A Little Less (dumb) Conversation

[4173]

The worst example of the first complaint I can think of.

I was playing the Jedi Knight story in TOR and interacting with a companion who is a potential romance. I had 3 options along the lines of:

1. I don't like you in that way.
2. [Flirt] You can bullseye my womp rat whenever you want.
3. [Flirt] You're not man enough.


The result of #3? In a completely straight, serious manner, "Not if you were the last being in the galaxy" and negative affection.

Or one that comes along quite often:

"I'll play along" translates to "Of course I will do it, I am a slave to your every desire. Would you like your shoes shined too?"

 

[omicron1]

My biggest thing is, I wish every game from here to doomsday would copy Alpha Protocol's timed speech segments. Not with such short timers all the time, but timers nonetheless. That one inclusion transformed talking from something you plan (what do I do now to get the response I want? Let me wiki that for you...) to something you simply act on. (Three seconds left; do I insult the girl or flatter her?)

A dialog option wheel without even a selection of choices might also do this - think "Nice, Angry, Ingratiating, Coy, Sarcastic" with all the options present at any juncture and mapped to the most appropriate response. Less "I'm gonna choose Paragon now, 'cause Paragon points!" and more "I have no idea which response will be good, so I'll go with my gut."

Actually, Deus Ex: Hunan Restitution (pre-magic pheromone box) pretty much perfected this. A selection of very vague choices (styles of speaking), a black box of an opposing character, and present (albeit very, very long) timers on boss conversations made it a GAME mechanic, rather than an information siphon. You went in there and were left with just one option: Talk. And that's what made it great. Quite frankly, getting

Spoiler

Zeke to drop his hostage

was one of the most rewarding gaming moments in years, simply because I worked towards that point and succeeded. Bioware, would you kindly take notice? This is supposed to be your thing. Yet your RPG with shooter mechanics was beaten black and blue on this point by an (admittedly accomplished) shooter with RPG mechanics. I don't care how you spin it, that's just wrong.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Pausing at any time to access the codex should be present in any game with that much information. I like the ME2 idea of random renegade/chaotic good moments that can fully interrupt happenings completely. Skyrim unofficially had that, where you could bow out of conversations while the other person is still talking and whack them in the face to shut them up. It would be nice to have that all the time, with consequences to follow. That would be fun, oh yes.

 

[Right Hook]

A Little Less (dumb) Conversation

Bioware has some issues conversating.

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Bioware should hire you immediately, end of story. All your points are great and I wish they were taken into account.

 

[mjc0961]

The worst part about Alpha Protocol was the timer. You have completely vague dialog options that give you absolutely no clue what your character will do, and you have a time limit. Get rid of that crap. It's a game, not a real conversation. It's not a big deal if I stop and think for a moment about what I want to choose next.

 

[shintakie10]

You wanna talk choices not matchin what you say in game? Look no further than L.A. Noire. I literally can not finish that game because the interrogation parts are so fuckin stupid.

If I select the truth option, I expect my character to say "I believe you." End. Of. Story. What I do not expect is for my character to literally accuse someone of murder over some petty reason after I select the option that translates to you believing what the other person is saying is true.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

I love Experienced Points. It's like having my brain read by a psychic who then posts my thoughts on the internet in much better words than I could write.

 

[RatRace123]

I really wish I could make use of the "walk away and end conversation" thing in Skyrim, but my odd compulsion to hear what every line of dialogue a character has to say keeps me listening, even if what they say has no bearing on anything that I'm currently doing.

Snippety Snip

I agree on every account. I loved the timed decisions of Alpha Protocol, which actually made in game conversations feel like, well normal conversations.
And the dialogue options in Human Revolution, especially the (far too few) "verbal boss battles" were awesome! I almost wish they could allow you to talk your way through the entire game using the mechanics they have.

Granted, I don't know how effective that would be on guys who are heavily armed and have shoot to kill orders, but I'd certainly like to have the option to find out.

 

[octafish]

The worst part about Alpha Protocol was the timer. You have completely vague dialog options that give you absolutely no clue what your character will do, and you have a time limit. Get rid of that crap. It's a game, not a real conversation. It's not a big deal if I stop and think for a moment about what I want to choose next.

It is pretty easy to work out what will happen in Alpha Protocol if you remember the "Rule of J.B.s"
Suave is James Bond, Thorton will act like a dickhead.
Aggressive is Jack Bauer, Thorton will act like a psychopath.
Professional is Jason Bourne, Thorton will act like a professional.

