Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: All Dialogue Games Are Bad  (Read 2807 times)

Deshara

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1578
  • Suggestion Writer
    • View Profile
All Dialogue Games Are Bad
« on: October 30, 2018, 01:35:38 AM »

every game after 2016 that has dialogue systems where the dialogue options coming up pauses the game and takes away all controls is bad.
Titanfall 2, the game where you jet pack and wall run at breakneck speeds, implemented dialogue choices that don't break the pace of the game. If Titanfall 2 can do it, there's no excuse for any other game not to.
Sorry, Andromeda, but do you even let me jet pack onto the top of a mech that's in a sword fight with another mech and steal its battery? No? Then there's no reason for you to take away the game controls -- I promise you you can play a ME game and pick dialogue options at the same time -- especially considering the way most ME games gutted the interesting dialogue for the sake of fitting every option onto one of four tones (it would take a hysterically small amount of time to make the dialogue wheel popup when you hold a shoulder button during gameplay like a lot of games do with weapon selection wheels to allow you to hold a conversation during combat)

basically I'm saying every RPG needs to stop aping Baldur's Gate and start aping Titanfall 2
Logged
Quote from: Deshara
I cant be blamed for what I said 5 minutes ago. I was a different person back then

TJJ

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1905
    • View Profile
Re: All Dialogue Games Are Bad
« Reply #1 on: October 30, 2018, 03:57:49 AM »

I don't disagree with you, but what consequences do the dialogue choices in Titanfall 2 have, Vs those in ME?

There's a valid counterpoint that you aren't roleplaying if you take too long to choose.
However I don't think a blanket statement like "pausing for dialogue is bad." necessarily holds true for all games.
Logged

Deshara

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1578
  • Suggestion Writer
    • View Profile
Re: All Dialogue Games Are Bad
« Reply #2 on: October 30, 2018, 04:15:46 AM »

I don't disagree with you, but what consequences do the dialogue choices in Titanfall 2 have, Vs those in ME?

There's a valid counterpoint that you aren't roleplaying if you take too long to choose.
However I don't think a blanket statement like "pausing for dialogue is bad." necessarily holds true for all games.

I don't think timed responses are a necessity tho. Like if they implemented the dialogue wheel to be brought up with a press of the shoulder button you could allow players who are overwhelmed with combat too much to put adequate thought into their response to just wait a minute to get back to them (and it could be assumed whoever you're talking to would understand if you aren't responding bc you got ambushed by killbots), only treats you as if you ignored the dialogue (the "..." response in a TWD game) if you (willingly) leave the area without responding, and leave an icon on-screen to remind you there's waiting dialogue that pops out into a full "you have pending dialogue" text tooltip once you've not taken/given damage in a few seconds or are heading towards the threshold that'll trigger a "you ignored them" response.
Logged
Quote from: Deshara
I cant be blamed for what I said 5 minutes ago. I was a different person back then

Algro

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 64
    • View Profile
Re: All Dialogue Games Are Bad
« Reply #3 on: October 30, 2018, 05:03:43 AM »

Just two things came to my head at first:
So.. You dislike Skyrim and JRPG's in general?
I see you have tried playing Andromeda, THAT IS KNOWN TO BE A BAD GAME, so why???  

Anyway, more serious on the topic of pausing the game for dialogues. Titalfall 2 works well with such a system because the dialogues brief the current situation mainly to give objectives and the details of said objectives. Unlike other games like Skyrim and Witcher 3, which are heavy in dialogue, they need the pause or else the player would be roaming around the map without a goal other than listening to dialogue, and it wouldn't make sense to not talk face to face in such situations.

Mass Effect had a problem with its dialogue system since 3 and Andromeda just ramped it up to obnoxious levels, so don't say ALL dialogue games are bad. Instead say: Andromeda has one of the worst Dialogue systems ever and it can be improved by following Titan fall 2's example. 

PS. Fallout 4 also had similar problems with each dialogue selection being mostly meaningless and abrupt at times.
Logged

Tartiflette

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3529
  • MagicLab discord: https://discord.gg/EVQZaD3naU
    • View Profile
Re: All Dialogue Games Are Bad
« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2018, 06:19:28 AM »

I'm sorry but I fail to see how "un-paused" dialogues would benefit the game in any way. People that want to roleplay and answer dialogs quickly can already do that. On the other hand there are plethora of reasons to pause the game: Some people may want to take their time, some people may need time to properly read the text because English is not their first language, or because they have small sight troubles, some people may completely miss the dialogue because they are doing something else, or on the contrary be killed because a dialogue poped up distracting them from a dangerous situation. And all of those applies to every games.

Plus Starsector's game clock is set to 1 day last 10s, so for all intents and purposes, the pause represents the game "real time" instead of the regular compressed time.
Logged
 

Deshara

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1578
  • Suggestion Writer
    • View Profile
Re: All Dialogue Games Are Bad
« Reply #5 on: October 31, 2018, 02:54:56 AM »

TBC I'd always argue for, if a game were to put this sort of thing in, to have an option to pause the game for dialogue.
Logged
Quote from: Deshara
I cant be blamed for what I said 5 minutes ago. I was a different person back then

Shrugger

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 61
    • View Profile
Re: All Dialogue Games Are Bad
« Reply #6 on: October 31, 2018, 02:58:55 AM »

All games should be Titanfall. Ehm. Maybe not all, but most games would be better if they were Titanfall.
Logged