Questa discussione ha avuto 38 risposte

[Qun00]

With the Warden and the Inquisitor, you pretty much have to create and develop your character's personality from scratch.

But DA2 has it limited to three, simple sets, and the only work left to do is to choose when is it appropriate to be nice, funny or blunt.

[Lazarillo]

A little. Maybe? The fact that there is a personality key, and that Hawke's general behavior will reflect that over time means that even though I'm limited, s/he still feels like "my" Hawke. My canon Hawke, in particular evolved over time, and I still got to see her personality evolve with it, simply because I was changing the color of her dialogue wheel. Of course, I also tend to work backwards when I'm playing DA games, thinking first of what kind of character and choices I want to see, and then coming up with a "roleplaying" justification for taking those. So perhaps it's easier for me.

The opposite end, which was the Warden approach of the silent hero with more generic options to sort of build a personality around, worked pretty well, though too. I can go either way. What I didn't like was the compromise between the two styles that we got with the Inquisitor, where the options were both limited and generic, and thus made the character seem rather flat and undefined no matter what "choices" I made.

[straykat]

I don't have to develop the Warden by scratch. The origins are a sort of give-and-take relationship with the writers. And the things I do imagine are things lifted from the game itself. All I need is a little cue here and there, and I'm good to go.

 

It's the Inquisitor that's more open ended. And it's shitty. Only slightly better than Bethesda games. Which makes me wonder, why turn Bioware into something it wasn't? They're known for writing stories (THEIR stories). Not sandboxes and platforms for me to swim in my own ideas. If I wanted that, I can write my own stuff and take out the middle man. I don't understand the need to buy someone else's stuff, and then say "Hey this mine. How dare you impose your vision?!"

 

Ahem. Anyways..

 

To answer your question though, only a little. Like in DA2 and ME, the paraphrasing can be confusing. I'm more concerned about auto-dialogue and auto-friendships/choices. That can really get in the way sometimes. Not so much the dialogue options themselves.

[ArcadiaGrey]

I don't play it as 3 separate sets tbh.

 

My first Hawke was diplomatic and occasionally aggressive.  She didn't have any sense of humour at all and was very sensible.  I could make her merciful and kind without any trouble.

My second was aggressive and sarcastic, a hard nosed Templar with a morbid sense of humour, who spent most of her time being annoyed by people.  She was helpful in a 'as long as you do it my way' kind of a way, and I could reflect that in the dialogue.  She got tired of mages very quickly and wanted to stomp on them all.

My third will be sarcastic and diplomatic when she needs to be, but mostly tries to lighten the mood.  Whenever mages are attacked though, she'll be aggressive.

Then my fourth will be aggressive but using sarcasm to belittle people and be a lazy selfish s.o.b. 

 

So I don't really feel restricted, in fact I love shaping all my different Hawkes.  They have way more personality than any of my Wardens.

 

I found I could do exactly the same with my IQ, only one so far and she was sarcastic and occasionally aggressive, and the dialogue suited her perfectly.  I haven't had another yet so I can say whether IQ has as much range as DA2, but I'm hoping it does.

 

EDIT - Come to think of it, the only time I've felt restricted and as if there isn't an option I want is with ME3.  Only having 2 ways of saying 'yes' was incredibly frustrating, but those moments are rare in DA.

[straykat]

I agree that they have more personality than the Warden, but mostly due to voice acting. Especially Hawke. The Diplo/Aggressive stuff is still there though. Humorous, not so much. More like Cleverness. It's just not labeled. No different than, say, the romance lines aren't labeled either.

[sniper_arrow]

I wouldn't say so in a way. It's up to the player if he wants to become a peacemaker, a warmonger, or Deadpool.

[straykat]

As much as I like Deadpool, I see Humorous Hawke as a critic. And fairly lucid.. maybe one of the only lucid people in Kirkwall

[roselavellan]

I'm finally playing DA2, and I find myself playing Hawke as I did the Inquisitor - I don't see the dialogue choices as 3 sets of personality types (though I understand there are personality mechanics at play here), but as dialogue choices to be selected according to what Hawke might have wanted to say in each situation. So in my mind, my Hawke has her own personality, which is often diplomatic, will use humour where appropriate (humour seems to deflect tension really well in DA2), and will occasionally be direct when necessary.

