Can We Make Talking as Much Fun as Shooting?
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- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
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Certain RPGs make the tantalising promise that you can skip combat altogether, by talking your way past the bad guys. But how can we turn this into genuinely interesting gameplay?
Warning - This video contains story spoilers for Mass Effect (1) and Life is Strange (Episode 2), and also features content related to suicide.
Games shown in this episode (in order of appearance)
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (Eidos Montreal, 2016)
Planescape: Torment (Black Isle Studios, 1999)
Fallout: New Vegas (Obsidian Entertainment, 2010)
Baldur’s Gate (Bioware, 1998)
Mass Effect (Bioware, 2007)
Alpha Protocol (Obsidian Entertainment, 2010)
Undertale (Toby Fox, 2015)
Ladykiller in a Bind (Christine Love, 2016)
Portal (Valve Corporation, 2007)
Rayman Legends (Ubisoft Montpellier, 2013)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Eidos Montreal, 2011)
Life is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment, 2015)
LA Noire (Team Bondi, 2011)
Heaven’s Vault (Inkle, 2019)
Resident Evil 2 (Capcom, 2019)
The Walking Dead: Season One (Telltale Games, 2012)
DOOM (id Software, 2016)
Florence (Mountains, 2018)
Griftlands (Klei Entertainment, 2021)
Detroit: Become Human (Quantic Dream, 2018)
Civilization V (Firaxis Games, 2010)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice for All (Capcom, 2002)
Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter (Frogwares, 2016)
Persona 5 (Atlus, 2017)
Call of Duty: WWII (Sledgehammer Games, 2017)
Watch Dogs 2 (Ubisoft Montreal, 2016)
Middle-earth: Shadow of War (Monolith Productions, 2017)
Far Cry New Dawn (Ubisoft Montreal, 2019)
The Outer Worlds (Obsidian, 2019)
Music used in this episode
Here’s Where Things Get Interesting - Lee Rosevere (leerosevere.ba...)
Wonder Cycle - Chris Zabriskie (chriszabriskie...)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution soundtrack - Michael McCann
Life is Strange soundtrack - Jonathan Morali
LA Noire soundtrack - Andrew Hale
Candlepower - Chris Zabriskie (chriszabriskie...)
Oxygen Garden - Chris Zabriskie (chriszabriskie...)
Contribute translated subtitles - amara.org/v/C3...
i really liked how in fallout 1 you can ONLY talk the master down if you have gathered the necessary information.
just rising some arbitrary stat is the wrong way to go. it has to be improved and expanded.
I agree with this. Especially over the course of a long 60 hour RPG, where you're never quite sure what stats you should focus on. Might be putting a lot into charm/social skills, but need to round off strength etc, only to realise you needed 1 more charm to avoid some bad outcome.
This is doubly conflated in games that don't allow re-skilling.
Rising the stat should only be used in like getting cheaper prices at shops etc.
@@CnutLongsword And then you feel like grinding to have better speech stat so that yo can do that quest in a certain way. It breaks the immersion which is the complete opposite of what talking through the quest games set out to do.
Not to say having stats when talking your way through things is bas, they should just function more like they do in combat. When fighting, the better your stats are and the more likely you are to succeed. Diplomacy could work similar to this with higher stats meaning choices are more forgiving, but even with lower stats its still possible to work your way through
@@reddragon3132 stats also matter in fallout 1 as far as i remember. i am not sure if you can convince the master if you have all the info but low stats. pretty sure there is a skill checkl
"those who have challenges with social skills, like gamers [...]"
Never have I been so offended by something I 100% agree with
This doesn't even offend me. Its true af.
Just look at many gaming communities, especially the multiplayer ones. You can't tell me that at least 60% of those toxic piglets know what a social skill even IS.
Example: League of legends, 5 ppl team up against 5 ppl and try to be a team even though they fucking hate each other from the beginning. Some of them spend more time in the chat telling you how garbage you are and that they want to fuck your mom than actually playing the game.
And if your game has a voice chat, maybe 2 people (mostly the 10yo who demand that you give them all they want or they will troll and scream) are using it because the rest of them seems afraid of communication.
That flew over your head or are you pretending . Just so that you can say that your meta joke flew over my head. Or did you post your comment hoping that it will be interpreted as a joke while the joke of the original wooshed over your head.
@@WetAdek Man, I can't tell you are being meta or are just that dumb lmao
I feel like people don't give gamers enough credit for being able to understand nuance and subtext. And this may lead to a sort of spiral where the ability to understand things like this atrophies a bit if someone spends a lot of time playing games, because too many developers assume gamers won't "get it", thus causing further atrophy of this skill. In my experience the vast majority of players understand subtlety and subtext just as much as consumers of any other kind of art form. It's just a matter of developers respecting them enough to put that kind of material in front of them.
The problem is that dialogue almost always ends up as basically a trial-and-error system where you have to pick the exact option that the developers intended you to pick, or fail. You have to navigate the tree to find the one path through all the options to get to the win condition.
I think it's more interesting when each of the options are viable for a different reason and lead to a different outcome that you might want to choose, rather than just having right and wrong answers.
There's a company called Choice Of Games who make a series of text based choice games. Something I love about their games is that there is nearly always multiple solutions to every problem. I replayed Choice Of Robots countless times just to explore all the different solutions to the problems you're faced with and see all the different endings.
Yeah, that's where the abstract systems work better. Even though they are arguably too similar to 'combat' to stand out.
If your 'opponent' has 40 'argument points' and you have 50, and each statement you make can have varying kinds of positive or negative effects...
Then you don't run into the situation that it becomes a multiple choice thing.
Perhaps a hybrid system makes more sense? Have underlying turn based RPG based mechanics, but have dialogue choices as 'attacks' based on how well you read the person's current state, what your goals are, and what information you know about them.
(eg, have person-specific 'conversation options' similar to how you have items in an RPG.)
That way you get some of the effects of a well written dialogue tree, but you can still 'win' a conversation even if you make a bunch of wrong choices, and it's not a multiple choice quizz. (better answers simply represent stronger 'attacks').
Maybe have multiple pools of 'hp' equivalents for the character you're talking to that represent different things, and the outcome (or outcomes) depend on which of these pools you managed to take down.
For instance, they become infatuated with you if you use a lot of 'attacks' that have romantic implications, but if you just want them to let you through a door that might be based on a different pool...
And perhaps certain possible 'attacks' target multiple things.
This, essentially is a hybrid between the fixed dialogue tree and the mechanics based solution...
I don't know. Depends on your goals I guess....
@@KuraIthys So kind of like the interrogation scene in Detroit: Become Human?
You could argue that any gameplay is like that - trial and error. Combat is the same, no? Failed? Learn the AI, check your strat and try again doing it differently.
@@FortisConscius You could, but combat tends to be much more analogue. You can win or die, sure, but you can generally use more or less ammo, take more or less damage, use different tools or weapons, etc. - there's a huge variety in combat, both in what actions you can take, and in what the exact outcome will be.
They should be called "talk em ups"
Well, talk-em-downs.
@@EdyAlbertoMSGT3 depends on the circumstance.
You can say it's like bringing a mouth to a gunfight
Tamups
Toolkit selects an action.
Toolkit select the *Joke* option.
*[Joke 20]* Became a silver-tounged diplomat that use words. Not SWORDS.
*[ Joke attempt failed, not enough pun or sense of humor level ]*
*[Retry?]*
@@triisart1721
You choose to [Retry].
Toolkit choose an different approach.
Toolkit selects an action.
Toolkit opens the Dialogue Option bar.
*[Joke]* Level 20 = Make terrible jokes or puns that usually not funny.
*[Wisdom]* Level 99 = Use your knowledge about game's mechanics.
*[Charisma]* Level 90 = Similar to Widsom. However, using your deep accent can bring attention to the target.
*[Back Off]*
@@mariapazgonzalezlesme
*[Wisdom]*
@@odanemcdonald9874 You choose [wisdom]
Wisdom was very effective
Your Viewers are Impressed.
Defense +5
XP +10
This was beautiful, and already more meaningful than the entirety of Fallout 76
5:33
"It's been two years since that kid died, when are you gonna let me off the hook? Yeah, I took his life, he was a threat, and you knew it, so don't come here acting all high and mighty!"
