Agree here except that the dialogue system is the primary downer, its like Skyrim magic but worse as you can enjoy Skyrim as long as you don't try to be an mage.

Worse the system looks like hell to play on pc.

Rest of the game features looks great

And it has an major feature, the 5 dialogue option: Shoot them in the face.

I can't believe the specs are so high on PC. Probably to account for all the memory leaks.

It's not like we had all that many dialog options before.

So we should reduce the amount by even more?

Also, if leaks were allowed here I could post you the side by side images showing the drastic reduction in dialogue options from 3 / NV to 4. It's jarring.

I don't care that half the dialogue options in the old games didn't change the story at all. They gave me context, information, and helped me flesh out my own character.

This change is honestly my least favorite thing so far.

Yes, because my character will walk up to an NPC to hear their whole life story and the entire local socio economic crisis before they actually say something impactful. My guess is Fallout 4 SHOWS you the information you need to know in the world around you and how people interact with one another, like how people are always talking to each other in Bethesda games. Now the dialogue system revolves entirely around how your character feels about every situation.

I've seen those leaks, they are dishonest and I'll try to impart some knowledge because this topic is filled with ignorance. And by ignorance I mean uninformed; you aren't aware all information.

Anyway, these screens are comparing a short in dialogue response to screenshots of what the burned man had to say when you first meet him.

Now, what did the burned man do in new Vegas? As an npc with an entire DLC to prop up his character, he did little more than talk.

His character existed entirely to provide the player with information of the area, his story and the conflict going on.

That's it.

Now, we've got people posting screenshots of these two exchanges side by side, and citing dishonest things like "streamlined".

This ignores entirely that the sole purpose of The burned man was to provide information to the player. If you look at the dialogue between a normal character and the player, it's as short as we've seen in the screenshots, meaning it isn't that short at all, just a normal conversation.

So what did we learn? When you talk with characters who's entire design goal is to provide exposition, they have a lot to say.

Yea, it is jarring. It is very jarring to see people fall prey to such dishonesty as what's going on in these "side by side" comparisons.

You really hit it on the head, there. Not only that but the 'tree' like system in 4 sometimes even opens up entirely new trees for each option chosen. Yet people act like these characters that exist literally only to spout exposition are an example of every character from the previous games.

When we see a character who's dropped in a DLC and does absolutely nothing save send you on your way, we can have an honest comparison.

Joshua is little more than a Wikipedia entry for the white legs vs sorrows conflict; all he does is talk! That's it. That's his purpose in a few hour length DLC. And it's surprising that the one thing he does, he does a lot of?

If a data dispensary is one's vision compelling dialogue and writing than he should be right up your alley, but I'd prefer my characters a bit more rounded.

The quality of the options is what matters.
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Gizmojunk001/eden_zpsjpeycjs7.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Gizmojunk001/master_zps9dr5uyie.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Gizmojunk001/47422_4_fallout-4-more-dialogue-3-skyrim-combined_zpsns9bthej.jpg
(and where those choices lead...)

You're comparing the final exchange between the primary antagonist and the protagonist to the lone wanderer and his robot butler.

I assume you know what the words antagonist and protagonist means, so do I need to point out to anyone how dishonest this is?

A more one sided comparison could not be made; the very first dialogue (that we know of) compared to, essentially, the very last exchange in FO1 and 3.

Is there better available yet? (I've not sought out any recent examples; I've no idea what's official, or officially leaked.)

(Also... when you understand the underlying intent of the writing style, you know what to expect even if you never see it in person.)

I don't consider it dishonest; I consider it what I've seen.

*What I've seen so far is that the story never seems to matter to them [it's a battle they don't want to fight], what seems to matter is the ability to arbitrarily shoot people for enjoyment. (Or do you think that's https://youtu.be/GABzWHuIZ_4?t=43s?)

I don't think you understand the underlying intent of the writing style, or very much writing at all.

