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dialogue "choices"


drealmer

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I thought I'd get used to how they do dialogue/dialogue choices in this game, but I have not and it is only getting worse. It's driving me insane to not know what my character is actually going to say. It's even more maddening sitting there trying to decipher what a 3 word vague phrase is ACTUALLY going to make me say, thinking I figured it out (why do I have to figure anything out at all?), I select the option, and his tone of voice is COMPLETELY OPPOSITE to what I heard in my head. There is no indication of tone of voice or character's perspective or ANYTHING (sometimes the exclamation point ! helps, but that's about it), I simply have to guess. Sometimes the guessing is easy, sometimes it is nearly impossible. There should be no guessing when they presume to call it an RPG. Why give some brief and vague allusion to what your character will say? The dialogue is all scripted, put it in the dialogue for us to see! Good luck making him say what you want. Not that it actually matters because everything turns out the same no matter how I apparently choose (I chose not to help someone, I got mail from them thanking me for my help?) Why am I even bothering choosing then? For LS/DS options because that is what will ultimately be making differences? - we'll see - Are there ever more than 3 options to choose from? I don't think I've seen any. How's that for variety? There should be 4, 5, even 6 options sometimes, this is what I expect from BW, this watered down bit has me frustrated and confused on top of not actually being able to actually choose what I say.
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Do you even grasp the shear quantity of dialogue written, voice acting done, and effort gone into all of this?

 

What needs to change is some of the options need to be clearer on the kind of tone being used. The time needed to put into that is immense though to find the ones where things are not as clear as they should be. But that's all that needs to change. Add some clarity, tis all.

 

Adding more options is not the solution, and to expect it just sets you up for failure.

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Huh? But that's exactly what makes it fun.

 

That and different characters have different phrases for the same options, so the system both makes sense technically and is entertaining exactly because you don't know exactly what the character will say.

 

And if you have trouble deciphering the options for their meaning, well... I don't know what to tell you. To me it's easy as pie.

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Huh? But that's exactly what makes it fun.

 

That and different characters have different phrases for the same options, so the system both makes sense technically and is entertaining exactly because you don't know exactly what the character will say.

 

And if you have trouble deciphering the options for their meaning, well... I don't know what to tell you. To me it's easy as pie.

 

Mmmm...pie. :D

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Do you even grasp the shear quantity of dialogue written, voice acting done, and effort gone into all of this?

 

What needs to change is some of the options need to be clearer on the kind of tone being used. The time needed to put into that is immense though to find the ones where things are not as clear as they should be. But that's all that needs to change. Add some clarity, tis all.

 

Adding more options is not the solution, and to expect it just sets you up for failure.

 

DA2 had a nice setup in terms of their "tone icons".

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Do you even grasp the shear quantity of dialogue written.

 

That's all you need to ask, and yes I do. Thing is, it is already written, import text would have been easy, what they did doesn't make sense and everything else you said is irrelevant to the issue.

 

Its fine how it is, you can't fix what isn't broken.

 

it's my #1 gripe with the game, it's making me frustrated and not want to play, just because all the people dying of starvation in the world doesn't bother you, doesn't mean it's not a problem, eh?

 

Huh? But that's exactly what makes it fun.

not fun to me, that's why I'm on the forums instead of in the game, because I got so tired of how it was in-game, I needed a break.

 

DA2 had a nice setup in terms of their "tone icons".

 

So did return to zork! and a bunch of other games that have a MUCH BETTER dialogue system than this game does. what good is a bunch of well-written/well-acted dialogue (especially the main characters that you play) if the system it is a part of is simply aggravating. It's like a giant beautiful diamond in the pile of poo...

 

If you don't have a problem with how it is, then lucky you, but I do, and like I said, rather than getting used to it it has become more and more frustrating. My character is a Jedi, I should not hear a single smarmy tone come out of his voice the entire game, and yet I have, this is wrong (as in, not how the developers intended me to play.)

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In general for BW games...