Mark Brown: *That's super cool*
"Hol' Up A Minute" making its rounds I hear ;)
stopped the video and pressed ctrl+F to find fellow review fans ^^
Glad someone called this out already.
I noticed that too!
I instantly scrolled down to the comments too haha
This was actually the second unexpected "hol' up a minute" I experienced in a new RUclips video today. Making the rounds indeed.
Human Revolution's interactions are incredible and one of my favorite parts of the game. I would never have thought that when negotiating a hostage situation, one of the most effective ways to get a terrorist on your side is to just call him an idiot. It actually changed the way I look at dialogue in games. You're not superficially charming him, you're talking in a way he understands. You're empathizing with him.
(It was especially notable because I played Mass Effect not long before, and I was continually frustrated that Shepard's dialogue would often be totally different from what the option made it look like he was going to say.)
So that hasn't changed. I hate the dialog in the Old Republic as it feels way too much like...a game mechanic.
Human Revolution is one of my favorites and the best ways negotiations are done. it's not some RPG mechanic that requires the right moral point or stat check, it requires you to think about how you're gonna convince the other guy.
Mankind Divided perfects it by giving more to it, and the writing too.
I prefer Mankind divided
@@mohammadqasimawais9155 I like both, a lot, more than the old Deus Ex games, I really hope Adam Jensen get's a third game that's the best of both.
Another part of this is making sure the game fulfills the fantasy of being a smooth talking charmer, or debate god, or high-stakes lawyer. This does kind of boil down to the animation, writing, and voice acting, but it is a thing to consider; just like shooting wants to make you feel like an action hero, our dialogue choices should make us feel like we have a silver tongue.
I actually felt Deus Ex: Human Revolution handled this well at a couple points (minor spoilers ahead). There's a point late in the game where you can confront a character about something, and you have the option to just ignore the sneaking and just walk into the conference he's holding and have a shouting match with him in front of a live audience. The camera constantly pans forward whenever you're doing well, as Jensen actually gets in his face and slowly advances on him, letting you know you're really putting the screws on this guy on live TV. It felt every bit as climactic as a gunfight (in a sort of soap opera drama way).
I failed that at my first try and decided to shoot the guy in the face. Not the best strategy.
It also depends on what kind of game it is. A well fleshed out investigative and dialogue system is not appropriate for all games because it starts taking away for the main reason you play the game. Every game has a limited amount of resources and so they choose a core loop to focus on and develop things in service of. Dues Ex is a good example here, they gave you a good bit of extra conversation depth without bogging down the game. If Dues Ex had implemented what was suggested it would be a ton of extra resources used in service of a small % of players AND it would actually begin taking away from the core reason people play that game.
LA Noire is a good game for it. Neverwinter Nights 2 is also a good game for it as playing through as a min/maxed charisma bard focused on conversation skills and performance provides you the same sort of power fantasy as the rest of the game and was actually done really well. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a good game for it though that game shows some rough spots when it doesn't work and breaks the magic.
How about up the ante even more: cult leader. They're the ultimate charmer+bluffer (and terrible human being, but we're usually a genocidal maniac in video games anyway). And of course it's not just about what you say in that one interaction per person. It's about continuous interactions, choosing the right clothing, the right settings, the right posse, establishing the rules, etc. Though the game style can't be realistic, as I think it would be just too creepy to play. Maybe a cult of cartoon monsters.
@@iruns1246 You could totally do a cult leader game if you framed it correctly. Say instead of a cult you made someone a demon lord and they were trying to keep together their moronic minions long enough to crush the humans.
You could inject a ton of humor and over the top nonsense while still having at the core everything you say. Kind of like how Command and Conquer got away with how much it did. You just have to build several degrees of separation between reality and the game world. Especially if players get to choose the good/evil nature of how they play.
I mean look at Rimworld and Sterllaris. Both of those games let you do all sorts of horrible things but it's abstracted enough and left to player choice so nobody cares.
@@Ralathar44 Agreed. Hope someone actually make that game. As an awkward introvert, that sounds like as strong a power fantasy as playing games as super heroes :)
"Can we make talking as much fun as shooting?"
Danganronpa: "Why not both?"
CONSENT!
"But can you SPELL knife in this fun minigame?"
@@jojbenedoot7459 THERE'S NO K
@@jojbenedoot7459 On the meatbone, meat bone on the, bone meat the on
The biggest problem I have with dialogue based games is that they are often just a series of questions with multiple choice. It's literally just taking an exam.
The player can't plan ahead, they can only react to the NPC one question at a time.
Only Ace Attorney and L.A Noir really engages me in that, I have to pick up information, chooses what questions to ask. It's much more pro-active, giving the player a sense of control. Only then, a player feels like they are playing a game instead of being played by the game.
Play danganronpa! It's an amazing series of games, and so far, they're the games that have given me the most engaging gameplay out of dialogue, even more than AA or LAN.
I 100% agree with your assessment, but not you example (I haven't played _Noir_ so I can't talk there). _Ace Attourny_ only ever has one successful path, so it's even more of an exam than others, just with more choices.
Exactly! I really couldn't agree more to this.
@@Verbose_Mode it does give you a super good illusion of control though
I do have a grudge on LA Noire, specifically the lie vs doubt choice.
If you choose doubt and there's really *no evidence* in the investigation scene, the interviewee will *admit* his/her lie.
On the other hand, if there *is* evidence on the scene, he/she will make fun of you and bluff his/her way out.
I mean, I don't know, shouldn't you be way less confident about your bluffing if the evidence is actually present near you?
It's a shame that this came out before Disco Elysium did.
Agreed. Disco Elysium is a masterpiece when it comes to dialogue trees and options. Probably some of the most well written and greatly executed I've seen in a very long time. I can only think of the original Fallout 1 and 2 that were executed so masterfully.
I expect he'll make a video on it at some point. It's got enough cool features and innovative ideas to warrant a spotlight of its own. I mean, if he can make a video furiously masturbating to Celeste for things done before and better in Super Meat Boy, then I'd wager a return to the topic of dialogue for a game as great as Disco Elysium isn't out of the question.
*sorry Mark I still love you don't kill me*
While I loved the game, this still wouldn't really apply. What Disco Elysium did was moreso make talking fun and shooting not fun, because you don't actually get to shoot anybody yourself. Not that I disagree with that approsch, but if I could shoot people manually with good controls it wouldn't really work
Yes, and as noted before somewhere else, disco elysium even have a boss encounter in form of characters having a conversation.
However, mthe problem with disco elysium is that you're playing as Sherlock Holmes equivalent, a character with a vert specific type of psyche and intellect capability, you cannot have such meticulous inner thoughts and dialogue system for other more average type characters.
It is also obvious that such system is very hard to achieve if you have bigger scope and more characters...
Disco elysium itself also suffers from the certain babbles from that inner thought system, the game is too on the nose about ideologies that is just cannot connect with wider audiences, and not only that but also too much. At some point I lost interest in many of the ideology infused texts that served no purpose to the actual story.
Game Maker's Toolkit! Please do a video on Disco Elysium. We need it! *stares at 363 likes on op comment*
Additionally, I think it would be cool if instead of using dialogue to skip gameplay or game events, perhaps we could talk our way INTO gameplay, such as convincing a faction leader into letting you participate in an important mission or unlocking some side quest that would be otherwise inaccessible to you.
It would also be very interesting in terms of choosing routes, like I generally try to stay on everyone's good side but not choose *A* side too early the first time I play that kind of RPG; maybe unlocking faction-specific options could be something you can only get by going full-bore for that faction in nearly every encounter rather than playing the middle. I think that could be balanced to encourage a lot of replay going different routes.
I had an interesting but awesome expierience replaying deus ex: human revolution that I thought I'd share.
For starters, it's important to know that I have played and beaten deus ex once before as a nonlethal/kind type of character. I don't like pushing NPC's buttons as it's not in my nature or personality to wanna see them react negatively.
My second time around I went for a more roleplaying approach as tried out a lethal or nonlethal depending on the situation asshole of a detective type character. When I got to the police station I was convinced that the only way to TALK your way through the guard was to reassure him of what he did and he in return would let you through. Despite believing that I went ahead and went full boar aggressive against him. He of course responded very negatively, very angry at first. But some more pushing and he broke, he felt worse than he may have had before and simply let me through because of feeling defeated.