I liked that the game autosaved after conversations, I liked that the decisions were timed, but most of all I liked that the conversations actually meant something, unlike most games.

 

[teebeeohh]

the choices for my sith inqusitor in tor are horrible, especially in quests that are not part of the main chain. i know it has to work for agents and BHs too but no sith will ever say "I will do as i am told" to an imperial officer.
also: where can i turn off that every time i agree to kill someone the actual spoken text is "murder and mayhem await"?

 

[Bostur]

I completely agree with all of Shamus' points.

There is another thing I miss. I want to be able to bring up a transcript of past dialogues, or at least a summary. Especially in quest/mission based games when juggling many quests at once it's nice to be able to refresh my memory. This is especially lacking in Skyrim because the quest descriptions are so brief.
Sometimes I almost feel back to the times of Ultima where I needed to keep extensive journals on paper. That really shouldn't be necessary with modern hardware.

Grim Fandango had an option to bring up complete transcripts of past conversations, that was very handy.

 

[Saxnot]

Disingenuous assertions was that moment.

Yeah, but you know it would have been better with "this bullshit". Disingenuous just seemed to turn the moment against Shephard.

Compare/Contrast your example, Dexter's "I own you", "I am your Father", "This is Sparta!" or "He is the One."
[/i]

I'm going to disagree with you on this one. If Shepard had said something like "I've had enough of your bullshit!" it would have just been another Renegade interrupt. "Disingenuous assertions" elevated that moment to something memorable, even if it doesn't sound as much "bad ass action hero" as the former option would.

i agree. disingenuous assertions was perfect because it was such an unexpected and archaic expression (which made you take notice), followed up by a puch to the face (which was a really good payoff).

it's true it broke the atmosphere, but like mordin's song (scientist salarian) the moment became memorable BECAUSE it broke the flow.

case in point: does anyone remember what shepard said just before punching the reporter in ME1?

 

[BrotherRool]

They should also not make me be a dick to everyone just to have enough "evil points" to do an evil action later. I want morinth, yes. I don't want to have everyone else in the game hate me because I had to kick every puppy from the citadel to mordor to get enough points to do so.

This was all in all terrible. Especially since those options became insta win. If you decided Shepard was going to be a nice gal you had to go from situation to situation boringly insta solving everything with a 'hey guys, would it be nice if you stopped trying to kill each other'

You didn't even have a choice, because if Shepard is nice, well she'd try that wouldn't she? It's just that maybe if possible you could make me work even slightly for my happy ending Bioware?

You wanna talk choices not matchin what you say in game? Look no further than L.A. Noire. I literally can not finish that game because the interrogation parts are so fuckin stupid.

If I select the truth option, I expect my character to say "I believe you." End. Of. Story. What I do not expect is for my character to literally accuse someone of murder over some petty reason after I select the option that translates to you believing what the other person is saying is true.

The LA Noire system is very much a game so in one sense the content of the three options isn't important. You don't need to know what he'll say with I believe you, because you know whatever it is, you're just being rewarded with information for correctly seeing that the witness isn't being shifty. And it doesn't matter what he's saying with the 'true' option when you lose either, because if he says something stupid, it's only because you chose the wrong option.

Unlike conversation systems LA Noire isn't a choice but a test and it isn't based on what you say, but how you've judged the other person.

The problem is with doubt and lie. Because the game can be really really idiotic about what the person is doubting/lying about. It's sometimes recoverable with lie because when you thought you were going to accuse her of being at the scene of the murder and it turns out you're actually accusing her of murdering the guy with a toothpick you can say 'oh i'm sorry' and try again. (The problem is when he says something generic like 'stop lying to me' and you can't actually tell what you're trying to prove)

So doubt. The game is really really stupid about what is concealing information and what isn't and gives you no helpful clue in any way, until it's too late and when it's obvious from the beginning that the guy faked his death, you're forced to accuse someone of murder because you were trying to say that person was there helping him kill the pig

 

[Dastardly]

A Little Less (dumb) Conversation

Bioware has some issues conversating.

Read Full Article

I think the problem developers have had forever and ever is that they try to hard to view conversation they way they do combat.

Combat can have a kablillion different methods, but only one outcome: one person kills the other. So the methods are just window dressing -- do you prefer shooting, stabbing, slashing, punching, etc.?

