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Moron indicators

Vault Dweller

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I'm just curious what people think of dialogue indicators now. We've had 3 recent games that featured different indicators: Lionheart (see the discussion that started it all), ToEE, and Bloodlines.

In Arcanum you had to think of every line, figuring out a proper response, and being unsure where it might lead you and whether or not the line is tagged as [Persuasion]. In Bloodlines, we had different colors for easier association. Those colors made any other lines less important and purely informative. You didn't really need to think what to pick, what the character you are talking to might respond better to, etc. If your dialogue options have a bright shiny line, you know right away what to pick. The only time you actually had to think is when you have more than one color to choose from.

Any thoughts?
 

Volourn

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Doesn't really bother me too much. Plus, Bl - at times - did it tricky. Sometimes there'd be multiple normal looking dialogue choices where only 1, or 2 would work and the others would be bad. Also, sometimes, the coloured dilaogues would be the poor chocie.

ie. Giovanni mission iwth that gril who leads you to the crypt. I got a blue dialogue to come on to her. That lead to her htreatening to leave. Luckily, I had another blue dialogue chocie to convince I was just joking and promised to be more serious. :D I'd presume the first 'blue" dialogue option was easy to make but the second probably required a higher persaude skill.

To me, I'm neutral. You have to remember, the dialogue is testing your character's dialogue skills not your player so the characetr should know (normally) what's the best chocie in convo is when they pass their check.
 

Vault Dweller

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Volourn said:
Giovanni mission iwth that gril who leads you to the crypt. I got a blue dialogue to come on to her. That lead to her htreatening to leave. Luckily, I had another blue dialogue chocie to convince I was just joking and promised to be more serious. :D I'd presume the first 'blue" dialogue option was easy to make but the second probably required a higher persaude skill.
Yeah, like I said, the only time you have to choose is when you have several tagged choices. That makes anything else you can say to her irrelevant.

You have to remember, the dialogue is testing your character's dialogue skills not your player so the characetr should know (normally) what's the best chocie in convo is when they pass their check.
I'm aware of that, but don't we always ask for options when role-playing our characters? Having one correct line takes that choice away, imo.
 

Hajo

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Vault Dweller said:
I'm aware of that, but don't we always ask for options when role-playing our characters? Having one correct line takes that choice away, imo.

The PC most likely doesn't have perfect knowledge and skills. He can indicate good choices, but there should be some uncertainity, particularly if the PC has low diplomatic/social skills.

An outright stupid PC could even inidcate completely wrong lines as good choices.

Letting the player do the final choice let's him use his own skills over the PC skills, but I think the more or less precise highliting is a good idea to strengthen the role.
 

Mendoza

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I think for Bloodlines you really needed them for some of the conversation options. For domination, you need to see a blood cost, and you also need to know you're using domination so you don't think you're trying to use intimidate, or just being an idiot.

I'd generally go along with what Volourn said though. I put points in persuade so that my character knows how to persuade people. So the interface needs to tell me which options are there because my character has that skill. I did like how Bloodlines would often give you a persuade option, but you'd then have to follow it up with a convincing reason. It struck a good balance.

To me, persuasion should be about the way you phrase things to people, rather than what reason you give them for doing what you want (which the player should have to decide).
 

Otaku_Hanzo

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As Hajo said, dialogue indicators are there to help the person roleplay the character better where as the actual person himself may not have the skills their character does. BUT, if a game is going to have the indicators, I feel it should be a toggled option kind of thing. That would be the better way of doing things. Then, those of us who don't wish to use them, won't have to.

As for the Discipline dialogue options in VtM:B, I don't mind them at all because it IS a special power you are using so you pretty much need to know you are choosing to use it. I do wish however they would have just put something like [1. Use Seduction...] and then let you type something in or go with their default line. Would have helped with roleplay immersion more.
 

Jinxed

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Yeah, a toggle would be nice. What was that perk called in Fallout 2? Empathy? I don't recall it being in part 1.
 

suibhne

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Supernatural acts like Dominate, Dementation, or Force Persuade clearly need to be flagged; they require intentionality, so you need to know that you're making that choice. Other conversation options, though, probably shouldn't be. For example, my character's Persuade skill isn't going to affect merely one or two responses; it's going to affect all of the conversational options I use at all times (even though diplomacy might not be necessary in most cases). This is less true for Intimidate, but those options should stick out like a sore thumb anyway if they've been well crafted.