This comepletely blew me away but it felt incredible to see how the world (more specifically a certain NPC) reacted to the way I chose to play my character. Still one of my all time favorite role playing video game expieriences. Thanks for reading.
I'm currently playing it for the first time, and the dialogue system/gameplay is unlike anything I've ever seen! Blew my mind!
I'm playing Mankind Divided for the first time and I'm constantly blown away by the many routes one situation can be approached and dealt with. Probably, one of the most underrated series out there.
I shit on him so damn hard on my first playthrough that the dude started crying.
I remember when I got to a point in vampire the masquerade bloodlines where I had to deal with this gargoyle but I didn't have enough persuade points for the option to pop up but the options I was allowed to chose did let me convince them to back down, I had to figure out what was the best option but I manage to figure it out.
Something similar happened with fallout 1. you can get a document that proves the master's plan has a fatal flaw but you can also convince him to find out about the flaw.
By the way I'm Autistic and I think these sorts of things could be great for helping us learn about social skills (I managed to pick up some after many years of observing media closely so I have some experience with this.)
To anyone who is curious, the social boss battles in Human Revolution are PERFECTION without that augment. I would try so hard to get a read on people, think about their what they've said or done previously, and when you are successful in the end, it feels so satisfying. I highly recommend playing the game without that augment.
"I told you, I only have SISTERS." Good lord is that some telegraphed writing.
Yeah I couldn’t really get that into life is strange because of the young adult novel level writing
While yeah some of the dialog can be quite corny, or cringy, there is so much more to that scene then what is shown here. Max's rewind powers are used up at this moment, so there are no re do's just one chance. Also a big underlying narrative of the game, is the question, does max actually care about the people she talks to? Or does she only care about the outcome while using her powers. So "I told you I only have sisters" is cringy, it really does show that she never paid attention to her friends, it's a failure of max, and by extension the player.
@@thatonedudea One thing I also consider for that specific line, is that gamers generally feel cheated if they fail at a something and have no answer as to why. Having her specifically call out the fact that she has sisters, not only tells the player what it was they messed up, but also informs the player that they were given the answer at some point.
I think that's kind of the hard part about writing for games that also emphasis choice/discovery. How can you invoke emotions in players without them feeling as if the game is working against them? And sadly actual conversations in real life can be vague/confusing and generally are more up to randomness then anything told in narrative format.
@@valeoncat13 The phrasing is awkward. It could've been more of a surprise reaction:"brothers? What are you talking about? You never really knew me did you? At least you cared enough to pretend. Thanks, I guess. *throws self of roof*"
The language seems rough, though.
Shooting or talking?
Danganronpa: Why not both?
i was mostly thinking about dangan ronpa and phoenix wright throughout the video
Took it from my mouth!
That’s exactly what I thought when I saw the title. 😂
Scrum debate from v3 is one of the most satisfying gameplay abstractions of an argument I've come across. The rhythm of it, the way you've got to think on your feet, and tackle each of your opponents' points one by one. Really awesome bit of gameplay there.
I was expecting some sort of mention of DR
In witcher 3, you can avoid a lot of fights including bosses with a more "diplomatic" dialogues. You can even "jedi mind trick" people to make them forget about the confrontations. Also it might be simple but you can haggle your rewards thus give the feeling that we actually talking our way through for a better advantages.
I like how Witcher handles avoiding fights in more impactful moments - whatever your decision is (to skip a fight or not) you are always skipping something - by killing someone you remove all future interations with them, meaning that more hostile approach will lead to you getting more involved interactions now at expense of potential interactions later on. I like how they balanced it for overall playthrough - consequences are far enough in the future to make skipping a fight feel rewarding when game retrospects to previous interaction, but at the same time game is long enough to not make you feel missing out on content either way. In the end it seems like a choice between action and narration you can make one dialogue at a time - tuning the game to your preferred playstyle as you go.
@@asmonull not nessisarily. Sometimes dialog can add gameplay or switch it up. You get many instances where through multiple actions and choices it can result in making an enemy or a friend and later on you could be fighting against or with that friend making that choice meaningful in gameplay. Look at Dijkstra for a good example. The Witcher 3 is a good example because you never know the result of a conversation. Avoiding a fight now may cause a bigger one later or may make another easier. Not talking your way out of a fight may cause what could be a larger battle to not happen. A lot of the times killing someone will cut off a questline. Also with the very natural flow of dialog choices it almost never feels like a trivia guessing game either. I was surprised he didn't bring up the witcher 3 for his video. The dialog is by far more interesting than the gameplay. Usually when I choose to kill someone its because narritively, I personally hate them (example, Whoreson I murdered but you can let him live). When I choose not to kill them, I like them or feel sorry for them (Kara, and it opens up more gameplay and mainline story to keep her alive, but you can kill her). It just feels like natural decision making not skipping. Plus, like I said, the whole mysterious outcome thing makes it work. The Bloody Baren questline shows how one decision nomatter what will kill many people, its just different people. Save one life and a whole village of children die and someone gets a nasty curse causing a family to be torn apart even involving suicide or by killing that life and seeing other communities suffer and die off but actually have a chance at reuniting the family. You just never know the outcomes short term or long term. It takes guessing or reading people out of the equation, there is no silver tongue in the Witcher. Its just what would you do? Then you ride with it because you can't go back by the time you see the outcome.
@@MrKing-qd7gi reading through your comment I thought you were talking about Elex until you mentioned Witcher. Very underrated game because of its clunky combat and npc's being clones of each other but the exploration and politics are top notch
@GiRayne the problem is Witcher fanbase considers that this game fits in every genre in a a perfectly possible way, but it's definitely not the case.. I don't understand why they talk about w3 in such an overly exaggerated manner. W3 is an unidirectional rpg that does an awful job when it comes to tackling a quest in multiple ways.. For example in fallout nv, there are 5 distinct ways to kill a mid game antagonist Benny.
@GiRayne if being linear and telling a story about a written character disqualifies a game from being an RPG, then what do you consider Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, Chrono Trigger... basically the entire genre of JRPGs lol
i feel like you started from your viewpoint and then worked to justify it, which is kind of the opposite of what you should do
Can We Make Talking as Much Fun as Shooting? | American Teacher's Toolkit
Can We Make Talking as Much Fun as Shooting? | American Policeman's Toolkit
Oof. Dark humor is like a kid with cancer, it never gets old.
Imagine the quiet kid who played xbox live throw insults
This comment and the replies are cursed
@@swishfish8858 I am so annoyed that I actually laughed at this😂
Obsidian's Tyranny has some really great interactions and diplomacy. Getting a band of rebels to run away without a fight or surrender their leader is extremely satisfying when it's not down to stats or rolls but just choosing the right thing to say and having done the right things in the past.
Another thing to consider is that like, dialogue mechanics simply aren't fleshed out morally like combat scenarios are, like you have the classic lethal/nonlethal/ghost option in a stealth game for example, but talking to people in a video game is pretty much always the morally superior option unless you're specifically choosing the "jackass" dialogue option, but a morally complex system instead
Consider the following: you need to go through hang territory for some mission, and you have a few options: fight, sneak, or meet up and negotiate, however if you choose to negotiate, the boss might demand you help one of his cronies to deal drugs, in a nonviolent sidequest, now the player has an important moral choice; is your dedication to pacifism more important than preventing drug circulation. Or maybe you can choose to pay him, but with officer funds, which later might get whistle blown that the police are colluding with gangs or something.
I think that goes back to how much more expensive dialogue gameplay can be to produce than combat; it's meant that game designers haven't had as much room to experiment, innovate, and lock down on what kinds of inputs and results can make a dialogue feel good to play through. The same way we've seen combat mechanics diversify for example shooters with the fps boom where every gamedev and their dog had a new take on fps gunplay, or look at how platformers have benefitted in gameplay diversity with the indy boom bringing us such different modes of play within the broader platforming genre as seen in meatboy, shovelknight, and spelunky.
"is your dedication to pacifism more important than preventing drug circulation"
What is the objective in this scenario, you crafted?
Take "care" of the gang's boss?
Just to go though the territory?
Or you choose how to deal with the current problem which this gang?
"however if you choose to negotiate, the boss might demand you help one of his cronies to deal drugs, in a nonviolent sidequest"
Since their is side quest it is ok to presume, that this gang and/or the boss are important to the overall story.Then it would a plus to get on their good side.
