Revan Reborn]

If anything I prefer the dialogue wheel of Inquisition (and Dragon Age II if I remember correctly) for there was more options for tone then just Diplomatic and Forceful.  Which is something I hope they look at working into Andromeda for that can help the monotony of "upper left" or "lower left" being how people picked their dialogue choice.

I agree. The system was actually better. It was just the writing and the Inquisitor's role that were horribly executed. He never had a proper place in the story, so he felt irrelevant.

[Vox Draco]

If you want control of the character, take control and give me a character. Playing Geralt was so much more satisfying than playing The Inquisitor because Geralt actually has a personality. 

 

I like Geralt, but my Quizzy all the way. Why? Because Geralt has the personality Sapkowski gave him, and we hardly get away from it.

 

My Quizzy? I can project much more of what I like into her. So I do not see the problems with voiced characters at all in Bioware Games. I liked them ALL (yes, Hawke included), and wish the Warden had had one as well...

 

And yes...I fail to see much comparisons between Witcher and Bioware-Games as well...at least Bioware still creates worlds of their own, while CD Red took the existing world and characters of an author ... no intention to arguing here, but geez, Bioware deserves some credit where its due...

[Commander Rpg]

The first one is the best choice for me. I can actually shape how the character is going to be during the gameplay, rather how he's going to differ from the main-rail-behaviour.

Usually you use a strong-scripted character, very little depending from the player's choice, when you want a strong story where every piece must have a resonance on others, and you use a player-centered character when you want to give the player a better immersion and involvement in the story.

There is also another way the japanese have done all these years with their rpgs, at least the old ones: Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana etc. All games where the main character (often with a customisable name) doesn't speak or speaks very little, giving him only some dialogue choices which don't matter a lot.

 

Finally, the path taken by Eaware. You place a mono-rail into the ground, and occasionally give the player the choice to bend it a little to the left or to the right. I said "bend", not "turn to".

 

For what my thought counts, what rpg-gamers want is to be involved in their stories, so the option of having a player-centered character is the winning one. The Witcher sells so much because, for reasons I don't know, people appreciate the game: I don't know which part of it though, although I suppose it's not the way they deal with the protagonist.

Eaware likes to assure their incomes and they will go the middle way just because they don't want to "lose" any side of the gamers base. Which is comprehensible, they're just forgetting that a game can have true success if it's actually good, and ME:A CVLPA is probably not going to be that one.

[Pearl (rip bioware)]

I don't really care which approach they take as long as the dialogue wheel burns in hell for all eternity.

[tesla21]

 Mass Effect voice acting and dialogue is leaps better imo, Fallout 4 if anything was a poor copy paste of Mass Effect wheel except worse in every possible imaginable way. Mass Effect 1-2 were great, Mass Effect 3 dropped the ball for Rene Shep but that's about it.  Shepard might've not been too deep of a character but but at least with Shepard you definetly felt like you were playing a defined character with your own personal touch. Fallout 4's is neither a strong character nor even definable by oneself.

 

Dragon Age Inquisition did feel underwhelming in my opinion, I disagree about being able to project into Inquisitor, at least I wasn't able too, because the dialogue was weirdly overly neutral, at least I myself couldn't make an Inquisitor with a strong defined personality, it always felt really weak and disconnected with how the world thought of me. Everyone was calling me so great and putting "important choices" on me while I never really felt my character was particulary impressive or interesting from what I actually saw from my character.  Kinda like a frustration feeling with Inquisitor, like wanting to scream but being unable to. My character just never had a moment to define itself. I might be too picky with this but I haven't felt in control in any of the "controllable" but voiced characters game yet.

 

There was nothing like the voiceless main characters for that kind of roleplay, the moment my badass unshakable Inquisitor starts getting startled at everything and making weird noises all inmersion is lost, the (lack of) a moment where my more regular, emotional Inquisitor doesn't get to properly express and invest itself, all interest is lost. The moment my selfish, shadier Inquisitor is not able to make more questionable choices and show abit more self interest or be a little more apathetic, again the roleplaying is lost. I do enjoy voiced characters as well, but only those I consider to be defined characters like Hawke, Geralt and Shepard. Inquisitor and especially FO4's were by far the worst of both worlds in my opinion.

 

Though the above posters raise good points about the Inquisitor just not having a proper role possibly hurting it's character.

[mopotter]

Never had any interest in playing any of the Witcher games.  That is a set character from a book and from what I've read and heard, I'd be stuck with the way they set him up.  And there is no choice in the character creation.  Nothing for me there.  It's nice that some people enjoy it, but I'll play any of the BW voiced games and FA4 instead.

 

I enjoyed DA1 - but don't want to go back.  ME1 and 2; DA 2 (yes I'm a fan) Inquisition and now FA4, all satisfy my rpg needs.   Reading the dialogue "I'd rather drink acid" would not have given me the joy hearing my Shepard say it in ME1.   