[straykat]

I'm finally playing DA2, and I find myself playing Hawke as I did the Inquisitor - I don't see the dialogue choices as 3 sets of personality types (though I understand there are personality mechanics at play here), but as dialogue choices to be selected according to what Hawke might have wanted to say in each situation. So in my mind, my Hawke has her own personality, which is often diplomatic, will use humour where appropriate (humour seems to deflect tension really well in DA2), and will occasionally be direct when necessary.

 

I do the same, but the difference with DAI is the more you choose something, Hawke gets a set personality for neutral dialogue. It resets a little after each Act.

[Vanilka]

I may be in the minority, but I definitely do feel that I have much more freedom with the Warden and the Inquisitor. When I started playing DAII for the first time, I was so unhappy with the dialogue options that I restarted about three times soon from the start before I was finally somewhat committed to finishing a playthrough. I don't know if it's the dialogue options or rather the way they were written. It doesn't help they tend to be somewhat extreme, so sometimes you go right from smiling to being pissed the hell off, making Hawke look like a schizophrenic in the process. It took me years to, not enjoy Hawke's dialogue options, but to at least come to terms with them in order to be able to play through the game without it feeling like a chore. I've only managed to drag myself through two full playthroughs and I'm not really planning another one and this is one of the biggest reasons. Mass Effect and Inquisition restored my faith in roleplaying with a voiced protagonist, though.

 

So, yeah, while I've kind of got used to it, I find Hawke's dialogue options more limiting than the others'. It may be that the moods are conveyed a little too strong (or sometimes not strong enough, on the other hand. Aggressive Hawke sounds like they talk about arranging flowers most of the time, just the character model frowns while at it). It may be the way they were written. (And I don't know how many times I went, "Yeah, that's not what I wanted Hawke/thought Hawke was going to say.") It may be our personal tastes. It can be all of the above. However, if you notice, the Inquisitor also has the nice - funny - blunt tones rather often (Fortunately, they're not limited to them.), but for whatever reason I don't find them obnoxious the way I find Hawke's.

 

I guess the good old, "You can't please everyone," applies here.

[Sah291]

As much as I like Deadpool, I see Humorous Hawke as a critic. And fairly lucid.. maybe one of the only lucid people in Kirkwall

I agree, that's why sarcastic is my favorite of the 3. Sarcastic Hawke is pretty ruthless, I think, because he/she is probably the most honest.

But even so, there are some really good Diplo and Aggro lines as well, so I still mixed them up a bit in different combinations.

I suppose it does limit your RP more, but the trade off was that Hawke came off as a more defined character in the story, and that wasn't a bad thing. Just looking at this forum, people still have some wildly different interpretations of Hawke, so a lot of it will always be partly headcanon anyway.

I struggled with defining my Inquistitor at first. It took me a couple playthroughs. But I think it had more to do with the lack of scripted side quests that game has, rather than the lack of tones/dialogue options. I define my character as I go along and experience the story, and DA2 had lots of side quests that felt personal to Hawke, so it was easy to do.

[roselavellan]

So, yeah, while I've kind of got used to it, I find Hawke's dialogue options more limiting than the others'. It may be that the moods are conveyed a little too strong (or sometimes not strong enough, on the other hand. Aggressive Hawke sounds like they talk about arranging flowers most of the time, just the character model frowns while at it). It may be the way they were written. (And I don't know how many times I went, "Yeah, that's not what I wanted Hawke/thought Hawke was going to say.") It may be our personal tastes. It can be all of the above. However, if you notice, the Inquisitor also has the nice - funny - blunt tones rather often (Fortunately, they're not limited to them.), but for whatever reason I don't find them obnoxious the way I find Hawke's.

I guess the good old, "You can't please everyone," applies here.

They definitely did go for more neutrality in DAI, possibly so as not to mess with our headcanoned personalities too much (Alix Wilton Regan said something to that effect in Biofan's interview, I think), and possibly also for the reasons you mentioned. I notice that sometimes - rarely - when I switch to a humorous response, the tone will be a bit more cutting than I expect. But that has only happened a few times, and hasn't limited my enjoyment of the game.