"Now the player has an important moral choice; is your dedication to pacifism more important than preventing drug circulation"
What is the drug?Is it dangerous or addictive or does provide benefits to the person using and little to no drawbacks ?
And why was this drug made illegal?Because of what it does to people?Is it natural or chemically made?Or are people are ignorant to what is really?
Depending on what you answer's are,it would make the story more interesting,like this one scenario i encountered which you can stop a drug trade,simple right?but here the twist the buyer needs this drug to live,but it was made illegal on the process of how it was made.however the price for drug is reasonable for how hard is it to make and transport and sell.so what do you do?do you stop this deal? do you help the drug dealers in their illegal plans or do bust them and turn to the proper authorities ? it would more interesting if was more morally complex rather then the answer being obvious.
and you not stopping drug trade your deceasing it ,your taking the supply and not the demand,meaning people will always find a way around to get the things they want .
I always get a great sense of satisfaction when I can talk my way out of things instead of using fists and guns. There's something about defeating a foe with your mind and words alone that's so gratifying.
You've talked about how dialogue options let you skip gameplay, but often shooting someone in the head lets you skip dialogue. So it can become a matter of what the player is interested in, and whether the designers put enough cool stuff in the dialogue, or indeed in the combat, to make it worth not skipping either of them. That choice of skipping one or the other is really valuable when as a player you want to do both, because at that point it is an actual choice between two actual valuable options. When faced by that kind of choice you can really properly lean into the character you are playing and let that guide your decisions, but those decisions have to have weight behind them, they have to build towards a complex whole greater than the sum of its parts, otherwise they'll fall flat.
I find that I've played so many combat based games that I'll often take any chance I see to skip a fight, but in a roleplaying game I dont want to make that kind of choice because of who I personally am and what I personally like. In an rpg I want to make those decisions based on who I'm trying to play as, but shallow systems like that fallout nv 'skillcheck to skip the fight' dont encourage that mindset. Likewise systems that drop the ball on keeping combat engaging dont leave me with the kind of choice I want to face.
It cant just be an all or nothing approach, and just having actions add points to the 'good' ending vs the 'bad' ending, and maybe there's a 'neutral' ending too (how exciting... not), that doesn't give me the kind of control over who my character is and their position in the world that I want to see. I can get that experience out of a ttrpg with a living, breathing, thinking dm running the world, but videogames seem to have a ways to go yet. So many of these hundred million dollar productions are barely dipping their toes into an ocean of interactivity.
How many people shoot NPCs to skip dialgues with them? Don't be silly.
@@StevXtreme most people, but they're in god mode or are in no weapons allowed area.
@@gamerdweebentertainment1616 Guy, please.
@@StevXtreme Well for the most part, you can't. When a conversation happens in most games, it's either with an ally, so you shouldn't shoot them, or a cutscene, where you can't shoot, or a dialogue tree, where again, you can't shoot.
I can definitely imagine that given the option between diplomacy and combat, someone might pick combat, much in the same way that a lot of people choose combat over stealth segments.
The War Room from Dragon Age: Inquisition was almost my favorite part. A game that focused on that and then interacting with characters after missions, or conducting after action reports, and with a healthy bit of strategic/diplomatic thinking would be amazing.
One thing I don't like about the War Room is that when selecting normal missions (not the ones where you progress the story or go to a new area) that there is no briefing and debriefing about them.
I like the way The Council tried to implement RPG elements in an all narrative gameplay experience. It ends up being Life is Strange but you have a skill tree and consumables, and I think it turned out interesting enough on the speech challenges.
In Fallout 1 you could talk you way out, but the phrase wasn't highlighted with a [speech]. Which means that not only you had to have the good level of speech and chrisma but you also had to think for yourself what you should say. Even if rightly skilled, not choosing the good reply could still had disastrous consequences.
That's not entirely true as if you took the empathy perk, the good options would be colored blue and the bad options would be red, so a social based character just gets told what options to pick.
In spite of all its flaws I think Alpha Protocol still stands up as having one of the best dialogue systems in recent years.
Alpha Protocol is, honestly, an uncut gem. The formulaic gameplay really did it no favors.
I wanted to enjoy Alpha Protocol for that alone. Too bad the gameplay was just....no
Disco Elysium says hello.
That moreso made shooting unfun than make talking fun. I love the game, but it isn't a great example because it's not some sort of shooter
@@pravda9646 spot on. Not to mention it wasn't out yet.....
@@pravda9646 yeah , its a vigeo game book
Hah, what I came to write!
I really want to play this but covid has me broke
Another example of dialogue combat is insult sword fighting, from the Monkey Island games! Pretty rudimentary, but the comebacks are quite fun
You fight like a dairy farmer!
And then came Tales of Monkey Island, where the writer(s) really wanted us to know how funny the "you fight like a cow" line was.
I am rubber. You are glue!
That's a mechanic in the new Kill la Kill fighting game, you can get into shouting matches with your opponent partway through the fight
I'm sad that it took so much scrolling to find the FIRST Monkey Island comment.
Well done.
You know what makes entertaining dialogue options? Good writing. There was generally more parity between writing and combat in a lot of older RPGs. Compare the first two Fallouts to New Vegas. More dialogue and less combat (because they were role-playing games, not shooters).
Also, the game didn't tell you which options were from skill checks, and those options were more often a way to access additional content rather than just bypass the fight immediately in front of you. The end result was that using a high speech character gave you additional options for role-playing without just acting as a skip button. And, they were entertaining to read.
I loved New Vegas, and I think it's a well-written game; but Obsidian inherited a set of high level design decisions that were bound to result in a game where a player views the combat as the game itself, and the dialogue as what happens between the game.
New Vegas has more lines of dialogue...and I spent more of my time in combat when playing Fallout and Fallout 2, which bugged me...mileage varies, as you take off those rose tinted glasses.
@@nathanlevesque7812 Mileage varies dependent on play style, certainly. But I'm thinking of a number of specific instances of dialogue that run counter to the video's estimation of what skill checks are about.
And I don't just mean the overall quantity of combat vs. dialogue, but also their relative importance in the player's perception. The video suggests that some dialogue results in skipping 'gameplay'. That only makes sense if dialogue is not considered gameplay. I don't blame him for viewing it that way, because the game's design suggests it. But personally, in older or recent playthroughs, I have just as much fun with the dialogue in Fallout 2 as with the combat encounters. So why does it matter if one is systematized, and the other is pre-written?
In other words, if the dialogue is fun to begin with, it's not necessarily a problem to be fixed.
I should elaborate on my problems with the dialogue in New Vegas, which I think are causing the issues mentioned in the video. Only focusing on it because it's actually a good game.
There are a few things that I don't like:
1. The game shows you which skill gives you a dialogue option and what skill level you unlocked it at. I understand why this is done, but something is lost in the process.
2. Some options you can't choose are still shown, letting you know what you need to pick them.
3. Options you haven't chosen yet are highlighted, ones you have are greyed out.
IMO, the net result of all of these is that the developers are funneled towards writing more formulaic dialogues [e.g. this is the skill check option, this is the character background, this is the info dump on the setting, etc] instead of something more dynamic or unpredictable. Meanwhile, they're encouraging players to game the system instead of treating it like a real conversation. You invest in the skills you need, you mine out each conversation till it's done, etc. The problem is the system being gamed isn't fun. GMT is postulating ways to make the system more engaging, which is good. But I'm saying that an alternative is to write it in such a way that players don't want to treat it like a system. Keep certain information hidden, and allow for writing that can surprise players. Throw in skill checks that exist for their own sake.
Not saying New Vegas doesn't do any of this, but I think over time game devs have figured out efficient codified work flows that tend to lead toward more formulaic writing. I'm guessing a lot of early RPGs had the advantage of both smaller dev teams and a lack of set standards in how a conversation should be written. If a good writer's free to write a natural dialogue that doesn't need to follow a set formula (like that blasted conversation wheel), the result is more likely to be interesting. And it doesn't need to feel like a game to be good.
@@jabberw0k812 The first Fallout's Final Boss encounter is special to me. I accidentally got myself caught very early on and got brought in front of the Master. (Something that was very good to me, since I was either talking my way or having my companions fight like slaves)
Then since at the time I was playing blind I didn't know how to talk my way out of it or if I even can.
But I proceeded to go ahead. And I did it on first try and essentially got to escape without having to fight anybody, thus I dealt with the last level (I mean, there is the factory) without a single fight...
