Why do people consider the dialogue options to be a game breaker?

[Aazo5]

First of all, I've played Oblivion, Skyrim, and now Fallout 4, so I'm not a veteran Bethesda games player, and have never played a previous Fallout game, but I know how the dialogue is supposed to work, based off of countless videos I've seen on YouTube of Fallout games and my personal experience with the Elder Scrolls games.

So, I've heard people complaining about the fact that the dialogue options in Fallout 4 for every conversation are "Yes" "No" "Info" and "Sarcasm", but I just don't understand why this is a problem for so many people. Dialogue options in previous Bethesda games were the exact same "Yes" "No" "info" options as well, only they did a better job at creating an illusion of more options. Maybe you'd have two "more info" type options in a dialogue choice though. In Fallout 4 you only have one "info" type of choice, which means that they have to pack more info into that single choice, but it is still the same as having two smaller info choices.

Also, there was always the "Yes" and "No" choices in dialogue options in previous games, although again, maybe there was an illusion that made it feel more complex, such as two "Yes" options that had a different wording but led to the same thing.

My point is that Fallout 4's dialogue is pretty much exactly the same as every other Bethesda game, only without much of an illusion. This isn't any less of an RPG than Skyrim or Oblivion, or Fallout 3 or New Vegas when it comes to dialogue. So, why all of the complaints?

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by aazo5:

Dialogue options in previous Bethesda games were the exact same

And that's the problem. Fallout 1/2 and FNV are not like this - only FO3/4. Not even the TES games before Skyrim were like that.

There's even less opportunity to play around with moral ambiguity in this installation than even it FO3. Here, almost everyone you can fight is marked as 'evil' and will attack you on sight anyway. There are no real hard moral decisions to make (outside of near the end of the faction questline), there's no 'punch' to the game that FO1/2/FNV had.

[tulle040657]

Some people find the illusion of choice in BGS games to be important.

[noahdvs]

My problem is that the 4 choice system is very limited. I'm concerned that it will affect modders' abilities to add new dialog choices for custom quests or other mods involving NPCs.

[Jackal Red]

Eh, the responses are generally just less interesting than New Vegas and, to a lesser degree, 3. They aren't, mechanically speaking, all that different, but FO4 does an even worse job of maintaining the illusion of choice.

It's not worth getting terribly upset over, though, it's just somewhat unfortunate.

[lPaladinl]

It's not a gamebreaker. It's just unfortunately restrictive in potential options. Developers tend to make each side of the ring generally the same aspect. One side will tend to be your jerkish, evil response. The opposite side is almost always the good guy thing to say, and then you have neutral options or "ask for more information".

You always know what side to pick if you're going for a specific role, and there's not many potential roles to actually go with, so it takes away from the RPG experience.

It's also frustrating when you read the little quip for each option, pick the one that you think makes the most sense for your situation, and then your character says something that to you sounds entirely different than what you were expecting or going for when you selected that option.

The more I play Fallout 4, the more I feel like the protagonist's dialogue seems more and more out of place, and in some cases, awkward or nonsensical. It's really easy to make some conversations make almost zero sense if you pick certain options. It also makes it stand out a lot more how linear the dialogue is regardess of choices, as most NPCs will just ignore your nonsensical babbling and just say the exact same things they would say normally, despite it being out of context with anything you decided to say.

Even in Oblivion and Skyrim, NPCs had at least one line of dialogue to react to every choice you made, Fallout 4 sometimes just skips the reaction dialogue entirely and just ignores that you said anything.

Again, it's a matter of illusion of choice. If the game only had one set of dialogue and used the best parts of dialogue in the game, I wouldn't be complaining about the dialogue it's self really. There's a very strict "proper" progression of dialogue that makes sense in the game, other options just don't work in context, and it happens very often.