Conversation has just as many outcomes as it has methods, and a well-designed system has to try to account for as many of those as is feasible. And that's hard. Boiling it down to two (maybe three) possible outcomes is like looking at the entire range of colors and saying, "Pick two."

Also, combat ends. Conversation doesn't (at least not in the same way). If I kill you, that's the end of our interactions. If we have a conversation, the result of that will make changes (minor or major) to our future interactions. It's just far more complex.

TL;DR: Combat is like tug-o'-war, and conversation is more like chess. While it's possible (even desirable) to make combat more chess-like, it's nearly always a bad idea to force conversation into the tug-o'-war.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Which brings up the question - have we seen a good, voiced conversation system? Like, ever? I did like the "social boss battle" thing in HR, but that doesn't seem like something you could consistently achieve for an entire game. Might be a good point to expand from, though.

 

[RelexCryo]

I love your articles Shamus.

 

[Smiley Face]

"Disingenuous Assertions" - Not even Victorian ACTORS speak like that.

It can happen. One time, I'd been reading too much Shakespeare, and when a friend was accusing me of lying to him, I replied, without thinking, "I deceivèd you not!" (Note the accent). I didn't even realize I was doing it. Sometimes, common sense fails us and madness seeps in.

As to the article, very on board with the separation of buttons for 'skip dialogue' and 'select answer', it happens so often. Also on board with the clear summaries point - my brother was playing ME1 earlier today and we spent a minute or so trying to figure out what one of the options meant before we pushed it - an option that would've been pretty easy to label clearly. Not entirely on board with having the option to leave the conversation at all times, as sometimes that would have logical implications that would totally derail the game's story (like a very tense hostage negotiation - you don't get to take a coffee break and look in the middle of it), nor am I on board with 'attack' options always succeeding, for the reasons stated above - and that sometimes, there's nothing wrong with declaring your intent to attack - the Renegade interrupt allows for the two options to coexist.

 

[Bostur]

Which brings up the question - have we seen a good, voiced conversation system? Like, ever? I did like the "social boss battle" thing in HR, but that doesn't seem like something you could consistently achieve for an entire game. Might be a good point to expand from, though.

Good question. HR seemed to have really good conversation to me, but maybe thats because it only had very few 'gamey' conversation sequences so I didn't have time to figure out the system.

FO:NV springs to mind as another game with decent voiced conversation. Possibly because NPCs were mostly limited to being mission dispensers and loreopedias. When designers know the limits of a technique I think the result often improves.

Then of course there is Grim Fandango, which I thought had excellent voiced conversations. The Double Fine guys, Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer made a video where they chat about adventure games, and the topic of conversation comes up at one point. The whole video is worth watching but I made a link to the bit about conversation in games. In short they don't think modern games do very well at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re_LWmRJK-g#t=13m45s

 

[GiantRaven]

I never really got the complaints about Alpha Protocol saving after ever conversation. The conversations are a game in which you have to try and manipulate the person in front of you using the three different stances available. Being able to redo these because you don't like the outcome you ended up with would undermine the entire idea of having deep-reaching effects from the choices you make.

The timer also works well since it allows the conversation to just flow naturally, as opposed to other games with awkward silences between each person's speech segment. I really appreciated that addition. It doesn't particularly affect what option you choose either once you understand what each different stance works out as (Suave, Aggressive, Professional).

 

[Kahunaburger]

Which brings up the question - have we seen a good, voiced conversation system? Like, ever? I did like the "social boss battle" thing in HR, but that doesn't seem like something you could consistently achieve for an entire game. Might be a good point to expand from, though.

Good question. HR seemed to have really good conversation to me, but maybe thats because it only had very few 'gamey' conversation sequences so I didn't have time to figure out the system.

FO:NV springs to mind as another game with decent voiced conversation. Possibly because NPCs were mostly limited to being mission dispensers and loreopedias. When designers know the limits of a technique I think the result often improves.

Then of course there is Grim Fandango, which I thought had excellent voiced conversations. The Double Fine guys, Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer made a video where they chat about adventure games, and the topic of conversation comes up at one point. The whole video is worth watching but I made a link to the bit about conversation in games. In short they don't think modern games do very well at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re_LWmRJK-g#t=13m45s

Aha! So the solution, as it so often is, turns out to be following Tim Schafer's lead