I have my character all figured out and can assume with near flawless accuracy how the conversation will unfold based off of the 3 options given.

 

Also, another thing you can do (if you didn't know this already) is hit ESC if you end up making choices that are not to your liking and it will cancel the whole chat and you can fire it up again and make different selections.

I shouldn't have to "figure" anything out, I shouldn't have to whittle it down to an exact science or learn the art of dialogue-option choosing, that's not fun for me. I should be able to know what I'm going to say before I say it, hell, it's supposed to be ME (especially if I'm RPing), I shouldn't have to guess at what is coming out of my own mouth.

I'm glad you've mastered it, I've given up trying to make sense of it and have resorted to hitting the ESC key and starting over a lot (this sucks, and is not engaging me in the story at all, it's making me be like 'ok, check all the options, now go back and do the route I like best.')

This also doesn't work when the convo. abruptly ends 'cause that's all to be said and I'm stuck with the options I've chosen simply because I didn't hit ESC fast enough.

I heard all this stuff about 'once you choose, you can't go back' from the developers, so, I figured it was a click-once thing...I had no idea about the ESC key until the guy in the previous post said something, that would have been handy from the start, this should be the first thing they tell you in those tutorials (perhaps they did, but I can't really read them anyway with how the scaling is on my screen) but I'm not going back and starting over.

I'm wondering if people's varying issues with this has to do with the class they are playing. I'm playing a Jedi Knight, the guy in the last post was a JK and was having issues as well. Maybe it is because of how the dialogue is for that character, or maybe it is because as Jedi we are more concerned with our tone of voice and subtle inflection than other characters?

I still don't understand why they didn't just put in the full text in the first place, it seems lazy more than anything (it's certainly not innovative.)

Thing is, as I have noticed, that the Jedi Knight, compared to the Consular, is a lot more the arrogant 'I have the power to save the universe' kind of character.

Jedi Knight options are more often the bad side of Lightside Jedi. The holier-than-thou, ******** Jedi who is simply too good to be true and therefore arrogant over his own abilities.

It is the direction they choose for the Knight, I enjoy my Consular a lot more as he has more the sense of a wise and humble Jedi like Qui Gon Jinn, while the Knight is a bit more the arrogant powerful Jedi like Light Side Anakin at his best moments.

Thing is, as I have noticed, that the Jedi Knight, compared to the Consular, is a lot more the arrogant 'I have the power to save the universe' kind of character.

Jedi Knight options are more often the bad side of Lightside Jedi. The holier-than-thou, ******** Jedi who is simply too good to be true and therefore arrogant over his own abilities.

 

It is the direction they choose for the Knight, I enjoy my Consular a lot more as he has more the sense of a wise and humble Jedi like Qui Gon Jinn, while the Knight is a bit more the arrogant powerful Jedi like Light Side Anakin at his best moments.

hmm I can see that....so much for it being an RPG I guess. The limit of max 3 choices only ever always should have been my first clue. KotOR had threads with 5, 6, 7 options at times, as do most great RPGs, ugh, I would have paid $100million to have more choices and skipped the voice acting (which IMO is just mediocre for the most part.)

I partly agree with the OP and partly think it's better to just live with it and enjoy the game; however, I would like to give an example of what the OP is talking about that struck me in particular (and by struck I mean had me laughing):

In the Esseles, the lower ranking guy who works in engineering suggests the reactor reset and the head of engineering says it will vent them into space. One of the options on the wheel was "Useful plans only, please." I choose it, and then my Knight ends up saying something like (paraphrasing), "Why don't you tell your lackeys to shut up unless they have a real suggestion."

The wheel and what was said felt a little incongruous to me at that point for sure.

I partly agree with the OP and partly think it's better to just live with it and enjoy the game

Yeah, I'm trying. Believe me I'd like to have it not be an issue, but it is very immersion breaking when I'm at any significant plot point and I have to stress over the choices because I can't decipher (again, not always, it's 70% of the time blatantly obvious, even though I still don't like how it was done) and then I ESC out and go back through numerous times (very very immersion breaking, it kind of is killing the story for me, and absolutely NO reason to go back and play a new char. of the same type to see 'the other path.')

I've been playing RPGs for most of my life, never had this issue, ya know? They've always been so well written with didactic scripts that you can tell exactly how you're saying what you're saying and there would be numerous choices to get JUST the right nuance/intention that you intended for the character you are playing, that's a HUGE part of an RPG. With all the emphasis put on how RPG this MMO would be, and the fact that a good portion of the dialogue choices have consequences one way or the other, it's a bit of a shock (and confusing as to their reasoning) to have it so loose and inexact.

I don't suppose I could get a response from developers explaining why they didn't allow the full dialogue to be viewed and chosen from/why they went with this system? Simply understanding their reasoning may alleviate a great deal of my repeated frustration .

Mass effect 2 had it nice, the choice listed the first few words of what the character would say. It wasnt enough to know everything, but it gave a good idea.

Of course the choice should be clear enough to know whether its negative/positive/friendly/antagonistic etc.

In my opinion a tooltip listing most of the dialog option would be nice. Just hover the mouse over the choice to know what it would say. This is of course is impossible on consoles, but were on PC.

in case anyone was wondering, I've resorted to cancelling out of the conversations and restarting them...and restarting them....and restarting them...usually by the 4th go through (sometimes the 3rd) I have it set and can actually continue on...it's not very fun or immersing though, and I still don't really like how limited the options are and don't understand why I can't just read what I'm going to say before saying it. Also, rather than finding the one that suits me, I find the ones that bring my affection points up, because that is all that seems to matter in the convos, not how I am actually....