 

Top: nice

Middle: neutral

Bottom: mean

 

Should give you a rough idea of what you are going to say and doesn't *always* hold true.

 

I'm not dumb, I can figure out the options most of the time, but maybe 30% of the time (which is a lot), I can't or they are at least not obvious which is which (and I have to re-read, again and again, and GUESS at what they mean.) They don't always follow suit as you laid it out, if it did, it would make sense, but they mix it up...it is like they try to confuse you and make you inconsistent with the choices. Seriously, bunches of the phrasing are convoluted to the extreme and makes me wonder who typed out the dialogue options to go along with the actual voice choices, who directed them to do so, and what on earth were they thinking when they did it?

 

I can't be the only one with this problem. If you don't have this problem, don't flame and troll, be glad and go elsewhere, or at least be helpful (like the ESC key guy.)

 

Simple. I should not be guessing at what my character is saying.

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So did return to zork! and a bunch of other games that have a MUCH BETTER dialogue system than this game does. what good is a bunch of well-written/well-acted dialogue (especially the main characters that you play) if the system it is a part of is simply aggravating. It's like a giant beautiful diamond in the pile of poo...

 

The point: You have missed it.

 

DA2's dialogue system was the same save for some window dressing, such as the aforementioned. The system itself is fine, it's just missing one piece of information that would allow it to be better.

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Ya I use esc a lot as it can be rather hard to understand what your character may say, and have even posted a fair amount with other people during beta on this subject.

 

Best I can say is use ESC when can and get something differnt to what you ment, try and remember that typicaly: top-lightside middle-normal bottom-darkside not as much the typical good-neutrel-evil as this is Star Wars, and just try and think of what the pass things have been maybe even during the conversation to get a feel of what they are allowing your character to be in a sense.

 

overall though I suppose it is fine, but I do hope and assume in time they will maybe include more of the words or something.

 

Also I and many others HATED DA2's thing that toke it way to far .... (not to say some didn't like it or w/e obviously), but the sheer Hatred for it was very high and therefore hopefully and assumingly this game won't adapt it.

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I've found most of the dialogue choices fairly obvious. But of course, some of that is taking into account knowledge of the star wars universe - what is the sterotypical sith lord behaviour?

 

Point is, if people are not familiar with the lore, not familiar with bioware-dialogue, and in particular if they are not playing on a server with their native language... I can see there being some issues.

 

I don't see why it'd hurt, if you could mouse over an option and see the full text on a flyout.

....but... the one issue i see in this is that it'll encourage people to take longer during group flashpoints to make their choices.

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Point is, if people are not familiar with the lore, not familiar with bioware-dialogue, and in particular if they are not playing on a server with their native language... I can see there being some issues.

 

 

none of that applies to me, I am familiar with Star Wars, BioWare, and english is my native language, so your argument is false. Fact is, some of the stuff is BLATENTLY obvious what it means (but still not what he will say), and some of it is damn cryptic. I specifically make a choice that I think is what my Jedi SHOULD SAY, and he comes off with an attitude, NOT COOL

 

 

Best I can say is use ESC when can and get something differnt to what you ment, try and remember that typicaly: top-lightside middle-normal bottom-darkside not as much the typical good-neutrel-evil as this is Star Wars, and just try and think of what the pass things have been maybe even during the conversation to get a feel of what they are allowing your character to be in a sense.

 

I'm totally aware of this, and still I'm playing a guessing game, what you are describing here IS a guessing game. Especially when the top-middle-bottom IS NOT CONSISTENT.

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Really? You take issue with a few words that infer what the character will say instead of it just being written out fully for you? I have had no issues deciphering how my characters will react, so what, they don't say the exact words that are there. I don't see the problem.
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I don't really have this problem. (Okay, occasionally I am surprised when a response I thought was snarky comes out malicious.)

 

I will admit, though, that since they DO already have the dialog written out (see: subtitles), I would not be opposed to a checkbox in options that lets me see the exact text.

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Really? You take issue with a few words that infer what the character will say instead of it just being written out fully for you? I have had no issues deciphering how my characters will react, so what, they don't say the exact words that are there. I don't see the problem.