[Aazo5]

Originally posted by Incunabulum:

Originally posted by aazo5:

Dialogue options in previous Bethesda games were the exact same

And that's the problem. Fallout 1/2 and FNV are not like this - only FO3/4. Not even the TES games before Skyrim were like that.

There's even less opportunity to play around with moral ambiguity in this installation than even it FO3. Here, almost everyone you can fight is marked as 'evil' and will attack you on sight anyway. There are no real hard moral decisions to make (outside of near the end of the faction questline), there's no 'punch' to the game that FO1/2/FNV had.

If this is the case, then why wasn't there this much backlash when Fallout 3 came out, or hell, even Skyrim or Oblivion?

Also, there may not be as many "moral" choices dialogue wise in this game, but compared to Skyrim, I feel like I affect the world way more in Fallout 4.

[AbsynthMinded]

Originally posted by tulle040657:

Some people find the illusion of choice in BGS games to be important.

It tends to help take away the mindnumbing effecets of endless FPS action

[AbsynthMinded]

Originally posted by aazo5:

Originally posted by Incunabulum:

And that's the problem. Fallout 1/2 and FNV are not like this - only FO3/4. Not even the TES games before Skyrim were like that.

There's even less opportunity to play around with moral ambiguity in this installation than even it FO3. Here, almost everyone you can fight is marked as 'evil' and will attack you on sight anyway. There are no real hard moral decisions to make (outside of near the end of the faction questline), there's no 'punch' to the game that FO1/2/FNV had.

If this is the case, then why wasn't there this much backlash when Fallout 3 came out, or hell, even Skyrim or Oblivion?

FO3 was a game changer for the franchise. There is plenty of morality issues in Skyrim. Never played Oblivion.

[Aazo5]

Originally posted by AbsynthMinded:

Originally posted by aazo5:

If this is the case, then why wasn't there this much backlash when Fallout 3 came out, or hell, even Skyrim or Oblivion?

FO3 was a game changer for the franchise.

In a good way or bad way?

[Brandybuck]

Originally posted by aazo5:

So, I've heard people complaining about the fact that the dialogue options in Fallout 4 for every conversation are "Yes" "No" "Info" and "Sarcasm", but I just don't understand why this is a problem for so many people.

Actually, while that template for dialogs may be common, it's not really all that common. Plenty of conversations with no sarcasm, many with sarcasm on the right instead of left, etc. But you are right in that most conversations will have yes, no, more info, and other options in them somewhere. This is not a bad thing, this is how people converse.

Q: "Are you going to lunch?"
A: "Yes"
A: "No"
A: "What's on the menu"
A: "Ohgawd not meatloaf again!"

Originally posted by aazo5:

My point is that Fallout 4's dialogue is pretty much exactly the same as every other Bethesda game, only without much of an illusion. This isn't any less of an RPG than Skyrim or Oblivion, or Fallout 3 or New Vegas when it comes to dialogue. So, why all of the complaints?

There are complaints because there is a change. Gamers hate change. They especially hate change that isn't really a change. I just finished a playthough of New Vegas, and was paying attention to the conversations. Guess what? ONLY FOUR DIALOG OPTIONS ON AVERAGE!

That's right! While some conversations had six or seven options, most averaged out to four. And that's NOT counting the "exit" option that was required to exit a conversation but is not needed in fallout 4 (since you can leave a conversation at any time). People think otherwise because they are counting that "exit" option. They think otherwise because they see that SOME conversations have more options. They think otherwise because New Vegas rarely prunes its dialog tree.

This is not to say that Fallout 4 has a perfect conversation system. But the constant harping on "only four dialog options" is a misunderstanding of the topic.

[pike]

there is no option all the choices end with the same result , they are just phrased differently .

mind numbingly simplified for consoles . along with a voiced char , soooo bad ,
i enjoy the game until my character has to interact with anyone , so i avoid all contact .
it's a very poorly made game , the design choices they went with are plain bad

[Spocks Toupee]

Originally posted by Brandybuck:

Originally posted by aazo5:

So, I've heard people complaining about the fact that the dialogue options in Fallout 4 for every conversation are "Yes" "No" "Info" and "Sarcasm", but I just don't understand why this is a problem for so many people.

