The Dialogue Wheel

[Liv's Runaway Snail]

Recently I watched a pre-alpha gameplay video for a kickstarter project, for reference here it is:

<youtube=mb6kSyx6Cek>

What I found interesting were the new features implemented in the dialogue wheel. Basically it gives you a couple options to pick with an inner thoughts voice over so you have some idea what that dialogue is going to lead to. And then there is the feature to see what other players in the world (and your friends) have chosen. I can't recall though if the commentary expressed that there is an option to turn these off or stop repeating etc

Which leads me to compare it to the Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2 games (and any other games that have it). We know the drill, there are flaws to the way some of these dialogue wheels work but at least they are better than countless cinematic cutscenes one after the other with hardly any action in between. Because 1) it adds interactivity.

To list the flaws off the top of my head: disrupts immersion, less options (compared to list/no voice), oversimplified, and the icons (Dragon Age) to signify if the interaction is romantic/funny because there is no clear indication in the actual dialogue itself...

You can add/deduct any depending on your view but hey its hard to agree that the dialogue wheel is a perfect system.

So lets get to the discussion part of this topic. If you had to design a dialogue wheel (it might depend on the game) what features would you implement? Do you like the features in the first example? Anything you would change?

 

[BrotherRool]

So the basic purpose of the dialogue wheel is for easy dialogue selection on controllers. And thinking about it, that's a valid design concern because if you're taking a couple of seconds scrolling with a controller every single dialogue pause in the game, that's going to add up to a lot of frustration over the course of playing.

So I actually accept there's good reasons to keep it, but I would agree with you that the problems are:

1.Hard to tell the exact meaning of the dialogue
2.Less Options


So I actually think the Dreamfall idea is really neat. It avoids the boringness of listening to someone read out what you've already selected, but it actually give insight into the character instead of taking that insight away. It completely fixes problem no 1.

And I think problem no. 2 isn't so much of a big deal. Even in games like Planescape Torment, it was rare to have more than 4 dialogue branches in a conversation, never mind 6. The only thing you're losing is the 'What can change the nature of a man?" question, and I actually think 6 options would keep that impact (or you have 5 options and one that says 'more')

In some ways, I'd prefer to reduce the amount of options to 4, like in Deus Ex Human Revolution or Alpha Protocol, because clicking with the face buttons is quicker and easier than with the analogue stick.


I also think there's something to be said for the Alpha Protocol design choice, where it doesn't actually matter what's being said. The dialogue and consequences have been written so that you're only ever choosing moods and what happens will be based on that mood rather than on the specifics of the dialogue.

Finally, I enjoy the conversation timers in The Walking Dead and the way they design them to naturally fill the spaces in the conversation. I think that should be the future of dialogue going on, it makes it faster paced and more immediate

 

[shintakie10]

The inner monologue thing is a nice idea, but it doesn't fix the fact that fully voiced options always cost more which necessitates keepin the number of responses low. If anythin it makes the situation worse because now you need to voice twice the number of lines you had before to account for all the inner monologue choices.

On top of that the immersion break would be even more prevalent. It's always creepy as hell in Mass Effect when I decide to just stand around and not choose a dialogue option for a few minutes because I want to grab a sandwich or somethin. I just think of it in terms of the real world. Imagine you're talkin to someone, they ask a question and you respond. Then they stand there, unmovin, unflinchingly, never once blinking, and just stare at you for 4 minutes as they decide how to respond. You'd walk away, or freak out at how creepy they're bein. Addin inner monologues so I know absolutely what I'm goin to respond with just means that I'll actually sit there through each one to make sure I really answer right, all while the person across from me thinks I'm some creepy weirdo.

I will always prefer nonvoiced multiple dialogue options in games, but I know I'm in the minority in that regard. I can deal with dialogue wheels, but for god sakes, they need to be a bit more specific about what I'm goin to say because I'm tired of pickin what I think is a neutral option and then sayin somethin completely fucked up. Also, timers. Doesn't need to be Walking Dead length, but somethin reasonable like 10 seconds. It still is creepy that you stare at people for 10 seconds without blinking before respondin, but at least its not as creepy as starin at them until the end of time.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

I'll just leave this here (click to enlarge):

snip
image search [http://postimage.org/]

Funny, but woefully inaccurate. There's plenty of dialogs in Dragon Age II with just as many (or more) options as that dialog in Planscape: Torment.

 

[IFS]

I actually really liked DA2's implementation of the dialogue wheel (not going to argue its better than older RPGs dozens of options, since its not, though I do think both systems have their merits) the icons were more to show what tone your character would convey while the snippets gave a bit of their intent. It wasn't perfect, there were a few cases of accidental assholery, but it was a lot better than the Mass Effect system especially since they made the skip dialogue button different from the select dialogue button.