 

So I have three choices:

"I wasn't difficult."

"There was some trouble."

"It was more difficult than I expected."

 

Which one is condescending, which one is a laugh, and which one is an offhanded comment? These kind of choices come up a lot and I haven't noticed a pattern to which is which.

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none of that applies to me, I am familiar with Star Wars, BioWare, and english is my native language, so your argument is false. Fact is, some of the stuff is BLATENTLY obvious what it means (but still not what he will say), and some of it is damn cryptic. I specifically make a choice that I think is what my Jedi SHOULD SAY, and he comes off with an attitude, NOT COOL

Well, look at it this way...

 

I've found most of the choices fairly obvious. I have not at all had the problem you have. A few times my character has said something unexpectedly funny, etc. but I've never had an issue where I pick an option and end up with a response that wasn't what I had in mind.

 

Judging by the other people who posted, there's quite a lot of people in the same camp as me - no problems 'understanding', predicting, etc. conversation choices.

 

So here I am speculating on what the difference between you and me are. i.e. why I seem to have no problems with this and why you do. Perfectly reasonable and polite options are - maybe english isn't your first language, maybe you aren't well versed in the lore.

 

But hey, I suppose I could just stick to assuming that maybe you just have problems understanding English. gg

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I thought I'd get used to how they do dialogue/dialogue choices in this game, but I have not and it is only getting worse. It's driving me insane to not know what my character is actually going to say. It's even more maddening sitting there trying to decipher what a 3 word vague phrase is ACTUALLY going to make me say, thinking I figured it out (why do I have to figure anything out at all?), I select the option, and his tone of voice is COMPLETELY OPPOSITE to what I heard in my head. There is no indication of tone of voice or character's perspective or ANYTHING (sometimes the exclamation point ! helps, but that's about it), I simply have to guess. Sometimes the guessing is easy, sometimes it is nearly impossible. There should be no guessing when they presume to call it an RPG. Why give some brief and vague allusion to what your character will say? The dialogue is all scripted, put it in the dialogue for us to see! Good luck making him say what you want. Not that it actually matters because everything turns out the same no matter how I apparently choose (I chose not to help someone, I got mail from them thanking me for my help?) Why am I even bothering choosing then? For LS/DS options because that is what will ultimately be making differences? - we'll see - Are there ever more than 3 options to choose from? I don't think I've seen any. How's that for variety? There should be 4, 5, even 6 options sometimes, this is what I expect from BW, this watered down bit has me frustrated and confused on top of not actually being able to actually choose what I say.

 

Its a simple matter of comprehending the tone of the reply. Then that gets taken and fleshed out into a dramatic sentence. You are looking at it the wrong way, your choices are there to direct your attitude, not the text of the conversation. I love it how it is tbh, because you get to be involved in teh conversation as well as listening to it.

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Its fine how it is, you can't fix what isn't broken.

 

I agree. I have absolutely no issues with the way it is now. I've got it down to an art almost, 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.

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I'm finding that the second choices are the more compassionate and kinder replies for the most part on my Dark Side character, but sometimes it can be mean. Like for the Inquisitor quest where you have to interrogate an an injured Acolyte, the middle/second choices were the ones that cause the Lord/Overseer guy to make sure that he was safe, and transferred away after ratting out some apprentice. The second/middle choices also are what got me to help the Jedi prisoner in the Jailbreak quest, and get more Light Side points.
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No, I can definitely understand where the OP is coming from. There has been several times on my Jedi Knight character where the subtle nuances of the dialogue leads to unexpected and often unwanted outcomes. Luckily, these instances haven't been character destroying, but even still, I don't expect a "What about the Jedi?" option to be an accusatory/blaming statement, though after the fact I can see how it the developers came to that conclusion.

 

As to theories on how to "fix" the problem, there certainly may be problems with hovertext over options being a bit time consuming for the overzealous, but, logically, those who would be scrupulous with their responses would continue to be so, regardless of the extra reading material.

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