Actually, while that template for dialogs may be common, it's not really all that common. Plenty of conversations with no sarcasm, many with sarcasm on the right instead of left, etc. But you are right in that most conversations will have yes, no, more info, and other options in them somewhere. This is not a bad thing, this is how people converse.

Q: "Are you going to lunch?"

A: "Yes"
A: "No"
A: "What's on the menu"
A: "Ohgawd not meatloaf again!"

The problem with Fallout 4 though, is ALL of the answers above WILL FUNNEL INTO THE SAME OUTCOME, no matter which one you pick, so you're being railroaded to only one possible outcome no matter how you answer

In real life, if you answered "NO" to the "going to lunch" question, you wouldn't go to lunch, in Fallout 4, if you answered "No" to the "Going to lunch" question, you'd end up going to lunch.

THAT is the problem people have with it, NOT the number of choices

[Spocks Toupee]

Originally posted by pike:

there is no option all the choices end with the same result , they are just phrased differently .

mind numbingly simplified for consoles . along with a voiced char , soooo bad ,
i enjoy the game until my character has to interact with anyone , so i avoid all contact .
it's a very poorly made game , the design choices they went with are plain bad

Play a female character, she does a good job with her lines and doesn't sound like she phoned them in

[Aazo5]

Originally posted by Brandybuck:

Originally posted by aazo5:

So, I've heard people complaining about the fact that the dialogue options in Fallout 4 for every conversation are "Yes" "No" "Info" and "Sarcasm", but I just don't understand why this is a problem for so many people.

Actually, while that template for dialogs may be common, it's not really all that common. Plenty of conversations with no sarcasm, many with sarcasm on the right instead of left, etc. But you are right in that most conversations will have yes, no, more info, and other options in them somewhere. This is not a bad thing, this is how people converse.

Q: "Are you going to lunch?"
A: "Yes"
A: "No"
A: "What's on the menu"
A: "Ohgawd not meatloaf again!"

Originally posted by aazo5:

My point is that Fallout 4's dialogue is pretty much exactly the same as every other Bethesda game, only without much of an illusion. This isn't any less of an RPG than Skyrim or Oblivion, or Fallout 3 or New Vegas when it comes to dialogue. So, why all of the complaints?

There are complaints because there is a change. Gamers hate change. They especially hate change that isn't really a change. I just finished a playthough of New Vegas, and was paying attention to the conversations. Guess what? ONLY FOUR DIALOG OPTIONS ON AVERAGE!

That's right! While some conversations had six or seven options, most averaged out to four. And that's NOT counting the "exit" option that was required to exit a conversation but is not needed in fallout 4 (since you can leave a conversation at any time). People think otherwise because they are counting that "exit" option. They think otherwise because they see that SOME conversations have more options. They think otherwise because New Vegas rarely prunes its dialog tree.

This is not to say that Fallout 4 has a perfect conversation system. But the constant harping on "only four dialog options" is a misunderstanding of the topic.

Yeah, I can't speak for Fallout: New Vegas personally, but I went back to Skyrim, and didn't feel that it was any more of an RPG than Fallout 4.

Maybe it had a slightly better illusion of choice, but it was overall a world that can't be impacted nearly as much as Fallout 4's can, and had dialogue that was at least as uninteresting as Fallout 4's, if not more uninteresting.

At least characters like Piper, Codsworth, and Cait are somewhat interesting. I can't really think of one interesting character in Skyrim... Anyway, i'm going off the topic of dialogue now.

[ChosenFrozen]

Thank god for the dialogue monologue mod that lets you read your options... I probably could not have kept playing with the vanilla "Positive/Sarcastic respose" type BS

THAT, was a first for Bethesda and a bad choice IMO...