Crispy™ Isometric tactical RPGs have not advanced post-decline the same way as action RPGs

[Butter]

Yeah, it's more accurate to say Starfield's speech system is the nu-DX speech system, rather than being an evolution of Oblivion's. Oblivion's speechcraft sucks balls because it has to be systemic. Any character who can be spoken to can be speechcrafted, so it has to be a generic mini-game. Nu-DX and Starfield can do something more interesting because only specific characters in specific situations can be persuaded.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

One real problem I have is that nobody, including BG3 which is rightly getting its dick sucked in this thread, can be bothered to come up with a better skill check system than "pass = quest immediately complete, fail = combat". Colony Ship Game is getting a bit of a beating over in the release thread for this kind of thing too. There must be a better, more intelligent, more player-involved, less boring way to handle dialogue checks than this. Starfield, of all games, has offered the most exciting innovation in speech checks in recent memory, and it's basically a non-retarded remix of the fucking Oblivion speech minigame. There's a couple bits in BG3 where a failed dialogue check makes something interesting happen (stealing the Gith egg for example; if you can't convince the guy then you have to find a way to cross the acid and sneak to the egg, which is fun) but for the most part it's still the same shit as usual.

EDIT: Actually, I'm gonna say it - the Oblivion speech minigame was a good idea, it was just executed in a devastatingly shit way. But the idea - the player has to actually play a game-within-a-game, which gets tangibly easier as their characters' skills increase so you can actually feel your character getting more persuasive and becoming a more effective negotiator - is much better than just clicking [Speech] and winning by default. The error was in making the minigame unbelievably bad, and also having the NPCs pull fucked up fetal alcohol syndrome faces the whole time. Other games should have learned from the catastrophe and improved on it, rather than just going for lame dialogue tags. Wasteland 2 can take its "Hard Ass" checks and fuck off.

Simple skill checks create boring systems, it's like if an RPG combat system was all about comparing your and enemy skill numbers, and the higher number automatically wins. So yes, dialogue definitely needs to be "gamified" more to be brought up to par with combat and exploration and puzzle solving as an actual gameplay element. How to do it is of course more up for debate, personally I am not a fan of Oblivion/nuDeus Ex dialogue systems. I would prefer dialogue gamification brought about by basing dialogue on game knowledge and logical decision making myself. How many RPGs have in-game books, or encylopedia like NPCs, divulging all that information for either nothing or "flavor/atmosphere"? Well imagine if in addition to that, learning all that stuff would let you talk to NPCs more effectively.

You talk to NPC A, and he tells you something and you read previously that this is not the case, so you can deduce that he is either dumb or full of shit, and adjust your dialogue with him accordingly. Or NPC B tells you some nugget of information, which you combine with what NPC X told you yesterday, and use the combined nugget to crack open some mystery you read about in Book C. I realize this would be challenging to implement, but after decades of passive dialogue, it might be time to experiment with this stuff.

 

[Lemming42]

It sounds interesting, the trick in such a system would be in handling the rift between player skill and character skill. Like, you as the player might be able to realise an NPC is lying, but your 1 INT 1 CHA 1 PER character wouldn't be able to make that same conclusion.

Weird example but LA Noire had the mechanic where you have to actually choose a pertinent piece of evidence during dialogue. It could work in an RPG too, if you had the ability during NPC dialogue to at any point choose an item from your inventory that you think might prove or disprove something an NPC is saying, but I'm not sure how that'd work with charisma/persuasion/etc skills.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

It could probably be handled similar to RPG combat: character stats would limit your overall options in some way, but then player skill could manipulate the available options.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Simple skill checks create boring systems, it's like if an RPG combat system was all about comparing your and enemy skill numbers, and the higher number automatically wins. So yes, dialogue definitely needs to be "gamified" more to be brought up to par with combat and exploration and puzzle solving as an actual gameplay element. How to do it is of course more up for debate, personally I am not a fan of Oblivion/nuDeus Ex dialogue systems. I would prefer dialogue gamification brought about by basing dialogue on game knowledge and logical decision making myself. How many RPGs have in-game books, or encylopedia like NPCs, divulging all that information for either nothing or "flavor/atmosphere"? Well imagine if in addition to that, learning all that stuff would let you talk to NPCs more effectively.

You talk to NPC A, and he tells you something and you read previously that this is not the case, so you can deduce that he is either dumb or full of shit, and adjust your dialogue with him accordingly. Or NPC B tells you some nugget of information, which you combine with what NPC X told you yesterday, and use the combined nugget to crack open some mystery you read about in Book C. I realize this would be challenging to implement, but after decades of passive dialogue, it might be time to experiment with this stuff.

That's exactly what Kingdom Come: Deliverance did in one of my favorite quests ever: Madonna of Sasau, part of A Woman's Lot dlc.

The quest is an investigation into religious visions of a woman, who because of thilese visions stands accused of demonic possession by the inquisition.

First part of the quest is investigation - you PC talks to the accused and the witnesses, visits libraries and reads books on the matter (provided he can read, of course and has proper understaning of theology!), can also engage in corruption to change the testimonies.

The second part is the trial itself, in which the PC defends the accused in front of an inquisitorial court. This is basically a series of checks but they check everything - your PCs speechcraft, his relationships with numerous characters, past deeds and information he managed to collect for the case. You, the player choose dialogue options, but they (and chancees of success) are shaped by how you previously engaged with the game.

As a result it becomes a very engaging duel with various fail states.

I really hope more devs follow this great example in creating non-combat gameplay.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Simple skill checks create boring systems, it's like if an RPG combat system was all about comparing your and enemy skill numbers, and the higher number automatically wins. So yes, dialogue definitely needs to be "gamified" more to be brought up to par with combat and exploration and puzzle solving as an actual gameplay element. How to do it is of course more up for debate, personally I am not a fan of Oblivion/nuDeus Ex dialogue systems. I would prefer dialogue gamification brought about by basing dialogue on game knowledge and logical decision making myself. How many RPGs have in-game books, or encylopedia like NPCs, divulging all that information for either nothing or "flavor/atmosphere"? Well imagine if in addition to that, learning all that stuff would let you talk to NPCs more effectively.

You talk to NPC A, and he tells you something and you read previously that this is not the case, so you can deduce that he is either dumb or full of shit, and adjust your dialogue with him accordingly. Or NPC B tells you some nugget of information, which you combine with what NPC X told you yesterday, and use the combined nugget to crack open some mystery you read about in Book C. I realize this would be challenging to implement, but after decades of passive dialogue, it might be time to experiment with this stuff.

That's exactly what Kingdom Come: Deliverance did in one of my favorite quests ever: Madonna of Sasau, part of A Woman's Lot dlc.

The quest is an investigation into religious visions of a woman, who because of thilese visions stands accused of demonic possession by the inquisition.

First part of the quest is investigation - you PC talks to the accused and the witnesses, visits libraries and reads books on the matter (provided he can read, of course and has proper understaning of theology!), can also engage in corruption to change the testimonies.

The second part is the trial itself, in which the PC defends the accused in front of an inquisitorial court. This is basically a series of checks but they check everything - your PCs speechcraft, his relationships with numerous characters, past deeds and information he managed to collect for the case. You, the player choose dialogue options, but they (and chancees of success) are shaped by how you previously engaged with the game.

As a result it becomes a very engaging duel with various fail states.

I really hope more devs follow this great example in creating non-combat gameplay.

The whole season pass dlc is worth it for thid quest alone tbh. It was so good.