If you did you wouldn't have compared the climix of a game to the, as far as we know, first conversation you have.

Someone able to make that mistake displays a gross understanding of how stories are told.

When the antagonist is reveled in FO4, the comparison will be fair, until then all you've done is display a knack for cherry picking, and that isn't a good thing.

I also think cherry picking is widely considered a dishonest thing to do. Your post was nothing but that.

Forget the image for a moment. Actually think back to New Vegas and 3. Or play them again to see firsthand. There were tons of characters, minor and otherwise, who had more than 4 dialogue options (3 if you don't count "goodbye").

And again, before anyone says "more than 4 dialogue options are uneccessary", I'll repeat this: I don't care that half the dialogue options in the old games didn't change the story at all. They gave me context, information, and helped me flesh out my own character.

This change is honestly my least favorite thing so far.

Playing through NV now and you are wrong, sorry.

There's no other way about it; most characters don't have much to say, and those that do have more than 4 dialogue options are people who also happen to buy and repair your things.

You're also completely ignoring the fact that some dialogue options open more. There aren't only 4 options. Only 4 are shown.

If you're going to keep your rose-tinted googles on, nothing more can be said but you are sorely mistaken if you think any fallout game has tons of minor characters with plenty to say. That spot is reserved for DLC characters like Joshua. The rest of them behave like NPCs from any other rpg; they offer quests and tell you about their place in the world.

Edit: go talk to easy Pete and tell me how many options we get with your average npc. Everyone else in goodsprings is a tutorial npc (chet teaches you about ammo types, chick running the bar tells you about factions), but easy Pete is just a guy like most NPCs.

Go down to primm and talk to ruby Nash and her husband.

Head to the Mojave outpost and you'll find the only person saying much is cass. Take a tour all the way up to the 187 trading stop and everyone there offers up basic "nothing" information about themselves.

The conversations seem to flow more like actual conversations this time, feeling a bit less robotic than previous games. The conversations we saw for that one quest with the BoS guy seemed to actually have a lot more options than a similar situation in 3 and New Vegas. Often times when confronting characters we would have 2 or 3 options, whereas the 4 options being standardized actually gives you more to say in those situations. It also helps that the NPCs are taking a more active role in the conversation, asking you questions that you can then dodge or say things other than a simple yes/no.

Edit: What the hell kind of button did I press to make my post happen early? Sorry about that.

Go to the Nellis Airforce base or the Boomer's territory and tell me that. It's funny that we're both playing the same game at the same time and having different experiences.

Of course there are plenty of characters that have nothing to say, but I'm talking about the characters that DO have something to say. Among those characters, there are plenty that have more dialogue options than 4.

And that's not even the only problem with the dialogue system in my opinion. I don't like not seeing the entirety of what I'm going to say and I haven't seen a single argument to defend that. I just honestly do not see the purpose of the dialogue wheel. It worked in Mass Effect where you were playing as a pre-defined character whose personality you only had minor control over. I guess that's the direction Fallout is going in? That's not what I personally like out of my Bethesda games. If I wanted that I'd boot up the witcher or dragon age.

Provide an example of these minor characters with what you claim to be more than 4 options.

I've established that characters in place for exposition say a lot, I'm not sure what leads you to believe such characters will suddenly disappear; they provide a vital service for world building.

If you think somehow they won't be implemented based on a screenshot mid dialogue, youre crying the sky is falling while grasping straws pretty tightly.

And where are you getting there only being 4 options? If you paid any attention to the leaks, you'd see dialogue flowing.

Is that just conveniently ignored by you?

As for you not liking the system, that really couldn't be any more irrelvant to my post. I could careless that you don't like it, just don't spout blatantly false things like the previous games having tons of dialogue choices and this game not.

Of course dialogue "flows" but that was the case in both games so it cancels itself out.

We can argue over what could be a "minor character" so I'm not going into the semantics here.