The best dialogue wheel I've seen would be in Human Revolution, where it gave a more detailed summary of the option you were looking at off to the side so you knew what you would be saying.

I would argue the merits of the dialogue wheel are that it more easily allows a voiced protagonist, and that it works especially well when you are playing as a character who has some of their own characterization. Jensen in HR had his own character that you could push in different directions so it worked well there, and I would argue that Hawke had enough characterization on each of the personalities you could choose to make it work there, though I tend to have a more favorable opinion of DA2 than most.

That said the dialogue wheel does provide more limited options, doesn't always give you a clear idea of what you'll say (my favorite example being a moment in ME1 where you can tell off Liara for telling you what to do, but the option results in Shep going on a racist tirade against the asari people/government). And in those areas the older system of listing options can be much better.

 

[Artea]

I'll just leave this here (click to enlarge):

snip
image search [http://postimage.org/]

Funny, but woefully inaccurate. There's plenty of dialogs in Dragon Age II with just as many (or more) options as that dialog in Planscape: Torment.

That wasn't really the point. There are certain nuances that can't be easily conveyed with a dialogue wheel. For example, in the above screenshot, the character can truthfully agree to merge or bluff about it, or demand that the other one merge with him instead.

Also, the dialogue wheel demands that sentences have to be shortened to a few words. This introduces a factor of unpredictability, since you don't know what your character is going to say.

 

[gargantual]

Recently I watched a pre-alpha gameplay video for a kickstarter project, for reference here it is:

<youtube=mb6kSyx6Cek>

What I found interesting were the new features implemented in the dialogue wheel. Basically it gives you a couple options to pick with an inner thoughts voice over so you have some idea what that dialogue is going to lead to. And then there is the feature to see what other players in the world (and your friends) have chosen. I can't recall though if the commentary expressed that there is an option to turn these off or stop repeating etc

Which leads me to compare it to the Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2 games (and any other games that have it). We know the drill, there are flaws to the way some of these dialogue wheels work but at least they are better than countless cinematic cutscenes one after the other with hardly any action in between. Because 1) it adds interactivity.

To list the flaws off the top of my head: disrupts immersion, less options (compared to list/no voice), oversimplified, and the icons (Dragon Age) to signify if the interaction is romantic/funny because there is no clear indication in the actual dialogue itself...

You can add/deduct any depending on your view but hey its hard to agree that the dialogue wheel is a perfect system.

So lets get to the discussion part of this topic. If you had to design a dialogue wheel (it might depend on the game) what features would you implement? Do you like the features in the first example? Anything you would change?

I would be borrowing ideas from alpha protocol (because if you create an interesting character, you'd want to access certain facets of their personality, and morph them from their default personality. Like good actors do on TV and film rather than to move a blank slate character. So as the player you're choosing for them and discovering who they are at the same time.

Id go for a trigger button on top to hold. Capcom style thus enabling conversation mode, making your character move or not move on auto-pilot. It'd enable both thumbsticks one for intensity of your response or occasional gesture, the other for the dialogue wheel with adjective choices summing up the type of response.

(and less of those options to just find out information like in ME. We have to recognize and feel more of the importance of the information to the story or our goals, or get more visual feedback on the effects of our words on NPCs. Not just an infodump.)


As conversations on the big screen and small screen have an emphasis on being 'active' to liven up or color exposition scenes (notice how some are trying with the 'The Office' style shaky camera pans ) I think games should find their own way to keep the talk highlighted and not dull punctuation between the shooting.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

I'll just leave this here (click to enlarge):

snip
image search [http://postimage.org/]

Funny, but woefully inaccurate. There's plenty of dialogs in Dragon Age II with just as many (or more) options as that dialog in Planscape: Torment.

That wasn't really the point. There are certain nuances that can't be easily conveyed with a dialogue wheel. For example, in the above screenshot, the character can truthfully agree to merge or bluff about it, or demand that the other one merge with him instead.

Also, the dialogue wheel demands that sentences have to be shortened to a few words. This introduces a factor of unpredictability, since you don't know what your character is going to say.

I agree that the brief summaries aren't always clear, but there's many dialogs in Dragon Age II that very clearly say Hawke will lie. They're the ones that say (Lie) after the summary. Regardless the joke is very clearly: "LOL look! Modern RPG has stupid lines and few options, old RPG has many choices!" As I've said this is not true at all, you could easily arrange those lines from Planscape: Torment in a BioWare-style dialog wheel. All you have there are the "cooperative, neutral, antagonistic" options, some "investigate" questions, and "goodbye".