 

And even in the "Non-voiced" Baldur's Gate, DA1 the character does yell things or laugh so there is a voice.  I'd just rather have that voice say everything I pick in addition to "FOLLOW ME;  HAHA hysterical/evil/sexy giggle; To ARMS;……   

 

Repeat - I'd pick any BioWare game, and FA4 game over every other game being offered out there first and then check out something else that gives me character options. 

[Linkenski]

To be perfectly honest, I find Geralt to be massively overrated, to the point where his constant mention around here compels me to think: F*ck Witcher. I like the game and don't want to feel this way, but it seems like he's being trumped up more than he's worth. I mean really, Geralt as a personality, to me, seems to jump between indifference/boredom and irritation most of the time, and his being a fixed protag doesn't seem to help with that in the slightest. 

See, I really liked Geralt in 2 and while it was nice to see him fleshed more out as an endearing father in 3 he sort of lost something to me in the process. I don't care about the book canon btw. I only know CDPR's interpretation and continuation of that and that is what I saw and to me Geralt is different and more interesting in 2 but not really that remarkable in 3 and don't get me started on how much more I prefer Bioware's approach to interactive dialogue than CDPR's so far.

 

Also, Witcher 3 fell into the obnoxious "I don't know how you do it!" cliche where the characters make the protagonist sound like he's the center of the world sometimes. I just didn't quite care for Geralt's role in Witcher 3 to be completely upfront and I was never quite riveted by the father/daughter story in contrast to the intricate political scheme of TW2.

 

DA:I was not a good game IMHO and I like Witcher 3 far, far better but one thing you cannot take away from DA:I is that it has arguably the best dialogue-wheels of any Bioware game. There's an increase in its availability and frequency and the emotional-response system was so good because it specifically asks you as a player of your opinion, and usually you were given at least 5 distinct standpoints every time.

 

I'm okay if Andromeda has a bit more autodialogue and the protagonist is a tad more "Bioware's character" than mine if it helps the narrative's overall quality but really, I think Bioware's approach to dialogue since ME1 is what got me so invested to the company and their games in the first place. ME1 was my first Bioware game and to me they got the right idea about roleplaying and dialogue, because to me the only thing that rivals ME2's dialogue system would be Alpha Protocol or something but not Deus Ex or Witcher 2 or 3.

 

 

I don't really care which approach they take as long as the dialogue wheel burns in hell for all eternity.

Tsk. I will never understand why people want it gone. You can make grey choices with the dialogue wheel or you could make the ramifications of choosing paragon or renegade less predictable. The reason I love the dialogue wheel is that it allows for roleplaying and characterization in a way that's predictable enough that I won't need to pause for several seconds with every choice. Usually I play so I have already selected a response the second the other NPC is done talking.

[MrFob]

I never saw the big difference between Shepard and Geralt. Both are characters with a back story that is not really directly relevant to the game (I never read the Witcher books so they don't really confine my perception of the character and for Shep I chose a background). Both are semi-defined characters where the developer set certain standards but within those they let the player decide what stance to take on certain issues that come up during the games. Both have a similar amount of options during dialogue. Both have a somewhat shifting quality of how well the dialogue is laid out. Sometimes the options work well, sometimes not so well in both cases. So I don't really see a definite winner or looser there.

 

On the system of the voiced protagonist with a background but options for opinion: I think it's fantastic. I really think BW hit the sweet spot between an exciting cinematic presentation and player choice at least in ME1/2. In ME3, they have constrained the options too much but I get why this was kind of unavoidable given all the variable this game had to deal with and I hope this will get better again for Andromeda. It wasn't a fault of the system it was a fault of the trilogy setup (if you even want to cal it a fault at all). So I wouldn't want BW to change that, improve it of course (I think the paragon/renegade system needs some attention/change) but in general, I think it works.

 

That's just my opinion though, no need spreading it around.

[mopotter]

 

Tsk. I will never understand why people want it gone. You can make grey choices with the dialogue wheel or you could make the ramifications of choosing paragon or renegade less predictable. The reason I love the dialogue wheel is that it allows for roleplaying and characterization in a way that's predictable enough that I won't need to pause for several seconds with every choice. Usually I play so I have already selected a response the second the other NPC is done talking.

 

Yes!  I love the options with the wheel.  My favorite play style is picking what works for that character and sometimes gray is best for both renegade and paragon.

[Sanunes]

 

Tsk. I will never understand why people want it gone. You can make grey choices with the dialogue wheel or you could make the ramifications of choosing paragon or renegade less predictable. The reason I love the dialogue wheel is that it allows for roleplaying and characterization in a way that's predictable enough that I won't need to pause for several seconds with every choice. Usually I play so I have already selected a response the second the other NPC is done talking.

 

 

My belief that some people feel that way because they are looking at it as BioWare limited the amount of options that you can have in a dialogue, but to me the difference is that they combined the conversation dialogue with the investigate dialogue so it looks like there were more dialogue options when there wasn't.

 

I will always stand by my opinion that no matter what BioWare does there will be a group of people that actively dislike it and will say it was better when and if they make those changes another group will say the exact same thing.  The unfortunate problem is a lot of the time I see both of these groups saying they speak for everyone, when that can't be true.