There are many things I like about Fallout 4, the environments are great and interesting, the followers feel more alive, interacting and responsive then before (even though it svcks they can't die) and the general feel of combat is improved etc.

But I just can't get why they did this with the dialogue, both when it comes to having the voice and the limit in what you can say. Why ape after other games like Mass Effect and the Witcher instead of doing their own thing and being unique. I have always feelt like Bethesdas games where something unique that you could not really get anywhere else, why try to destroy that. It is almost as bad as if they had scrapped the ability to interact with all the clutter in the world, something else that is very unique to the Bethesda games.

I only hope by the user scores on metacritic that they will understand their error and not repeat this for the next game or even (the horror) implement this in the ES series as well..

I think this video from Fallout 2 shows much what has been lost when it comes to dialogue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PqMe7fydq4

That's incorrect as in "Fallout 4" there are conversation options that are affected by your stats and perks.

This is shown for "Fallout 3" where the dialogue is taken from later in the game.

It is not shown for "Fallout 4" where it occurs later in the game.

Which makes it look like a sour example from a disgruntled fan who is upset they didn't get "Fallout 3.5".

Please cite even one instance where this happens not due to CHAR. Perhaps Science or INT. Thanks.

No, you and I don't really differ in terms of how we accept parts of the game. For me, it's the difference between RNG controlling my character's life versus my character's actual choices. Oh, the answer is explosives? I didn't build my character out to know a single thing about explosives. I won't get to see that wing of the discussion, nor should I.

RNG? I won't be able to see a wing of conversation because I lost a dice roll? It's lazy design no matter how you slice it.

Whenever a developer, instead of implementing a thoughtful and interesting solution to a problem (in this case, how do we handle dialogue), just throws in "My First Casino" from their qbasic class in high school, there's a huge issue. RNG is never a good solution to a complex problem. There are places where RNG is appropriate, of course. As a substitute for rich and interesting dialogue options because they wanted to put the least effort into development they could?

Uh... I guess this is the new normal. Maybe I'd have a different opinion if I were a millenial, but I come from a time when all of us worked on these things for the love of machine, and programming, and most of all... games. It's not a labor of love anymore. Slap on an RNG and call it a day, I guess.

I don't know what conversations you are having in your life that are THIS level of random, but if you aren't just exaggerating then my heart goes out to you. No conversation I've ever had was an RNG crapshoot, especially when I had a skill in the particular subject we were discussing. Besides that, in previous games there absolutely was a chance of failure. There was a huge chance you just didn't have the skill for that wing of the conversation. Sometimes there was another way around it, sometimes there wasn't, but it always felt like every conversation was well thought out and designed. They really cared about the player's experience. Now it doesn't really feel like they care about our experience at all. If it's not a story on rails where you're forced into the concerned father\mother role with absolutely no way to deviate from it, it's a completely random chance at advancing a conversation wing. It's lazy writing and terrible storytelling.

Of course it's an improvement, and so is the new vats system! It would just be a spoiler to tell!

I disagree. (Is vehemently too harsh a word?)

The alternative is the infallible PC that gets their way every time. The point of RNG systems is impartiality, and to indicate situational probability. It can simulate the PC pestering an NPC on a day when they can tolerate it, or on a day when they are not in the mood to talk, and readily lose their temper. It can also indicate that the PC makes a mistake in their intended action; or doesn't, and get's blindsided by the NPC's (unanticipated) reaction. RNG systems are almost never pure RNG, they are usually weighted systems that allow for the PC confidence and experience to influence the outcome. In practice this usually means that the novice fails a lot, and the expert rarely fails; but that the expert is not perfect, and that in some situations, the novice can even succeed by accident. (I am reminded of a time when I was six years old, and I unlocked a combination padlock by randomly spinning the dial. I was too short to even see the numbers overhead, but I could reach it.) With the alternatives like the threshold skills in FO3 (like Lockpicking), the PC cannot even attempt what they are not already assured to succeed at.

Voice PC notwithstanding, how could the constant options of 1) Yes, 2) No, 3) Maybe/Info and 4) Sarcastic ever come close to the unlimited options in prior games? What a joke poll.

I don't mind things being simplified if simplified is also better, but that certainly isn't the case here. And I can never figure out what Sarcastic is going to do, does it piss the NPC's I'm talking to off? Does it just make a joke? How the hell can we know? What really trips my trigger is that most the dialog choices end up giving me the exact same NPC response, so how I got to that response becomes completely irrelevant.

The poll wasn't "hey guys, the new dialogue system is so much better, don't you agree?".

I created a balanced equable poll to see what the forum thinks of this dialogue system, and it's seemingly opposed to it.

I've personally disparaged it since the E3 demo, but I wanted to see to what extent other members agreed.