Also Dragon Age: Inquisition will have a new feature wherein highlighting an option on the dialog wheel will cause an explanation of intent to show up, presumably fixing the unpredictability.

 

[Artea]

I'll just leave this here (click to enlarge):

snip
image search [http://postimage.org/]

Also Dragon Age: Inquisition will have a new feature wherein highlighting an option on the dialog wheel will cause an explanation of intent to show up, presumably fixing the unpredictability.

Is it really a good system if it requires an 'explanation of intent'? You're contradicting your own argument.

Also, you abbreviated the various options wrongly. It's not 'cooperative, neutral, antagonistic', it's 'surrender, pretending to surrender, demanding the other person to surrender'. Of course, you could present all this in the dialogue wheel, but you would always run the risk of misrepresenting the various options, like you just did.

 

[gargantual]

The problem with dialogue wheels is mostly that that's not how conversations work. They lead to a system which is just a back-and-forth of questions and answers, and while we really don't have a way of properly implementing the dynamic nature of conversation into a video game, the current system is really unnatural.

Yeah. the player'd have to be able to spark up conversation about any topic just as much as we're pushed to respond to NPCs. Only thing you can spark in a dialogue wheel are prompts for someone to do something or requests for information. We couldn't just make a declaration, plant ideas in another NPC's head and spark a rapport or debate etc.

And then there's non verbal communication. Not saying it isn't done, (I.E. the no-response option in Wolf Among Us) but theres a whole world of communication outside of verbal that'd be hard to capture and manipulate in one game...and make room for other actions.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

Is it really a good system if it tequires an 'explanation of intent'? You're contradicting your own argument.

Also, you abbreviated the various options wrongly. It's not 'cooperative, neutral, antagonistic', it's 'surrender, pretending to surrender, demanding the other person to surrender'. Of course, you could present all this in the dialogue wheel, but you would always run the risk of misrepresenting the various options, like you just did.

I acknowledged the issue, the explanation is an idea to address the issue. The dialog wheel is used because it makes selection quicker, not because it is better than a list of options in all ways.

Surrender = cooperate with someone who wants you to surrender
Demand other person to surrender = antagonistic (for reasons I think should be obvious)
Pretend to surrender = neither cooperative (since you're only pretending to cooperate) nor antagonistic (since you aren't engaging in violence or argument), therefore neutral

Direct link [http://s23.postimg.org/6zkcvw7vt/image_Jan_09_11_58_31.png]

Makes sense right?

 

[BrotherRool]

I acknowledged the issue, the explanation is an idea to address the issue. The dialog wheel is used because it makes selection quicker, not because it is better than a list of options in all ways.

Surrender = cooperate with someone who wants you to surrender
Demand other person to surrender = antagonistic (for reasons I think should be obvious)
Pretend to surrender = neither cooperative (since you're only pretending to cooperate) nor antagonistic (since you aren't engaging in violence or argument), therefore neutral

Makes sense right?

I think I agree with you on the conversation you've been having, although theoretically you can have 18 options of how to do something in an older RPGs, they rarely used that option and it's been easy enough to have that sort of situation for a dialogue wheel when needed. And the [truth] [lie] thing has been used in lots of times in the dialogue wheel games. And the abbreviations have partly been caused by not wanting to repeat voice-acting than solely the wheel.

I can't see the picture ATM, so is the Dragon Age 3 solution that there's a box next to the wheel that pops up with a longer description of that option for whatever one you have highlighted?

I think that would make a lot of sense. The people who don't want to read a long thing don't have to, but it allows you to arrange the options in a wheel for analogue sticks and still have clarity on what the option means.


(Btw I think image tags are 'img' '/img' and/or have trouble showing addresses that have asd.xyz.com, because I can't see you image)

 

[blackrave]

If I could redesign dialogue wheel?
I'm not sure I would, because it was clearly designed for stick-thingies of console controllers, but if I should, then
1.I would increase dialogue options from 6 to 8 (6 is just lazy bioware)
2.Then increase 8 options to 9, by introducing timed dialogues where silence is a valid option as well (do nothing or tap in the middle of wheel)
clarification: of course there can be less options, but max would be 9 (and that would allow using numpad keys on PC)
3.Give previews of chosen options (like in Deus Ex HR)
4.Mix things up (no up-paragon&down-renegade BS)
5.Provide multiple options that can forward conversation

Those are the main things I would change

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

The bit I tend not to like about dialog systems is that they are their own system divided off of everything else. I think I would like to see games kind of tear down that divide. With your isomeric turn based RPG, you might be able to do something where talking is a skill used like lockpick. You basically take words and rub them on an NPC hoping for a positive reaction.

