I know we have not seen a lot of the game play but so far the dialog options look too vague, if it’s anything like Mass Effect 2 which I hope not your character’s dialog could go anywhere. The amount of times my character started a romance with an unintended NPC and did not know about it until the NPC gets all unset.

I agree. So often there is almost no relationship between the blurb and the actual dialogue. I hope it plays out better than it looks.

I have yet to see the SS's response not be immediately obvious based off of the dialogue option he took. So... I can't really find fault with it yet.

I still don't understand how this happens to people.

I love me BioWare wheel dialogue, I hope Bethesda can deliver such interesting dialogue.

Just wondering how speech challenges will work. Will the dialogue automatically change, will there be a % chance of success shown?

Out of all the Mass Effect games, I only ever really had that problem like twice. And according to the voice director they went through pains to avoid that pitfall, although in the end admitted that some would inevitably not be as informative as they thought. And I've actually never accidentally romanced an NPC. I've gotten far enough to where they bring it up, and then I can politely decline, but is that far enough for some people to take issue with it?

I don't see why speech checks would need to change with the new system, though. Fallout 3's or New Vegas's system could work fine.

This.

Right? I'm pretty sure most games with the wheel have a pretty basic layout. One direction is generally mean/cruel, and there are even paragon and renegade markers.

Honestly, it's more of a case of people not paying attention, not the system being broken. There are literally icons telling you about your response; failure to notice those is entirely a user error.

It's worked for multiple triple blockbuster titles, and companies use good ideas because they work. If it were such a big issue, dialogue wheels would have gone the way of the dinosaur, yet for some reason it keeps popping up.

Weird huh?

Right? I'm pretty sure most games with the wheel have a pretty basic layout. One direction is generally mean/cruel, and there are even paragon and renegade markers.

Honestly, it's more of a case of people not paying attention, not the system being broken. There are literally icons telling you about your response; failure to notice those is entirely a user error.

It's worked for multiple triple A blockbuster titles, and companies use good ideas because they work. If it were such a big issue, dialogue wheels would have gone the way of the dinosaur, yet for some reason it keeps popping up.

Weird huh?

The dialog options lacked context, say something nice or supportive but not overtly romantic and it triggers a romance. And a few times the dialog would go off in a direction you had no intention of that really F-s up immersion.

And so far there have not been much in the way of long dialog sequences by the SS in the previews so unless the SS is a person of few words we could be in some nasty surprises. I’m concerned that the three or four word responses will lack context. Things like “Pick a fight”, “Make a pass” and “Be an a55hole”.

How could you possibly be confused about what would happen if you pick a dialogue choice labeled "pick a fight"?

The Icons did not come in the BW games until DA2 and not all the dialog in ME stuck to Paragon / Renegade formula.

I can't really say that I had the same experience.

Having played through ME 1-3 multiple times, I can count the number of times Shepard's response wasn't what I thought it would be on one hand. I felt that the responces always had the needed context to understand what I was picking was going to come out as. This was helped by the fact the wheel always put the same types of responses in the same place, so you always knew what was going to be the positive/neutral/negative/question response every time.

Fo4 looks to be the same

Y = Question

B = Negative responce

A = Positive responce

X = Netural responce

But they were all located in the same place. Romance was this direction, hostile that, neutral middle.

At that point it isn't the choices being vague, it is the user not understanding how the dialogue wheel works.

I didn't play ME3 or DA2, but I'm going to guess that, just like in ME 1 and 2, conversation options that furthered the dialogue are on the right, while the left side was reserved for getting more information. I'm playing through DA3 again, and the wheel behaves the exact same way as it did when it was first introduced.

That is an example of a lack of context there is nothing like that. Try reading the post again.

The thing that worries me the most is that it appears there are only ever 4 possible responses to anything the other person says. If they're trying to make the dialogue better, it would be nice to actually have more dialogue. Why four anyway? I have dozens of buttons! And even if I was on a console, a frigging list won't have been too hard to do.

Read it again. My post still stands.

Unless you honestly believe you'll start a conversation and "pick a fight" will be an option right from the bat, despite 0 aggression from both parties.

Maybe if this happened before in a game with a dialogue wheel, but it hasn't, so your fear is unfounded.

Yeah, I have that problem with dialogue simplification as well. I constantly choose the wrong thing to say with really confusing lines. (it's good to save before talking to anyone.) So many times in Mass Effect I'd choose something thinking it was going to be the funny line or the 'nice' line and all of a sudden my Shepard is yelling angrily at someone. Ooops.. reload.

I can either be too vague or too clear. Too vague svcks (obv) cause you don't know what your own character says, which ruins RP. And too clear ruins RP too, because, to use DA2 for exemple, say you want to romance someone. Having the <3 icon svcks because you're not picking what your character will say to seduce them (though in DA2, "seduce" is more like "you're dark and broody, I like dark, rawr") out of a list of unmarked lines, you're just picking the preset romance path for the dev's character essentially.

But imo what's most threatening to RP immersion is just having VAs in itself, not because I want mutes (though I do prefer that personally), but because actors use their own interpretations to pick a tone when they record lines. For exemple, the male VA said he saw "Mr Howard" as a family man (pretty sure he said that anyway, citation needed, etc), but what if you don't see your dude PC that way ? Or if (and this is purely hypothetical) the female VA tones her lines to invoke feminity and you want to play a tomboy ?

Though on the other hand, the ME and DA voice actors had interpretations too presumably and they were ok for the most part, so it might be totes fine too. My point is, there's a lot you can [censored] up when doing voiced PCs, you can do it really good and be fine, but you can [censored] up because it adds complexity to the development. You can't [censored] up a silent protagonist. Well you can if your writing svcks.

Seriously, though, when did anyone accidentally romance someone in Mass Effect? I remember being kind and caring to Liara, Miranda, Jack, and never did it lead to full-blown romance unless I wanted it to - they would ask me if there were any romantic feelings involved, occasionally, and I'd be able to say no.

I've never had this problem. Safe to say if you do have this problem then you need to buff up your reading comprehension skills.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the Mass Effect style. I enjoyed the way that dialogue worked in Fallout 3 and Skyrim.

Bio ware system was horrible. I try to say something that appears to be a bit of annoyed response and Shep fly's off the handle or I'm making regular conversation in 3 and suddenly this guy is hitting on me. Please let the dialogue wheel reflect what's actually about to be said XD

Both Jack and Tali that is who, in ME2 both had innocuous lines that triggered a romance, there was some improvement in ME3 no romance by stealth but there were more than a few times the dialog did not mesh with the three word mini line.

Just like in real life