I miss how Morrowind and Oblivion handled npc disposition. Knowing how much every npc liked me, and having tools to modify that value up or down. Taunt, admire, bribe, joke... anything to feel like I'm really affecting one's disposition on purpose. Skyrim has this limited dialogue that often forces me to be good or bad towards certain individuals, and they respond as intended, so it's completely out of my hands. In Morrowind I could have lowered on purpose someone's disposition to make them hate me to duel.

I suppose Skyrim still has a npc disposition meter under the hood, but I prefer to influence a person by dialogue knowing how we stand precisely at the moment of the conversation, and see the consequences of my roleplay. I can understand their take on making the experience more "fluid" and "lifelike" (you don't know in real life if one likes you 34% or 41%) but, with all due respect dear devs, you're not there yet! Skyrim lacks a lot of dialogue options for the player to describe all the possible tones and stances that make a personality and an attitude on a specific subject, restricting the roleplaying severely.

Until you can include 10-15 different dialogue lines for each tone I could imagine for my answer to a npc line [angry] [happy] [persuasive] [cautious] [threatening] [disappointed] [hopeful] [sarcastic] etc...[etc], I think the numbers still are the best way to simulate truly responsive disposition mechanic. I would have also liked a way to give gifts to increase disposition like Witcher or Dragon Age. Another aspect that I'm not sure if it's in the game or not is faction armor as a disposition modifier. Does a Stormcloack supporter hate me if I'm wearing Imperial? Do they raise their prices? There should have been more obvious reactions to what my character wears.

I hated that in Oblivion. It was an ok concept but got old very, very quickly. Once you had some idea you could max out the disposition after 3 or 4 goes.

Well I nev (click)... you honor m (click)... thats t (click)...Haha you're really funny.

Rinse and repeat. Yawn.

I think the dispositon mini-game of Oblivion's was still better than nothing. After all it was your freedom to abuse it (rinse and repeat) or to come back another day and try again (role playing). To be honest I very much prefer the disposition checks in specific dialogue lines (Fallout).

Edit: sorry, thought I was still in the TESO forum. How'd I get over here?

This! No pie chart beats the good old dialogue lines. Problem is Bethesda can't into branched dialogue. Fallout 3 is a decent try, pretty much failed, but still...
Skyrim should have been more than like New Vegas in this respect.

Soz, posted it in the wrong forum, I thought I was in Skyrim general

My guess is they didn't really like players having the ability to talk anyone into attacking you = committing suicide.

The mini-game in Oblivion wasn't terrible, until it quickly got annoying. Eventually i'd just bribe people even if Speechcraft was one of my main skills.

As do I. I'd love a combination of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim - the way you could taunt/admire from Morrowind, the jokes and such and the way each NPC 'liked' different options from Oblivion, and the whole idea of 'the numbers are there, even if you can't see them' from Skyrim. If Bethesda can do that well for TES VI, I'd be one very happy fan indeed.

Bethesda have shown clear improvement though - the idea of reputation (similar to in games such as Fallout New Vegas) is visible in Dragonborn, but obviously not included because of how Skyrim's core mechanics work. Completing a certain quest in Raven Rock will make the people recognise and thank you, similar to an increase in reputation. Completing a number of quests in Raven Rock will make the authorities like you to the point of trusting you with a 'special' quest.