Not really. The alternative in the other games was that you didn't get to attempt that wing of conversation if you didn't build out the necessary skill. With the new system we don't even get to build our characters out. You might believe it adds a bit of realism to conversations (which I still disagree with), but in the end, they cut out a lot of player customization and replaced it with RNG. We can no longer customize our characters in meaningful ways. I have unused points sitting around because there's literally nothing left I'm remotely interested in or actually need in the perks chart. I took enough to get myself the sniper perk, local leader, carry weight and maybe a few others, but with the companions system I don't even have to worry about lockpicking or hacking anymore. There's lazy ways around literally everything that we used to have to carefully craft our characters to be able to do. It extends far beyond the dialogue system, but the dialogue system is the most obvious (and egregious) side effect of the lazy design.

Except, that you are locked out forever after that happens which doesn't exactly mirror reality, either. You can go back the next day to someone when they might be in a better mood and get a different response. That's why the real life arguments always fall flat. Real life is dynamic. A video game is necessarily static, so systems need to make good sense.

Besides that, who plays a game like Fallout hoping that it's exactly like real life? Isn't the point to kind of escape real life and craft our characters to be super badass wasteland heroes?

Well you have some pretty good dialogues in FO3 already in the vault.

Yes I have had some good dialogues in Fallout 4, Kait was my favorite, they was still handicapped by some of the 4 options are so unclear I will not select them.

Still that was emotional stuff, if someone ask you to do an dangerous quest you want to get an info dump about this, not two sentences like you do in FO4

I believe that you have misunderstood my posts; and I am positive that I have misunderstood yours to some degree.
(Is it your belief that I am in favor of the FO4 system?)

*(I have not played the game BTW.)

**However, I do actually agree with cutting the player out if they have not built up the relevant PC for accessing that content.

You do not have lots of choices, and your charisma barely effects anything substantially. An exmaple is The Forged quest when you are trying to convince the kid to either chop the guys head off or not. You are given four or five options. Two of them are CHA checks. If your CHA is high enough you can choose to convince the kid to kill or not, but if your CHA is low, you still have two other vanilla options that achieve the exact same thing. They allow any player no matter to acheive the same outcome. Not so in prior FO games. If you lack a certain skill or stat in FO3 or NV, there are times you CANNOT achieve your personal desired outcome and must live with the consequences.

It is very possible to assess in five minutes if you know what to look for.

This is the de facto bogus excuse/accusation given anytime the issues are not understood. And it's always a situation similar to when a 'finish carpenter' refuses a nailgun as unsuitable to sink his nails.

I enjoy Fallout 4 very much, with more than 30 hours into it.

Simplifying the dialogue system in such a crippling way seems like one of the biggest flaws, it really undermines the dialogue experience and is often frustrating.

An option to see the whole text even as a hint (although big part of the experience is actually being able to read all the options) would be a considerable improvement.

So I'm not the only one who plays games as they were intended? Damn

I hate when people savewoor and then complain that it ruins some mechanic.

That is no true dude. really not true. U cant judge something this big on a 2hs of play. bc u didnt like something doesnt mean is bad.

Plus is true everyone fear change.

Only way u ever going to experience and stop caring about it if u play a game that been going for 10 years. I play WoW for that long u can imagine how much that game have change in each expansion and patch, after the first 3 year of complains u just star dealing with the change, and keep live and playing with it.

If there is one reason that will likely make me NOT buy Fallout 4, it's the damn dialogue system where I don't have the slightest idea what my character would say. How difficult would have been putting entire sentences in there? Besides, it kills any immersion. Damnit.

P.S. I am a Skyrim player, never played Fallout 3.

im sorry every think the wheel said is what ur character will say. Adding everything have 0 poin when u will hear him said it 1 sec later.

I don't think your english is good enough to understand my point.

Can you prove either?

Ask yourself this: Can one assess that 'Need for Speed' is not a good shooter ~in just five minutes, or do they need to play it for days?

Not everyone fears change, and not every change is a positive one. Some people are just frustrated that a thing has changed into to being useless for their intended use.
(Like a person in need of a hammer, and only being offered "http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/hammer_evolution_zpsvgphzn45.jpg" that have lenses.)

As someone else has asked, where exactly are these conversation options that are affected by your stats and the perks you have? With the amount of time I've played, I have not seen any special options in dialogue associated with anything that wasn't the ones that require high Charisma to pull off. Charisma is seemingly the only stat that has any special affect on dialogue. The only exception I can think of being the obvious Lady Killer which has always been a perk known for its direct effects in dialogue, what little of it there is.

What is missing (as far as I'm concerned with my experience) are the other stats that used to have their own special dialogue options. You can't intimate someone with a dialogue option affected by your Strength. There aren't any short cuts that you can use to your advantage in quest that involve high Intelligence or Perception, or a specific perk like Robotics Expert. It's all just Charisma based and the rare Lady Killer dialogue. I'm glad Charisma is finally getting some use but it shouldn't be negating everything else that can have an affect on dialogue.

To my understanding, someone has been saying that intimidation/threatening options are affected by the strength attribute. One user here was saying that his strength 10 / charisma 2 character had a yellow dialogue option for threat, whereas his high charisma/low strength character had a red dialogue option. Whether this is true or not, it's terrible to hide this kind of information from the player.