All in all, I enjoy both dialogue systems of DA2 and DAI.

[straykat]

For all the touting of being friendly to headcanon in DAI, they screwed that up by closely tying career paths and lifestyle to Class and Race selection. A Qunari merc or a Dwarf smuggler is a very specific thing compared to a human noble rogue... a human who was consigned to the Chantry as well. That's even more restrictive than Noble Cousland rogue or Nathaniel. The Cousland didn't have the extra baggage of the Chantry that you were forced to include in your imagination.

 

DAI's selections are specific stories with less room for headcanon than ever. I have to jump through hoops just to make my human rogue not be a complete dolt like Sebastian. If they're young, then they're sheltered and not really experienced enough to see the world (let alone underworld) like most rogues do. This is no Zev or Isabela type of rogue. And if they're old. then I have to jump through hoops to make them at least 30. The codex is restrictive in how it calls you the "youngest child". And if I wanted to be a warrior, then I can't even be an old one... like a Templar veteran or something. It paints a very specific picture instead of one open for headcanon. Because you don't even have the spec or know anything about Templars when speaking to Cullen. And if you are an older warrior, yet not a Templar, then you're just some cleric who never put their skills to use. That's boring and uneventful. Not an interesting protagonist. To me at least.

 

I'm capable of headcanoning, but I don't like this. I'd prefer just having a clear story instead of jumping through hoops to salvage something from the limited parameters they gave me.

 

They were better off when it was human only. They planned on a more iconic Rogue as their "signature" character, like Hawke.. and I bet it would have been cool. I bet it had more flexible backgrounds... and backgrounds are what matter. Not race. They could have been the noble or the merc or smuggler. Or maybe all of them. That's what Hawke was.. a little of all of it. You're far more free to emphasize the traits you like there. And it doesn't take anything to imagine how Hawke got to various points.. be it a rogue or a soldier or an apostate. And the personality traits on top of that.

[Vanilka]

Might have more to do with BioWare making every single human PC connected to nobility one way or another for no reason and not with race selection. Because we can't have a single human protag without super special noble blood, of course. (Even the goddamn mage Warden turned out to be related to nobility.)

 

Personally, I would've despised a set, human only protag again. I thoroughly disliked how Hawke was handled and I had to live with that, too. Hawke is the number one reason I hated DAII for so long and I had to deal with it, too. Sometimes it seems to me that even though people still get their humans - and they always get their humans - some of them just never have enough. Ever. It's not like we get the race selection in every single game. (And, no, I didn't feel my elven playthrough lacked anything. I'm very happy with it. Because I care about the experience as a whole and not just about whether they spell the background out for me and shove upon me a bunch of random individuals my character should consider family just because somebody said so.)

 

And if they're not supposed to make their games with fans in mind, for whom should they make them? I feel that this is the case of, "It's only okay if I like it. Who gives a damn if it made somebody else happy?" In my opinion, it's more of a matter of personal tastes rather than anything else. Which I understand very well, but still.

[straykat]

Might have more to do with BioWare making every single human PC connected to nobility one way or another for no reason and not with race selection. Because we can't have a single human protag without super special noble blood, of course. (Even the goddamn mage Warden turned out to be related to nobility.)

 

Personally, I would've despised a set, human only protag again. I thoroughly disliked how Hawke was handled and I had to live with that, too. Hawke is the number one reason I hated DAII for so long and I had to deal with it, too. Sometimes it seems to me that even though people still get their humans - and they always get their humans - some of them just never have enough. Ever. It's not like we get the race selection in every single game. (And, no, I didn't feel my elven playthrough lacked anything. I'm very happy with it. Because I care about the experience as a whole and not just about whether they spell the background out for me and shove upon me a bunch of random individuals my character should consider family just because somebody said so.)

 

And if they're not supposed to make their games with fans in mind, for whom should they make them? I feel that this is the case of, "It's only okay if I like it. Who gives a damn if it made somebody else happy?" In my opinion, it's more of a matter of personal tastes rather than anything else. Which I understand very well, but still.