Minus the bug where if you move too early, the Master's turrets and Super Mutants still attack, but I managed to fix that by waiting so it was fine.
It's a fun talk where in the end you prove that his current plan is unviable with evidence and logic.
I think it's a cool mechanic that could be improved upon. However, I think developers who want to focus more on the social aspects of the game should make it clear that you need to be "paying attention" to certain things. Giving you more in game clues or hints about a certain environment the same way they tell you to prepare for a fight by leaving extra ammo or health right before it.
Absolutely.
As it is, and there was another comment that went into more detail, a lot of games that *do* have more robust dialogue also require you to pay a lot of attention to the environment, which is great, but the only problem is that there's no way to know that you missed something without spoiling that you missed something, and sometimes it's something you need.
There needs to be more of a precedent for subtle telegraphing in these kinds of games. In the FPS, it's a room that's somewhat conspicuously rich in supplies. Anyone who *knows* these kinds of games knows exactly what that means, and even if you don't, the thought might cross your mind, and you'll still get geared up regardless, so even if you aren't mentally prepared, you're still prepared.
A lot of adventure and horror games have good analogues, along with... games/experiences like Her Story.
It's doable, but I get the sense that it's really only great for dense spaces. Like walking into murder scene for the first time or something similar.
I would love a combination of the deus ex and abstract mechanical approach to dialogue. Like you could learn about the person you're gonna face and build your card deck or whatever according to their personality, their history etc.
7:32 Did you sneak in a reference to another great RUclips-Channel about Gaming there? :D
That was dooope
HOL' UP A MINUTE
I loved it!
archontaboo girlfriend reviews
sneak attack so good
Okay, can I just say that at 5:07 with the game you're mentioning, I love how they specify *EXACTLY* what you will be saying when you pick the options? This drove me crazy with Telltale Games, especially the Walking Dead.
4:32 “All of these games test your emotional and social skills, just like how puzzle games test your logic skills and platformers test your dexterity skills”
9:53 “…but it does ultimately mean that combat and conversation end up feeling pretty similar, and are testing the same skills of tactics and strategy rather than your social and emotional abilities”
This channel is always great for helping me with planning D&D, and this video especially addresses a common problem in that!
“Hol' up a minute” is spreading.
That phrase has existed for fucking centuries.
@@janesmith1840 it's a reference to another channel
@@valos507 quiet, zoomer idiot.
Jesus chill this is a reference to a different channel called girlfriend reviews
@@onyourleft9273 zoomer reddittor fool.
This video came up soon after I had just played through Mass Effect for the first time and felt the same way about skipping Saren at the end. Being able to talk my way out of it simply because I had enough points in charm was underwhelming, no decision-making required. The one scene that immediately came to mind was the one with Kate in Life is Strange, I had to carefully think it through and it left me with one of the most memorable moments in any video game.
I particularly like the idea of the player having to pay attention to details in the story in order to go through a dialogue segment. There's a lot of cool stories that can take advantage of that.
On the flip side games that rely on emotional skills could be excellent learning tools for gamers with some form of ASD. As someone with ASD I often find that my brain draws from sentences I've already heard work in a given context especially if I'm on verbal autopilot because I'm running out of energy to socialize or trying to maintain energy because I know I have to do a lot of socializing. So a game as a teaching tool for people who like me tend to struggle in social interaction by teaching us to look out for certain tells and equipping us with a series of neutral phrases that we can fall back on if actually thinking through the way to many social cues that bombard us in any given social interaction is too stressful would be damn useful and helpful.
Another thing that I don't see very often in these types of games: how which social group the characters are affects dialogue. For instance, I've been playing Shadowrun Dragonfall and there are skill checks that aren't just selectable based on how high your charisma score is, but what type of etiquette you use. For example, talking down guards requires having the security etiquette or having the corporate etiquette leads to better relations to CEOs and employees. I would love to see more games utilize this mechanic, especially games that involve characters trying to be social chameleons, blending into any type of social group. It's tremendously risky and requires great writing and a lot of thinking, but I think it would be very rewarding to players who want to play as conversationalist type characters.
I really hope cyberpunk 2077 works like this
Why don't other RPGs have mechanics like this?
Fallout: New Vegas does something like it to an extent.. :/
I think that the STALKER: Call of Chernobyl mod does the same thing.
Pillars of eternity does this constantly. You get special dialogue options depending on your race, background, class, reputation and disposition, as well as on your stats or skills (which are not only limited to social skils, as they may sometimes involve history, or religion for example). I also find great that you can decide if you want the game to show you which dialogues are "special" (which are not necesarilly better than normal ones) and which options were closed because you where missing a certain thing.
@@C0C0L0QUIN I've seen Divinity Original Sin 2 do this incredibly well too since how you interact with the world and how the world reacts to you depends heavily on your background.
Speaking of which, DoS2 has its own version of charisma checks where how well you pass it doesn't just depend on high your charisma is but also on how high your other stats are as well. I don't see that in other RPGs and should be utilized further in other games.
Really interesting video. I came into it thinking "No, talking will never be as interesting as combat or stealth". My mind has been changed.
I find it kind of remarkable that the graphics of L.A. Noire already look super dated. It doesn't seem that long ago that they were groundbreaking.
Angmering 8 years is a long time when it comes to technology.
@@Canadas_Very_Own Oh, definitely - I think it's more a reflection of my memory and sense of time. In my head, L.A. Noire only came out 5 or 6 years ago.
@@angmering5899 Textures are really dated, but the animations still look really "human" I think. You really don't have this kind of "talking robot" feeling.
@@genroa3881 Actually you raise a good point; the footage in the video from Life is Strange (which is obviously far more recent) looks way more robotic than L.A. Noire (although I guess some of that is down to indie budgets vs AAA budgets).
It's the other way round for me. With Life is Strange, I can ignore the robotic look. The voice acting is carrying the weight there.
With L.A. Noir, I just get constantly pulled out, because the animations trigger a creepy uncanny valley feeling.
L.A. Noir does a great job of using a dialogue system linked to evidence you collect. I would like to see more games use this to create different scenarios to diffuse a situation or potentially create a dangerous situation from one that was calm
The reasons I love the werewolf quest in the Witcher games. You can either treat him like a typical monster fight, or tell him the truth about his sister in law's intentions, thus leading to an outcome of a passive ending to the hunt (I'm avoiding spoilers for switch fans who are holding out for it to come and haven't played it elsewhere yet) there's a few others like this in the game, and when you do come across them it's an interesting change compared to combat with every single monster you come across, reminding you that sometimes monsters are living beings too
Been awhile but Red Strings Club did a good job of this as far as I can remember. It was all about naturally setting the mood and leading the conversation to discover useful information which you'd then use to open up dialogue trees in other conversations or using the information to discover bonuses in the game world which would make conversations easier to navigate.
"If you ask me, it's a bit of a shame that the game just hands you this information."
but also
"Such in-depth emotional gameplay could prove inaccessible to those who have challenges with social skills [...] so accessibility options should be considered."
Isn't the deus ex thing kinda just an accessibility option that's been integrated into the story?
The Deus Ex thing isn't really an accessibility option and doesn't necessarily account for players on the spectrum as it still tests reading social cues and interactions. GMTK is maybe talking about something like a HUD element which explicitly tells a player what the implications of a character's facial expression or body language are but is left off by default for neurotypical players to suss out on their own.
@@Herptroid The Deus Ex System breaks characters down into 3 personalities (Alpha, Beta, Omega) and basically requires you to pick the type of choice that corresponds best to that personality type. It has nothing to do with social cues or anything its basically a type of social rock-paper-scissors.
As an aside, accessibility options are great for handicapped gamers, but a player without handicap might still want to enjoy to put their emotional skills to the test. And similar to how you can turn on options to make a game easier, it can be frustrating for players seeking a challenge that you can't turn off certain ease of use features.
@@motokuchoma As a person with a mild case of autism myself I'd rather play a game that can challenge and teach me about interacting with people than one where I am just given an easy mode. I would argue that Deus Ex's system isn't really an accessibility option, since it's actually part of the game and is given to everyone.
@@riomh It isn't an accessibility Options as the term suggests are optional after all. And while you may be capable of overcoming such a challenge, some people may merely be frustrated and defeated by this mechanic. You can't make a game fun for everyone, which is why I love games that let you change the rules and alter it to your liking.