(because none of them actually suit me a lot of the time, worst RPG I've ever played in that regard, I can usually choose something that fits me/my char and do that consistently through the game, this has me being one way sometimes, and other ways other times, and not for my lack of trying the various responses, it's just not scripted that way...the jedi knight has a bit of an ego and attitude that is not befitting a jedi, it seems a lot of his responses all around are not very jedi-like, then sometimes they are and I'm like "yeah! that! that is how I always want to be!", and then he isn't like that for a while...I don't get it.)

The more I play the game the more I dislike the voice acting, dialogue choices/writing, and the fact that they call it an RPG when they've clearly chosen the path for each character (LS/DS is a joke as far as that goes.)

I used to see people complaining about this in Mass Effect or Dragon Age, but I never experienced the problem myself until here in TOR.

I'd agree that 95% of the time the basic tone or gist is clear, and it's actually more interesting/engaging NOT to have already read everything your character is about to say - that would make the voice acting seem tedious.

But that 5% can be really frustrating. Recent example:

There's a Jawa rebellion on Tatooine, Empire sends me to wipe them out. I confront the Jawas and option 1 - usually the good/friendly option - is "I'm here to end this rebellion"

Great! I'm thinking this will be me telling them peacefully to stop rebelling for their own safety. No, instead my character says something like "I'm going to kill you all so you can't keep this up!"

Hmmm.

ESC is a good tip, I didn't know that before, and it's probably the best workaround here. I don't think the whole system needs revamping, there's just a few rough spots where the short text and full text don't match up as clearly as they should...

I agree that there needs to be at least a little bit more indication of what is going to be said, in some cases.

For example, I chose a "Sounds simple enough" option for my Sentinel, in response to a plan. Instead of actually SAYING that the plan sounded simple enough, he boasted about there not being anything that could stand in his way... Now, I RP him a little bit on the arrogant side, to offset his overwhelming niceness (he's, as his Smuggler and Trooper friends say, "disgustingly self-sacrificing") but even that was a little overboard for me, and "sounds simple enough" didn't really convey "I'm going to brag and be a douche" very well.

Another example, said Smuggler friend chose "I see we're not alone" on the dialogue wheel. Her character then went on to call the doctor "Fish-head", and she had to back out of the conversation and go for another option, because as she said, racial slurs are not in her character's vocabulary. Anywhere. Ever. So yeah, at least in SOME cases, there could be a little more indication of what you're going to say before you say it. The "fish-head" option could have been "What's with the alien?" or something similar...

I agree that there needs to be at least a little bit more indication of what is going to be said, in some cases.

 

For example, I chose a "Sounds simple enough" option for my Sentinel, in response to a plan. Instead of actually SAYING that the plan sounded simple enough, he boasted about there not being anything that could stand in his way... Now, I RP him a little bit on the arrogant side, to offset his overwhelming niceness (he's, as his Smuggler and Trooper friends say, "disgustingly self-sacrificing") but even that was a little overboard for me, and "sounds simple enough" didn't really convey "I'm going to brag and be a douche" very well.

 

Another example, said Smuggler friend chose "I see we're not alone" on the dialogue wheel. Her character then went on to call the doctor "Fish-head", and she had to back out of the conversation and go for another option, because as she said, racial slurs are not in her character's vocabulary. Anywhere. Ever. So yeah, at least in SOME cases, there could be a little more indication of what you're going to say before you say it. The "fish-head" option could have been "What's with the alien?" or something similar...

yeah, the game is just full of bad writing and worse implementation of said bad writing while trying to join that with voice dialogue, it's quite a mess imo and the worst system I've ever seen as far as 'playing a character', in so many ways.

So its been few years and sorry for bringing this up again, but I did not find any related topic about this.

I agree with OP, I too have to redo almost every conversation, because most of the time the choices in dialogue wheel are not saying much. The whole idea of short answers in BioWare games seems backward. Nobody remember Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment or Fallout (even Fallout 3 which is tainted by Bethesda done this right)? The conversations there were BIG part of the game and they were FUN.

I have a tendency to explore every possible dialogue option and outcome, so in singleplayer games I just save and try the outcomes for fun. So in SWTOR I tend to escape a lot, especially when doing romance with Ashara with my LS Healer Sith Inquisitor, but that is only for exploration.

But most of the time I hit ESC and start conversation again, because I am simply not happy what come stupid sentence come out from MY character. Damn it this is Role Playing Game and when I start my character I do some research in lore and try to make up some story, so WHY I have to guess what is the best option.

(Maybe those guys who give ridiculous name to its character don't give a blast about what their character going to say).

This is one of the big downside of SWTOR, and I appreciate all those dialogue option and voice acting and the work done here (if I would not, I would just stop playing), but this just ruins it all.

I searched for explanation from developers why they done this like that, but I didn't find anything.

I think it started in Mass Effect right?

Best fix at the moment seems the icons which are in Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age Inquisition. See here for the icons.

Seriously, SWTOR will be around for a few years, it would be great if this issue which obviously people have problem with got fixed. Even if we are minority it seems.

BTW, here is some video about the problem:

I don't think it's really that big of an issue. The only time I really usually notice it is when a character uses one of their 'stock' lines as a response, sometimes it comes across a bit odd. Particularly for Sith at least. Convo option 'I will look into the matter...', actual line 'LET THE MURDERIZING COMMENCE!' or something to that effect.

Other than that, the only one that immediately comes to mind is on the Black Talon when Satele contacts the boarding party, the convo option is something like 'You honor me, Master', but the actual line is just a random bubbly, "It's a pleasure to meet you!". Just like, really? Actually just saying, "You honor me, Master." would have worked perfectly well right there.