 

I don't mind race selection, but I like the premise to be designed around them first. Not the other way around. This wasn't inspired at all. It was pressure from people who whined about DA2 and how "humans are boring". That's no way to write a story. Scrapping your vision and caving to random people at the 11th hour.

 

It's no way to create anything really. I'd never cave into outsiders who wanted me to play music a certain way either. They can **** off. Too bad game companies don't think like this. lol.

 

That said, even if they have race selection, I only think the elf makes sense. Because they're still very much tied to this particular landscape and all the political issues. There's a lot of unfinished business. Not so much with recent carta dwarves or Qunari. There's no drama there at all. It's just race for the sake of race. And then, I would have preferred a City Elf. There were probably hundreds of servants who died at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, yet the lone Dalish who doesn't care about any of it gets to survive? lol. And not only that, the City Elves were always the more Andrastian inclined and more direct inheritors of Fen'Harel's original plan.. It would have been more interesting to see a "free elf" come to bite him back in the ass directly. The Dalish floats in a different sort of space. But whatever.

 

Then again, I suppose Sera takes up that mantle anyways. And she does it well.

[Vanilka]

I don't mind race selection, but I like the premise to be designed around them first. Not the other way around. This wasn't inspired at all. It was pressure from people who whined about DA2 and how "humans are boring". That's no way to write a story. Scrapping your vision and caving to random people at the 11th hour.

 

It's no way to create anything really. I'd never cave into outsiders who wanted me to play music a certain way either. They can **** off. Too bad game companies don't think like this. lol.

 

That said, even if they have race selection, I only think the elf makes sense. Because they're still very much tied to this particular landscape and all the political issues. There's a lot of unfinished business. Not so much with recent carta dwarves or Qunari. There's no drama there at all. It's just race for the sake of race. And then, I would have preferred a City Elf. There were probably hundreds of servants who died at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, yet the lone Dalish who doesn't care about any of it gets to survive? lol. And not only that, the City Elves were always the more Andrastian inclined and more direct inheritors of Fen'Harel's original plan.. It would have been more interesting to see a "free elf" come to bite him back in the ass directly. The Dalish floats in a different sort of space. But whatever.

 

Then again, I suppose Sera takes up that mantle anyways. And she does it well.

 

I'm not saying that how the background stories were implemented is perfect, but I also see it as a minor thing. There's still an entire game left. It's not much different from how you choose your background for Shepard in ME.

 

I find it a little funny to talk about not pandering to fans when, if a single race should ever be chosen, it would always be humans, not because humans necessarily would be the most suitable, but because humans are the most popular. It will always be about making somebody happy in the long run. In this case, fans gave their feedback. BioWare decided it was worth their time. Some people are happy with it. (Try telling people who really enjoy playing their canon Inquisitors as dwarves that they don't deserve that experience.) Some are not. You can never please everyone.

 

I don't even know why you assume that a Dalish wouldn't care about any of it. The Dalish apparently care about the event enough to send an important person of their own to spy on it and I definitely don't play my Inquisitor the way you say. Maybe some people play theirs your way. But it's never said or given that's how the Inquisitor feels.

 

I would've loved being able to choose between a Dalish Elf or a City Elf, I'd be also happy with having either, but they decided to go with the Dalish and there's nothing wrong with that. I see no reason why being Andrastian should matter at all. We have humans for that. One of the reasons why I like playing different races is that I don't have to subscribe to the Chantry bull half the time I play. It's just as fun telling people off when they bring it up. And the Fen'Harel stuff is just as significant for the Dalish, given it's part of the history they try to piece together so much. It is again just about preferences and not facts.

[Qun00]

It's the Inquisitor that's more open ended. And it's shitty. Only slightly better than Bethesda games. Which makes me wonder, why turn Bioware into something it wasn't? They're known for writing stories (THEIR stories). Not sandboxes and platforms for me to swim in my own ideas. If I wanted that, I can write my own stuff and take out the middle man.

Funnily enough, most TES fans I've seen feel the opposite way.

They resent the implication that there is anything preestablished about their heroes and consider the idea an affront to their roleplay freedom.