I thought Bloodlines' dialogue options were fairly poor: the NPC dialogue was great, but the range of possible PC responses was often pretty lacking. (Never mind classics like "Dude, that shit is WACK!" - and never mind the fact that few if any games have done better.) Every dialogue alternative should be distinct, and there should be enough of them to allow different conversational approaches and the expression of different PC character traits. Unfortunately, Bloodlines rarely follows those principles, and I think the skill tags end up being a crutch for designers who don't have either the time or the skill to write diverse, approprite dialogue alternatives.

I'm an experienced mediator and facilitator (which might be why it's sometimes so fun to be an asshole here :)), and I use my training frequently in daily conversation - in restaurants, with the phone company's Customer Service, even in conversations with friends. I don't think of particular responses as "Persuade," etc.; I simply try to use all of the skills at my disposal, whenever they're appropriate. Granted that RPG dialogue trees are an abstraction, but I'd still like to see a dialogue system intelligent enough to dispense with the clumsy and metagaming tags. (The challenge then, of course, would be convincing players that skills like Persuade are worth the investment when they can't directly measure the return.)

I agree with VD that flagging "Persuade" dialogue options (for example) might be referred to as a moron indicator, but I think what it really indicates is moronic design. :D
 

Surlent

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Every dialogue alternative should be distinct, and there should be enough of them to allow different conversational approaches and the expression of different PC character traits.
That's good ideal case. Sometimes linearity in dialoge hinders in BL, but fortunately the game has much dialogue and all it voice acted, and especially those special lines for example some of the Malkavian stuff.

In Arcanum, it was usually trial and error = reload with persuasion until you got the hang of it. For roleplaying purposes (more character skill, less player skill), BL's high lighted dialogue might be better.
 

Cimmerian Nights

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Jinxed said:
What was that perk called in Fallout 2? Empathy? I don't recall it being in part 1.

The nice twist in that was that green would give you a good reaction, and red a bad one. But sometimes you'd have to piss a person off to get what you wanted anyway, so they weren't always 'no-brainers'.
 

Vault Dweller

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suibhne said:
I thought Bloodlines' dialogue options were fairly poor: the NPC dialogue was great, but the range of possible PC responses was often pretty lacking.
Speaking of dialogues, while some lines were ok, some persuasion lines were absolutely idiotic. There was no actual persuasion, just the blue lines:

Dealing with Dennis (the guy you get explosives from after Mercurio screws up)

PC: [Persuasion] How about you give me the stuff now and I'll, like, pay you later.
Dennis: Sure (as in "Sounds great, why haven't I thought of doing business that way before") Doh!

Funny enough, if you talk to him again, there is no "where is my money, bitch" or whatever. The quest is over. You have successfully used your supah persuasion abilities and that's pretty much it.

Another fine example, the hotel, getting the key to the second plaquebearer's room.

PC: "Give me the key to one of your guest's room "
Clerk: No can do.
PC: Well, I have to warn you, I'm very persuasive
Clerk: Bring it on
PC: [persuasion] "it's a surprise visit!"
Clerk: That's it? Hah! What a lame....err, I feel persuaded and totally owned. Please accept the key and my apologies.

WTF?
 
Self-Ejected

dojoteef

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I think you're actually on to something suibhne. It would be nice if persuasion, intimidation, etc were factored in basically for all dialog choices. You would simply pick the dialog option you felt best fit your role and those social skills would be used passively. Of course some dialog options might be quite obviously intimidation or persuasion options, but even the ones that aren't so blatant should be modified by the appropriate social skill(s).
 

Saint_Proverbius

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I think the reason games have those is because it shows the player up front what the skill is doing for them. If you raise a combat skill, you typically see the advantage of it - especially in turn based games where it shows you the odds of success or a dice roll.

The problem is, that often times, when you use that skill, it always works. It removes a lot of the mystery out of the situation.
 

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