But how about confessor Cromwell in Fallout 3? I'm counting 6 for him, and I haven't even scrolled down to see the additional options. There's a pretty good example right there.

You know I don't like having the voiced PC either, but approaching it from a "less options" standpoint is just being a bit dishonest. From the little we've seen so far it seems that each dialogue option feeds into a tree, a tree that might then go in any manner of ways. The simple questions about who someone is and what the world is like are probably going to be done Mass Effect style, with one of those options leading into a menu showing off another 4 options for those simple questions which would actually be a whole bundle more than those kind of options we've seen before.

There's 111k worth of voiced lines in the game, and I think people are just knee jerking towards Bethesda trying something new. I personally would have preferred it remain the way it was before, but Bethesda has designed games for a very long time, and they know what they're doing.

See that's the thing though: If I wanted a Mass Effect style game I'd play Mass Effect. I don't see why they had to make this change.

It seems like as step back to be honest. And I don't think the voiced protagonist is to blame, Witcher has been offering a lot of fully voiced dialog options since the first game and it works just fine.

I think the main issue is how they organized conversation topics by limiting them to 4 options. I think it's a result of the "stop a conversation, look away, do something and then come back to the convesation" gimmick that they advertised because they have to preserve the ability to just walk away mid conversation I guess. The classic dialog topic lists that have been used in games before work just fine, I don't really like this change just for the sake of a silly gimmick.

Not to mention the fact that it seems now that you can't just talk to NPCs about everything, a lot of conversation options seem to lock you out of other ones even though both of them are just "give more info to the player about the world" options. It's like they hate talking to me or something

"tell me about megaton"

"Tell me about your church"

"Do you accept donations?"

"Have you ever been outside megaton?"

"What is the news"

"Directions"

Those are the dialogue options we get from the confessor.

About half of those can be rolled into "tell me about megaton" and the donation question moved to "tell me about your church"

So, yes. He has 6 options. 4 of those are about as basic as "can you repair/buy my things"?

Is that a good example of an npc with more than 4 choices? I'm going to say no.

Edit: forgot about the goodbye, but since we're including such questions as give me directions, why not make the count 7.

Your tone is becoming unpleasant and it's clear that that instead of trying to have a civil discussion, you're simply trying to pick apart anything and look for ways to prove yourself "right", so I'll leave it at this:

Like I said several times before, "Who cares if the dialogue doesn't lead to anything? Who cares if it's just little bits of information? I think people forget that not everything has to have a direct practical purpose. Some things just give you more information, context, and help you flesh out your character's personality. That's being gimped with the new dialogue system."

Yeah, that's another thing I've heard, though I haven't seen it myself yet so I wont speak on that.

What evidence do you have pointing to it being gimped?

You keep saying that but all you've got to back it up is this guy saying this many things.

If you're claiming that such characters won't exist anymore, you're going to have to prove it.

You seem to have enough evidence to form an opinion and are fully aware of the current dialogue options we're offered. I'm only asking to see it so I know where you're getting this information because nothing I've seen points to that.

The dialogue system is a bit like Mass Effect, but then they are the ones that pioneered that form of dialogue, I don't think that the rest of the game resembles Mass Effect in any form. Mass Effect is based on a very complicated and pretty linear story, with a lot of set pieces throughout the entire thing. Aside from the intros that have been getting fancier and fancier as time has gone on, I don't see that anywhere in Fallout 4.

And take this as someone who really doesn't enjoy Mass Effect at all and wished that we had stuck with the old system. I may not like it, but I think when people say stuff like the game being just like Mass Effect it's jumping the gun a bit. Im willing to give the game a chance, since I am sure the system will make a lot more sense on the 10th when its all in context rather than the scraps we've seen of it. And if its still detrimental to the experience, then im sure we both will be making that known. Even Bethesda doesnt release a perfect game every time, and if this part isn't well received, I don't think we're going to be seeing it in TES VI or Fallout 5.