[Remmirath]

At first I would have said definitely yes, but perhaps not? It's not so much the simple sets as how hard it is to figure out what's going to be said ahead of time, which I did feel was usually more of a problem in DA II than in DA:I. I don't have any problem picking different options for different situations, so I never felt like I had to always take the aggressive options to keep a consistent character.
 
I do, however, consider creating and developing one's character's personality from scratch to be a strength of a game, not a weakness. All three of the games have fairly thorough backgrounds for your character, although DA:O has the most different ones to chose from and DA II the least, so the difference mainly comes down to the ability to pick appropriate dialgoue options.
 
The personality key actually ended up being the worst problem for me, because it didn't catch on to the fact that my character was generally aggressive/angry towards most people, but generally friendly/nice towards certain people. Therefore, sometimes he ended up acting character one way or the other in long animations, which was frustrating.

 

I definitely feel that the oversimplified preview snippets hurt it, but that's not the same thing as the aggressive/friendly/sarcastic option set. I did appreciate having more options than that again in DA:I, but generally speaking, one of those three broad options can fit the situation. For me the problem came in trying to use that to lock in to a character personality rather than those being the three options.
 

It's the Inquisitor that's more open ended. And it's shitty. Only slightly better than Bethesda games. Which makes me wonder, why turn Bioware into something it wasn't? They're known for writing stories (THEIR stories). Not sandboxes and platforms for me to swim in my own ideas. If I wanted that, I can write my own stuff and take out the middle man. I don't understand the need to buy someone else's stuff, and then say "Hey this mine. How dare you impose your vision?!"

 

I'd argue that BioWare's strength has been to create a strong story and background while still allowing you to fully create your own character (or more than one if you go back as far as Baldur's Gate, if one so chooses) and fit them into the story, and that they've been going away from that more in recent years with the more set protagonists. Two sides to the same truth, I suppose; the trend has definitely been changing, and it's a question of what you think of that.

 

The way I look at it is that you're buying the game because you want to play in the world the developers created and play through the story, and have fun with the gameplay. You're buying a roleplaying game because you also want to do all that with your own character, probably multiple different characters on different times playing through the game, rather than the same preset protagonist every time.

[Contraire]

I liked both. My favorite part of Hawke's tone was the dominant personality dialogue that would be spoken at times without needing to be chosen, which let Hawke react to what was happening more often and with more fluidity.

 

What I really dislike in the wheel then spoken dialogue system is the discrepancy between what's written and what's going to be said. In theory, it's a good idea: you read the summary and then you get the fleshed-out, voiced-over dialogue.

 

In practice, I want to know where the racist choices are so I know not to pick them. I had to reload the game when Sarcastic Hawke's "this is familiar" wheel dialogue turned into "yet another greedy dwarf" in spoken dialogue.

[GoldenGail3]

I like the Warden more as a person, but meh, my Snarky dude did kind of have more personality then her... And I'm alright with dat.

[springacres]

Yes and no.  On the one hand, playing as a purple!Hawke made me feel like I sometimes had to choose snarky lines where a diplomatic or aggressive response might have been more appropriate.

 

On the other hand, no one was forcing me to choose the purple options ALL the time.  The result was that I ended up with a mostly-purple Hawke who could be a diplomat if the situation called for it, was prey to the not-so-occasional foot-in-mouth episode (like the purple line where you give the human remains back to Emeric, which I found to be laugh-out-loud funny) and had a side of "don't f*** with my family or friends" when needed.

[The Smiling Bandit]

I would argue I’m just as hindered in Inquisition if not more so. At least as Hawke I always had a barometer to tell me generally how a line would be delivered and thus I had a better idea of how the conversation would go.

Still though, I long for being able to know what my character is actually going to say ahead of time. Even if it was only the first sentence of a brief exchange I could live with that, I wouldn’t like it, but I could live with it.

[vbibbi]

Talk about a leading question...

[Obadiah]

I'll say this in favor of the simplified dialog - on subsequent games it certainly made it easier to remember what the hell I'd said previously, and so pick a different option and create a new story and Hawke.

[Qun00]

Talk about a leading question...

My intention is to address an specific aspect of this. A generic question such as "Do you like it?" isn't the best way to accomplish it.