The keyword here is OPTIONS
11:02 as far as i've seen you are the only person whos covered making this type of gameplay (on youtube at least) that has mentioned that. having autism myself, im frequently frustrated that it's left out of conversations about these kinds of things so thanks for bringing it up.
Haven't watched the video but SMT and Persona does this really well by incentivizing with items or new allies and it's based a lot on your recognition on how demons previously interacted with you and understanding of them and I love it
okay but some of the hold up questions are such bullshit
Midway through, great vid so far, just wanted to say it’s dope that you have captions dude
A lot of the time dialogue choices or binary ones are about making the choice itself interesting. Sometimes by obscuring outcome, as when you don't know a person well enough, or the choice becomes an affirmation that you do when you have that information. Other times it's making it a moral conundrum, such as whether a decision that benefits you more than them is really worth it or you should just deal with the alternative.
*Soft information*
My favourite is when dialogue just leads to *Soft information* where its value isn't immediately apparent, and it really tests your ability to pay attention.
It works best when there's also *soft interplay* between the game mechanics. Such as you're at a party to meet a diplomat to discuss something - that's your actual goal - but talking with people to find out a hallway is unguarded, use stealth to navigate it, combat to knock people out, get information from the environment, and talk your way out when you have that information, and because both the goal was different and the information casual, you have full ownership of that decision.
*soft logged information*
Another thing that's especially good, is if the game has a text-parsing engine, so you can type in conversational topics for extra obscure shit such as eavesdropping on some people using a code word - but to make sure you actually pay attention, you have to manually put it in as a topic. or something gets mentioned offhandedly, and you decide to press on THAT instead of whatever the game would normally serve as branching dialogue.
Basically, to me, it's about agency and having ownership of the decisions through making them subtle and perfectly missable.
*oblivion's dialogue pie minigame*
"Am I a joke to you?"
Not now, not later, not ever.
I immediately thought of this!
But it's not really fun though, is it? As soon as you know how it works, it's easy and there's no skill involved. I agree that it's better than what a lot of other games do (including Skyrim), but it's not a fun dialogue system.
I ask that question in school every day
Underrated comment xd
bumping this comment lol
cursed_comments
Dank memes
Makes me remember Skyrim's wabajack's quest where you can skip the wackiest parts of the quest if you pass a persuasion roll. The concept only really works in tabletop where the dm can weave some improvisation into it. In a rigidly scriptured story, it'd only work as intended if tge player was limited to a one and only hardcore playthrough: you die and you can never try again
Speech option is always my favourite option!
There was this old point n click game that I still remember vividly (but not the title) that used a silent protagonist where you controlled his facial expression by a wheel during conversation (angry, happy, sorry etc) and the net selection decided the next response from the npc. Always thought it had massive potential once silent protagonists became a big thing and the potential of multidimensional dialogue trees in current games. Would love someone to steal that idea and run with it (as long as they don't do exposition through fucking dialogue!)
The game was Greek myth themed. The golden fleece was a thing... Wracking my brain for its name.... Was pretty short so I'm guessing I had a freeware copy. That's how old it is and I still remember that mechanic!
Edit: someone please tell me the name of this game! I remember a piece of wire being an inventory object, and catching mice in a bucket... Then you could catch a rat, but if you also put it in the bucket... No more mice!..... And one of the dialogues was to be continually angry at a Scottish man til he gave you... whatever. Was sort of fmv if I recall.
Help me out of this misery?
I searched, and the only thing I could find that was greek-themed with FMVs was "Wrath of the gods." Too bad no one seems to have found the answer to your question.
I really like how the Deus Ex games do this. But I found that not using the augmentation was actually a much more enjoyable experience. That thing feels too artificial and also kind of confusing, as it feels like it's giving you red herrings. I had more success and found it a more interesting time just trying to analyse what characters said myself, and respond with what I thought they wanted to hear, rather than what the game told me.
I kinda laughed when he mentioned the outer worlds, it's basically just New Vegas' speech system
Signs of the Sojourner has a fun spin on social mechanics! You play as a traveling merchant going from town to town to pick up exotic goods to sell back in your hometown. You converse with vendors by playing a card matching game, where you try to match the shape of the vendor's card with one of your own to represent the flow of conversation. A full stack of matching cards means another step towards a purchase, while failing to match means the vendor is less inclined to sell.
As you travel further from your hometown the shapes become unfamiliar and you have to stack your deck with new shapes so you can chat better with distant vendors, but it also makes it more difficult to talk with folk back at home.
Also you have a pet dog. And the dog is the best dog because dog shapes match with every shape.
This topic is actually something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I’ve always wanted social interaction to ge as deep and meaningful as combat in games.
Just read the Title and i already have to say THANK YOU for talking about this!
The Council is a dialogue and puzzle based game that makes dialogue feel like "combat". You have to find out information for yourself about the characters in order to the game to give you more information, and I personally enjoyed the dialogues. They also will feel like puzzle sometimes, according to the clues you get, but always taking in account the personality of your "opponent".
This is a great topic! When I encountered that scene in Life Is Strange, I thought it was a really clever way to encourage you to care about the world and all the little details that add up within it. However, it also made the following episodes much more plodding, as I felt I had to check every single tiny irrelevent detail in case the game tried to pull the same trick again. It's a great way of implementing other gameplay aspects into the dialogue options, but that also means that the player will always associate that mechanic with their potential future choices. That's where I think Life Is Strange failed to deliver, as inspecting the objects in the environment for the remaining three episodes gives you very little substance for the time it takes to do so.
apart from repeating that type of moment in other places, expanding and complexifying the concept, another way to develop the mechanic long term in a "choose your playstyle" RPG could be to have the information come to you more as you show that you are willing to observe. Be it via enhancement that make relevant clues pop up, or social relationship that lead other characters to trust you with helpful information they would not give you otherwise.
Sort of a more active take on the charisma score.
The only way to save her is to make Max a nosy character who rumages through her peers' private belongings. The game rarely acknowledges this whilst still pushing the narrative of Max being a strongly moral person; she never comes across self aware enough for the player choices to have extra depth. Maybe with a better writing staff this could have been an interesting perspective- since Max is only a teen, but the developers seem to shy away from any negative traits tossed in the protagonists' way.
So after saving, or failing to save a girl's life, you develop a tendency to pay too much attention to meaningless things in case it comes up again. Kinda like you were traumatized or something.
@@shyko95 The game is framed as a mystery so it makes sense to inhabit such a character.
I think the writing is really good as it is, but it would indeed be fun if other games in the genre at times call out the character as a nosy creep...
you could imagine a whole game where the karma meter is how much you invade over people's personal life.
For instance a Detective game where a perceptive player would be able to solve the mystery with the client's demand and newspaper clippings, but another could get more tangible informations though callous interrogation techniques, break-ins, hacking, etc...
Even have dialogue options where you let slip up information you shouldn't have , and thus clue others about your dubious methods.
@@maximeteppe7627 I agree with your last paragraph, slipping up information you shouldn't have would be good in these types of games, and for a story like Life Is Strange teenage paranoia would be an interesting theme to delve into, but the story ended up very one dimensional and bland.
A big problem you've neglected to mention is that the external manifestations of inner emotions or motivations are IMMENSELY difficult to simulate in a way that provides a reliable, broadly relatable framework for rewarding gameplay. At best, you're mostly left to try and figure out what the CREATOR was thinking, not what the character you're interacting with is thinking. This happens all the time in all kinds of games, where immersion is broken as we, the players, attempt to try and hack the brain of the game maker, having recognized that the in-world interactions are merely crude puppeteering. In exactly the same way as accessibility by those who suffer social disorders is a factor, so too is the very unique social skillset and perspective of the creator, as well as that creator's ability to express that skillset authentically, consistently and in a way that's accessible broadly enough to facilitate satisfying, logical game results. LA Noire is something of a good example of a failure of this, the facial telegraphing of "deceptive" or "honest" postures often being exaggerated to an absurd degree just to make sure everyone has a pretty good chance of catching them. Once again, you're being thrust into the awareness that you're dealing with cartoonishly-performed digital marionettes, not real people who are externalizing real emotions that take social skill or true human insight to perceive.
All video games are "puppeteering". All video games feature "digital marionettes". We can't put real people (or real AIs) in games because that would be slavery. The question then is how close can we get, and how easily can you recognize it.