With something more action related, you could have a dedicated talk button that is context sensitive based on exactly where you are looking. Like if you use the talk button on someone's face, you might open with a hello, but if you aim at their tie, then you open up a conversation about how nice a tie it is. Maybe add moods or stances for additional context to the button.

Another idea might just be to use the connect. Don't throw up a dialog tree, but just read the face of the player to gauge what they might be thinking and pick a branch from that. Look at an NPC like they are nuts and your character will say it for you.

 

[BrotherRool]

If I could redesign dialogue wheel?
I'm not sure I would, because it was clearly designed for stick-thingies of console controllers, but if I should, then
1.I would increase dialogue options from 6 to 8 (6 is just lazy bioware)

I suspect 6 is much more about the convenience of quickly pointing to it with an analogue stick than lazyness. 8 would be fiddly.


For that matter, even without the wheel, Bioware never used 8 separate dialogue lines. In fact pre-dialogue wheel they barely ever got to 6. To check I googled 'kotor dialogue' and then looked at the first 9 screenshots with dialogue options and none of them had 6 lines of dialogue. 3 had three lines of dialogue, 2 had four lines and 4 had five lines.


EDIT: I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight so I repeated the same thing for Jade Empire

(Out of 8 examples)

Two Lines: 1
Three Lines: 5
Four Lines: 2

So this one didn't even go above four, never mind 6 or 8.

I think there's probably a level where having more dialogue options actually is just more annoying and time consuming to read than useful. You want lots of options at key moments in the story, to highlight the specialness and give the flexibility you want at those moments. And then at important turning points of a conversation you want a nice selection.

But in the bulk 90% of conversation where it's basically just there for flavour and interactivity? You don't want to have to read 6 lines of dialogue everytime someone says something to you. 3-4 fairly predictable line is enough

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

I think I agree with you on the conversation you've been having, although theoretically you can have 18 options of how to do something in an older RPGs, they rarely used that option and it's been easy enough to have that sort of situation for a dialogue wheel when needed. And the [truth] [lie] thing has been used in lots of times in the dialogue wheel games. And the abbreviations have partly been caused by not wanting to repeat voice-acting than solely the wheel.

I can't see the picture ATM, so is the Dragon Age 3 solution that there's a box next to the wheel that pops up with a longer description of that option for whatever one you have highlighted?

I think that would make a lot of sense. The people who don't want to read a long thing don't have to, but it allows you to arrange the options in a wheel for analogue sticks and still have clarity on what the option means.


(Btw I think image tags are 'img' '/img' and/or have trouble showing addresses that have asd.xyz.com, because I can't see you image)

The picture wasn't from Dragon Age, it was just a sloppy mock-up of Planescape with a dialog wheel. Here's a link to it. [http://s23.postimg.org/6zkcvw7vt/image_Jan_09_11_58_31.png]

But yes, that is pretty much how Dragon Age: Inquisition does it. Here's a picture from a demo:

Direct Link [http://s11.postimg.org/g86jn8wm9/Screen_Shot_2014_01_09_at_1_44_12_PM.png]

 

[blackrave]

If I could redesign dialogue wheel?
I'm not sure I would, because it was clearly designed for stick-thingies of console controllers, but if I should, then
1.I would increase dialogue options from 6 to 8 (6 is just lazy bioware)

I suspect 6 is much more about the convenience of quickly pointing to it with an analogue stick than lazyness. 8 would be fiddly.


For that matter, even without the wheel, Bioware never used 8 separate dialogue lines. In fact pre-dialogue wheel they barely ever got to 6. To check I googled 'kotor dialogue' and then looked at the first 9 screenshots with dialogue options and none of them had 6 lines of dialogue. 3 had three lines of dialogue, 2 had four lines and 4 had five lines.

Hm?
I'm sure BG and NWN had more dialogue options than 6

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

If people are really worried about the number of choices, we can always bring back the phaser (spelling?) unlimited dialog options that all result to the same response of I don't understand

 

[BrotherRool]

Hm?
I'm sure BG and NWN had more dialogue options than 6

(btw I edited my post with some more ideas about this whilst you're posting.)

I'm not saying that the old RPGs didn't have the ability to use more dialogue options than 6, but those popped up like 10 times in the entire game. The default number of options tended to be 3-5 which you would use for 90% of the game.

And the post-wheel games sort of keeps up that tradition. In Mass Effect they normally had 3 options, often had 5 but every now and then you'd reach a stage where the 6th option would then take you to a further 5 options of dialogue, so you had 10 total.