I'm really sorry to see there are this many folks who are having such a strong negative reaction to the new dialogue system. I disagree on virtually every point I've read above arguing it is "worse." It is ultimately a matter of personal taste, but I do have one suggestion for those who are disliking it:

stop expecting it to be like some other game, stop wishing it were some other game, and stop judging it based on other games. Just play it, just go with the flow and role play your character. In sum, try not being so nitpicky right from the start, that you fail to see the strengths and benefits of the new system and instead focus inordinately on its shortcomings.

Of course it has shortcomings. Everything in a computer game has shortcomings. There is no such thing as "perfect" when it comes to such things.

But I think that this dialogue system serves the overall game "purpose" far better than older systems served those older FO games. I find the dialogues to be some of the most immersive, enjoyable and "addictive promoting" aspects of this game. I wish I could help all of you who are disliking to enjoy it the way I am because, other than a bit of additional content, I think this system is orders of magnitude better than any other I've ever played in any other game.

This is peculiar because I do generally tend to be an overcritical, nitipicky "Grog" player. I just went with it, let it take me where it was intended to take me and I love it.

I did it is just not a very good system.And it has no strenghts.I'm angry that they ditched a better system for a "guess what you say" system that doesn't even allow you to backtrack your choices.

See you can like it but don't expect other players do have so low standards.

How?Really why is that for you?It's not more immersive to not know what /s/he says.It's not more enyoyable to not know what s/he says.And I can't see how it is more addictive...

"Guess what you say?" how is that even pertinent? How would having the lines your character is going to deliver show up when you highlight the choice be better than an older system where your character doesn't deliver any lines at all?

I think people are confused by this system. It is effectively no different than past systems, except perhaps that choices are fewer in any given 'step' in an NPC dialogue and the text that is displayed is much more abridged. The end effect is the same: you cannot say "whatever you want" you are forced to choose between a small number of options for any given interaction. Those options generally seem to amount to (starting from top and proceeding clockwise):

1. INTERROGATION: Give me more information else (occasionally) negotiate. In non-confrontational interactions this tends to open additional NPC dialogue and potentially more dialogue scenes

2. REFUSAL if not DEROGATION if not THREATEN: No, I taunt you a second time. The answer is no!

3. AFFIRMATION, if not FRIENDLY EXCHANGE and in some cases DISCLOSE INFORMATION: Barter, Yes! I'd love to help, sometimes other slightly different options that are neither interrogative, nor refusal

4. NEGOTIATE/BLUFF/"MAYBE"/LIE: The "wild card" slot, which varies a great deal:

A. with merchants it is "Maybe" I presume that giving a merchant this choice and then coming back at a later time/date (perhaps have to make them wait a while) will somehow impact bartering rates

B. In negotiations or "tense" interactions which could result in violence, this choice is used to "bluff" or bargain for better terms.

Other than those four basic choices (and with slight variants in each slot depending on specific interactions) what over choices would people want?

The above structure may not apply to all interactions and it may not be quite right (I haven't played enough to know) but that is what it seems like to me.

I do not see any real substantive difference between the fundamental decision-structure the player faces with the above dialogue system and the older ones. The only difference seems to be in how much of the specifics of the player character lines are shown prior to making the choice and the fact that the newer system is much more immersive. If the actual lines that player characters deliver with each choice were displayed in a popup it would IMHO, add very little to the game, create an annoying blob of text on the screen, and in some cases take away the dramatic effects of the dialogue interactions.

I say this because: I have always found that the choices presented to me in the four point dialogue radial are sufficient for me to know in general if not in specific what my player is going to say. Moreover, because I am a roleplay gamer, I have a strong hunch in most instances of what the possible consequences of the lines are going to be in game terms. It doesn't matter one bit to me if when I choose: "Sarcastic" my PC says: "Ha, you really are a knot head aren't you?" versus "Riiight, I'm gonna go attack a SuperMutant fort to steal back your mother's lucky dish towel . . ." versus "You know, I think you've been taking to many of those chems, cause what you are expecting me to do is insane."

If you choose "Sarcastic" then your PC is going to say _something_ sarcastic! You do not know (for sure) what impact this will have on the game, and you should not know.

If anyone has encountered an instance in which they made a dialogue choice and then found the actual delivered lines were in opposition to the label or description for the choice, then it is not so much a complaint with this "system" of dialogue interactions as it is a complaint that some of the dialogues are badly written or do not correspond with the "choice" they represent and the way that choice is played through the animated lines.

Again, I'll repeat a point I made above: if my intuition is correct, this new system with PC voice, is going to be revolutionary for modding. Alternate dialogue options could certainly be modded into older versions of the game, and one could even have replaced NPCs voice files with alternate voices (I suppose). In this new system, it should be possible to change EVERYTHING!

Once people have taken it apart and parsed all of the PC lines that exist in the game, it should be possible (I hope) for any one of us to create our OWN voice files for our PCs. Want to play a PC that has YOUR voice, and within the restrictions of the existing choices, says whatever you want? That should be possible. I am guessing it will be possible to go a step further, and create a PC with whatever voice you want (or can manage to make) AND restructure the entire dialogue system so that it either has more choices or different choices in any given interaction (although doing that will be more advanced modding operation I'd think).