You don't describe these games as just puppeteering, but as *crude* puppeteering. They're not just marionettes, but *exaggerated cartoonishly-performed* marionettes. This tells me you're unusually keen on the differences between social interactions in a game and interactions in real life. You might even feel like these games trigger your uncanny valley reflex.
I think these games can be amazing if they have the right technology and are executed well. I'm not constantly ripped out of the immersion and forced to ponder what the developers were thinking. Maybe I'm just less sensitive to those differences.
damn my dude, no mention of Shin Megami Tensei series (& Persona) at all? those had some pretty complex negotiation and talking mechanics already in the mid 90's. hell, they even inspired Undertale, which you did mention!
He may not have mentioned it, but one of those games did have footage come up in the video. (i honestly couldn't tell you which one, as I'm not a huge fan familiar with the series but it's pretty obvious when you see a bit with its style plastered on it)
Persona's social mehanics are really more about multiple choice checks, level gates, and filling progress bars. Minus the enemy negotiation mechanics, they don't really offer alternatives so much as take place in (literally) different realms from the combat realm. It slides pretty well into the broader umbrellas already present in the video, imo, with the added handicap of not (often) offering an alternative to combat, since they act more in sequence than in parallel.
This is why I love Katana Zero. That game is a slashy, bloody ballet of bullets and swords, but it also has a truly innovative dialogue system where you can interrupt people, have timed options in conversations, and there’s even a secret boss fight that happens if you specifically go out of your way to piss off a particular character as much as possible. I realize that’s kind of straying from the point of this video, but I just wanted to talk about how good Katana Zero is.
"You fight like a dairy farmer. "
I think that it is wise to say that talking your way out of problems presents an issue that combat doesn't have and it is really hard to dodge. It is the fact that battle can act as loops, a final boss can be faced several times by the player every time they die and wouldn't feel bored, or at least not as much as if they were talking to a person with the same dialogue each time.
An intelligent solution to this problem might be making the dialogue paths a one-chance option, this mean that once the player has talked to his enemy, there's no way to go back. What happens if they don't defeat it? Well, this can be also prevented by making conversation levels with more than just, win-or-no-win endings.
Kate's depression subplot is by far the best part of Life is Strange.
One game that made dialogue choices really interesting for me was The Red Strings Club. You pour drinks for clients at your club to get them in the right emotional state to ask various questions. Choosing the wrong questions, info, or drinks, could lead to missing information or even missing key characters.
Also thanks for pointing that ASD gamers might have a hard time at body language out, 'cause like, that's a challenge for me
What do you think about the possibility of using these games as a tool for social training. It could show people from other countries, for instance, what cues to look for to see when someone is flirting, lying, etc.
That's a challenge for me too. I can definitely confirm that LA Noir was nearly impossible for me to play without actively studying the nuances of body language elsewhere. Kinda funny how autism affected my experience with games like this.
Funkopedia I'm pretty sure some games already do that, and I think it's an interesting possibility, there just needs to be like accessibility for when you can't figure it out. The problem, of course is how dya do that, because like "body language subtitles" just spoils the solution
Interesting. I'm not educated enough in matters like this so I'd like to know your experience in a bit more detail if you can provide it.
Yeah, I have Autism too, though I'm not always sure that has the outcome most people expect.
And some of that wouldn't be reflected in a game anyway.
Sometimes I get the feeling my problems in social situations stem as much from the fact that my body language, instinctive reactions and responses to being asked questions are... Odd.
So ironically because my behaviour is inconsistent, other people misread my state of mind almost as much as I might be misreading theirs.
In terms of special topics for 'social' based gameplay, Autism and the issues that go with it are an interesting one to deal with.
But in terms of accessibility...
Yeah, how do you give someone enough clues to read a character when they don't have a natural sense for it without completely spoiling things?
Reminds me that I sometimes think that RPG's often misuse the concept of skill points in a way that undermines the player somewhat.
Like, instead of a hard wall, make skill points a softer wall;
So that say, a highly skilled player can win even with a low level 'weak' character, while a less skilled player can compensate by leveling up their character more.
This would also work as an accessibility feature in theory, since you could 'grind' your way out of trouble if you can't figure it out yourself.
But as with most things, any hints and the like intended to help certain groups of people ideally need to be matters of degrees.
I for instance don't think I need explicit hints to deal with very obvious body language, but more subtle expressions might pass me by...
But others might struggle with things that are still largely quite obvious to me...
Because not everyone is the same - even if you have a similar diagnosis of a condition like autism.
After all, that's true in general. Saying someone has problems with motor skills is vague too.
Do you mean someone's a bit clumsy? Or, are we talking Stephen Hawking levels of physical incapacity?
Because the accommodations required for one end of such a spectrum would be quite different to those required at the other end... (If someone with such an extreme condition could ever really play anything of course.)
I have a family member with significant Aspergers, and I remember that when L.A. Noire came out - therapists and autism study centers used the game to make recognizing social skills into a gamification mechanism for some people who are fixated on video games. I feel like I remember it was helpful in the studies... and it was really engaging to participate in that on a personal level.
I think discounting the accessibility of facial and social cues can be a dangerous way to think of it. I have friends who love games but find FPS games completely inaccessible because of the dual movement. Some of them found it a challenge to overcome, while others felt intimidated. But for those willing to see the bridge that needs to be crossed, and make it to the other side... this is one instance that can actually improve daily life for some people instead of just being accessible escapism.
Game Maker’s Toolkit: shows Joker and Futaba as example of first date
Me: I see you’re a fellow man of culture
2.01 This example in Fallout New Vegas does show how dialogue options can be uninteresting (having it signposted so you know what level your skills need to be at, having only one other alternative, etc), but it also ignores other scenarios in New Vegas where there a range of options or moral dilemmas. It also ignores how other games of its genre handle dialogue. In the original Fallout games, for example, dialogue wasn't signposted, so you didn't know which option would be correct so you often had to make your own judgements. You could find out specific information in order to gain access to options such as during the first game's finale where the player confronts the Master and can convince him to kill himself due to something they learned earlier in the game, and these choices can be interesting if they aren't done in every scenario in a game. Another interesting aspect of old Fallout was how your skills affected your character. If your character has low intelligence, then they can only communicate via grunts and hence this allows the player to skip through dialogue as well as get involved in many comedic situations such as a dialogue with a super mutant henchman. If you had low charisma in Fallout 2, then you wouldn't be able to recruit any companions and most NPCs would regard your character as ugly. Skills affecting how characters react to you as well as your play style is why these games were so beloved. Dialogue choices reliant on your skill level aren't necessarily bad, especially in games such as Torment: Tides Of Numenera where there are permanent consequences for failure. The method of doing dialogue in games that you mentioned in your video is viable, but you straw man skill based dialogue systems without giving examples of ones that are done well.
Great video, thanks!
This reminded me of the hostage situation in DX:HR where I took an interesting approach, where I didn't convinced the guy to free the hostage still was able to shoot him with a tranquilizer gun in a split-second after confronting him, so the hostage was saved and he was sent to the prison and I could talk to him later. That was amazing, like a third hidden option, better than saving the hostage but being blamed for letting him go or killing or knocking out him but the hostage dying in the process. Best of both worlds, I felt like a hero, haha.
For me, the biggest limiting factor to how social/conversational gameplay is often handled in games is that it's typically too "rigid." There just aren't very many (if any) variables that contribute to the setup and outcome of a social encounter in Deus Ex, Life is Strange, etc... You generally approach every social interaction with the same mechanical tools as any other player (you may have different knowledge than another player would, as in your Life is Strange example, but the actual data that governs the game-state and what you can do in it won't be any different). And you're generally going to arrive at one of a very small pool of heavily pre-scripted outcomes (the hostage dies or they don't. Your friend jumps off the building or they don't. There's usually little-to-no variation within these outcomes). Contrast this against a combat encounter in Fallout, where there is more room for variations in setup (the gear, stats, perks, and companions a player enters combat with will dramatically change the moment-to-moment options they have) and a more broad "spectrum of outcomes" (Maybe you walk away from the battle unharmed, or run out of ammo halfway through and finish the job w/ a melee weapon, maybe you have to use a consumable item you've been saving for hours, or you sustain an injury, or end up with barely enough resources to return to town, etc...). This typically leads to dialogue-tree gameplay ultimately being quite mechanically shallow. They can't be "repeated" in the same way that a more mechanically-rich challenge can be (like a shootout in Fallout, or the more open-ended card-driven conversations of Griftlands).
