I miss dialogue choices.

Aertew

Just wanted to update. Been playing deadlands and there are seemingly alot of choices for side quests. Seems like the lack of dialogue options is just a main quest problem.

VaranisArano

Just played "Weapons of Destruction" in Blackwood, and an NPC asks me:

"Why does one who abhors Mehrunes Dagon care what happens to his Ambitions?"

ZOS Writers? That was a perfect time for some dialogue options.


ZOS Answer:

The Ambitions are people. They should get to decide their own fate.

Whilst a noble-sounding answer that's indicative of why the writer thinks we should care, there's no depth to it at all and no room for roleplaying.

Answers I would've liked to see:

I didn't rescue Calia, Destron, and Sombren just to let Mehrunes Dagon consume them. They deserve better.

I'm not going to let Vandacia use the Ambitions to take over Tamriel.

Calia, Destron, and Sombren are people, not just weapons. They should get to decide their own fate.

Yes, it's only slightly different than ZOS' answer, but it actually acknowledges that these are characters with names we've grown to care about as more than Ambitions, rather than just MacGuffins to keep away from the bad guy

Any other answers to that question you would've liked to see?

mocap

in many games i played, dialogs with check options (like skills (Fallout 1-4 ) or stats (Fallout 76) etc) usually lead to shorter quest story.
For example: if you will NOT use Axi in Witcher 3 dialog at Madman Lugos prison, you will get a whole additional quest.
In ESO sometimes you can do additional task if you refuse to use persuasion dialog options.

Still nice to have them, though i try not to use them at all, cuz most of the time it's like cheating and cut some content literally.

whitecrow

There was one in the side quest for Ardent Hope. Although I didn't really understand this guy's dilemma since there are portals everywhere that apparently anyone can take.

Elsonso

whitecrow wrote: »

There was one in the side quest for Ardent Hope. Although I didn't really understand this guy's dilemma since there are portals everywhere that apparently anyone can take.

There were times that I felt they wrote the quests before they decided what they were going to do with the Deadlands. Things my character would have known were not quest options. "I know how to help you, but I won't, have a nice day, and good luck with your life"

Elvenheart

whitecrow wrote: »

There was one in the side quest for Ardent Hope. Although I didn't really understand this guy's dilemma since there are portals everywhere that apparently anyone can take.

I felt the same way. I wanted to say, “Well, not too far from here is a place called Fargrave. Would you like me to take you there?” instead of being like, “Oh, you want to go home? Sorry, can’t help you, bye!”

Nestor

Back when they tried to have Instancing based on quest stage or outcome, there were some interesting choices we could make. Then all we had was a few intimidate/persuade options to shortcut some aspects of the storyline, basically to remove some fetch quest requirement. I think we had 3 of those in Deadlands.

It is not easy to make branching quest outcomes in an open world game, with all the possible interaction consequences. Add in the everyone is in the same world aspect of an MMO, it is really difficult to pull off.

Still I would like to see more of the Persuade/Bribe/Intimidate dialog choices, for no other reason than Role Play flavor.

VaranisArano

Nestor wrote: »

Back when they tried to have Instancing based on quest stage or outcome, there were some interesting choices we could make. Then all we had was a few intimidate/persuade options to shortcut some aspects of the storyline, basically to remove some fetch quest requirement. I think we had 3 of those in Deadlands.

It is not easy to make branching quest outcomes in an open world game, with all the possible interaction consequences. Add in the everyone is in the same world aspect of an MMO, it is really difficult to pull off.

Still I would like to see more of the Persuade/Bribe/Intimidate dialog choices, for no other reason than Role Play flavor.

There are also places where they don't need to have branching quests where they could add branching dialogue.

Skyrim does it fairly well.
Paarthurnax: "Yes. Alduin… Zeymah. The elder brother. Gifted, grasping and troublesome, as is so often the case with firstborn. But why? Why must you stop Alduin?"

We get several different options for answers, according to what our character thinks. Nothing about the scene or plot changes aside from dialogue.

Above, I talked about another "Why are you on this quest?" type question. It would've been a perfect time for multiple choices. Instead, we learn the one reason why the Writers think we should be on their quest.

Or consider a place where Blackwood did do this type of character choice for dialogue very well!

In a vision of the Inevitable, Emperor Vandacia starts bragging about his inevitable victory. We get three possible responses that trigger different dialogue. Nothing changes about the plot, just that Vandacia brags about it different ways.

I really enjoyed it, because I had the chance to choose the closest to what my characters would say, rather than have the Writers choose the only response they thought was appropriate.

It's also not like the Writers haven't struggled with branching dialogue. In Markarth, there's an optional dialogue path where Rada al-Saran basically describes the rest of his evil plan in enough detail that I figured it out, and then the rest of the DLC acted like he'd never monologed at me and I couldn't tell anyone. That was frustrating.