I think it's interesting that all of your examples in this video focus on single-player video games. I would say that trying to give players a "social challenge" of reading facial cues, making diplomatic negotiations, etc... is probably better left to multiplayer games, where you can interact with another *actual human* (instead of a crude digital simulation of one). Board games, in particular, are *fantastic* at providing the kinds of social/emotional challenges you call for. Games like Bohnanza and Catan cleverly push players into negotiating useful trade deals with each other. Games like Avalon and Sheriff of Nottingham push players to pick liars out of the crowd. And all of these games have the benefit of being repeatable because of the mechanical variety that surrounds their social interactions
in fallout: New Vegas :spoilers: there is a quest where you have to interrogate a legion prisoner, and you have 3 ways of going about it. 1, beat him into submission, by far the most boring. 2, use charisma to persuade him to tell you, but what makes this different than all of the other “press 1 button to win” speech checks is that there are multiple branching paths, that, instead of having a number showing if you’ll succeed or not next to them, just have a question mark, and you have to actually make an argument, instead of just choosing the skill check. the outcome actually depends on your speech skill, AND weather or not you chose the right answers. 3 you do the same thing as speech but with intelligence, leading to different arguments and tricks, and a different outcome, albeit the same info. however choosing the charisma/intelligence options gives you more info than simply beating it out of him. and there are multiple endings to each of the intelligence and charisma routs. definitely noteworthy and its a shame he didn’t mention it in the video. also a shame fallout new vegas didn’t utilize that system more, as it was very engaging.
This is my exact problem with the outer worlds. Playing speech heavy character just makes you not play the game.
Vampire: the Masquerade 5th edition has actual rules for social combat, where you take willpower damage.
Combine this with powers like the presence discipline (influences emotions), dementation (inflicts continuous aggravated willpower damage to the target), and the shadowcast power (extend your shadow, mainly for use with other powers, but people standing on the shadow will take aggravated willpower damage).
There's also a clever willpower economy, since you can take willpower damage to reroll skill checks, and regain about half every sessions. But every character also has an ambition (a long term goal) and a desire (an immediate, short term goal), where actively pursuing these goals will let you regain willpower.
Further, you have convictions and touchstones (strong ideals, and the people they're related to). Shooting yourself in the foot to defend these also regains willpower, and doing evil things (which normally incurs stains, which can reduce humanity) in the defence of your convictions and touchstones may be mitigated.
These rules create a complex game where talking is as interesting as combat (combat is fun, but rarely a good idea, and non-dedicated combatants will rarely get great stuff done with violence), and you have an interplay between your willpower, your humanity, and also the hunger bar, which powers most abilities, but it running empty risks losing control of yourself, often in violent ways.
Then again, a tabletop is easier to design for social 'combat' since you don't have to include written dialogue and voice acting, only the mechanics.
Just going to say... there are games, and days, when i'd love a "skip the gameplay and get on with the story" option.
I know this video was made a year and a half ago but I just had a brilliant idea regarding this topic.
In games like Metro, bullets are scarce, so you have to constantly play with your magazine in mind. You're always running out of ammo.
If an RPG had ammo scarcity like in Metro, then players would be insentivized to talk their way out rather than shoot, because that's the most resource-efficient option.
Idk if anyone will see this, but I’m currently making a game solo and I have an idea for an interesting way to handle dialogue like this. I won’t go into detail about the setting or story, but basically it’s an RPG where rather than combat skills, you gain unique “social skills” depending on how you solve quests. For example, if you decide to help a certain asshole rather than turn him in for money, he will teach you the “Listen, Bitch...” skill. And during certain dialogue you can use it to help progress certain quests. But it won’t always work, depending on the situation. (such as person you are interrogating and is already afraid of you vs. A nice old lady who decides if you can enter a restricted building). So you have to use your judgment to choose the right dialogue options from your available skills you’ve gained from how you previously solved quests.
It has required a lot of writing but that’s what I like to do anyway, and is the meat of the gameplay. I’ve been concerned if players would like this type of thing but Disco Elysium has really given me hope. Just curious if something like this seems interesting to people.
The lack of compelling non combat mechanics is also a common problem in pen and paper RPGs, hence some more modern solutions can be reconsidered (cards, social combat mentioned in the video, etc'...) . The suggestion to use abstract mini games opens up interesting possibilities. Moreover, expensive motion capture is ultimately unnecessary. Consider the system used in gyakuten kenji 2.
Wonderful insight!
Then perhaps we might see new details afterwards such as NPCs waiting too long for an answer and actually reacting to how long they're waiting - rather than them just standing idly until you choose your next dialogue.
How about Danganronpa, and the visual novel genre in general? I think some of these games, and especially Danganronpa, really showcase how you can make a game about discussions really, really engaging.
*Discussion **-HEAT UP-** blares*
"The murdered musta used some old knife!"
BREAK
"No, that's wrong!"
*V CONSENT*
@@WickedKnightAlbel
_Allow me to cut through those words!_
If mark made a video about DGRP, it would truly become a stepping stone for hope.
not to shit on Danganronpa but trials are like almost 100% minigames... but yes i enjoyed it a lot it was the most fun part :)
@@Toto-95 it's more like 10-20% minigames! Especially in the third game where you get 5 or 6 5min minigames out of a 4-5 hours long trial!
A linear directed conversation where you don't get dialog options, but you get button and thumstick prompts that essencially have you puppeteering your character's speech rhythm and inflection (speed and pitch) to make shit angry or genuine, sincere or sarcastic
in a good RPG like divinity original sin talking is more fun than fighting
This isn't strictly about the video footage but I do want to say props for the automatic video thumbnail. Using the three seconds to show something meaningful like content warnings is a fantastic idea. I haven't seen many videos take advantage of those three seconds, but you do seem to think ahead. I rarely comment but keep up these fantastic videos.
Genius, honestly if configured effectively, it could completely change how social gaming is done between NPCs. The videos was creative, original, organized, and very helpful.
I've played Detroit Become Human and i loved the dialogue trees in that game. I got a really good ending in my eyes. I'm hoping that Death Stranding has some of the things you discussed in this video cause the themes of that game are sticks and ropes. Sticks would be guns bombs punches kick swords and etc. But the ropes i think would be talking communication as well as bridges rivers walking running away and vehicles you know things we use to connect us as people. I really hope there can be more profound methods of this type of gameplay.
If we're talking of accessibility options when it comes to dialogue segments, can we also touch on the fact that language-learners have difficulty with certain scripts where they can't modulate the pace of the dialogue or time-sensitive choices because they read more slowly?
Another option that would mix the character's statistics and the player's actual skill would be to give each dialogue choice a given "score", and multiply this score by the player's charisma statistics. Let's say each dialogue choice adds to a score meter which determines the end result of the dialogue.
So, if the player has not put any point in charisma, they can still win the dialogue by dtermining the best options, just like they can win a fight even with the basic strength stat. But if they put some points in charisma, their good choices will count more, and their wrong choices will count less, making social victory easier to achieve.
Hold up a minute?
Someone has been watching @grilfriendreviews a lot haven't they :D
Klei Entertainment, the company behind "Dont Starve" is working on Griftlander a game inspired by "Slay the Spire" where you have two versions of Slay the Spire combat, either Slay the Spire, or "Talk the Spire Down or get a better deal". This is probably one of my favorite interpretations of social combat because it has game play mechanics to it.
5:52
Screen: _Content warning: Suicide_
Mark: *_"WOULDN'T IT BE MORE FUN-"_*
I want a game that promises that you can talk your way out of litterally any fight BUT it's guarenteed impossible to do it for every fight in one playthrough. Cause that offers a replayability that a lot of the games named in this episode are lacking.
I'm actually surprised it took you so long to make a video on this topic. Building fun and interesting speech mechanics to me is the most obvious direction gaming should take
11:00 It could also be a way of learning social skills for people in the spectrum.
One thing I always find difficult with games where knowing a specific thing about a character gives you dialogue clues is remembering all the random things I've discovered about the character. In a social interaction game having them as cards you can play would be really handy, maybe with the mechanics relying on you bringing them up at the right time?