Sorry but too many times I've selected 'Sarcastic' to be quickly followed by me saying WTF for this to be true. At least three times now I've had to reload areas to replay the dialog due to the conversation not going where I wanted it to. My guy saying the exact opposite at times of what you think they would say.

My whole process for entering dialog is becoming a VERY OLD routine already. Save Game. Dress like a freaking clown for CHR bonus. Enter dialog. Play guessing game. Reload.

The ol' Bethesda magic clothing routine. Smdh.

http://www.nexusmods...t4/mods/1235/??/a>

Ah-ha. So now we can all see for ourselves how lackluster the dialog really is! Great news!

Well I have not encountered any such discrepancies. Given it is a new system, and it is a brand new game, there may well be discrepancies.

My point though is: 1. Discrepancies between the apparent meaning of a choice and the actual lines delivered (and their consequences) is not a basis to criticize the entire system. There could be numerous explanations for such an apparent discrepancy: a. there are errors in the scripts; b. the player did not understand what "sarcastic" was given to mean in a given interaction; c. other.

2. The benefits of this new system far outweigh any of the costs. But then that is just my opinion, and I'm not a griper.

ADDIT: I have to add, I'm not sure everyone is clear on the dictionary definition of "sarcastic." Sarcasm is not the same thing as "humor," rather it is more like "making fun of someone" or as the definition specifically states "mocking" them.

Sarcasm is fun, I love it and use it a lot. In the real world, being sarcastic to someone is unlikely to lead to them blowing your head off with a sawed off shotgun . . . unless of course it is a criminal sticking up a convenience store while you are there!

Being sarcastic with heavily armed, near-savages in a harsh and lawless post-apocalyptic wasteland very well SHOULD BE unpredictable and risky!

I submit to you that, you simply did not consider what sarcasm would mean in a context such as many of those in the game.

Yeah, this one will definitely go to the "fixes" section of my eventual Bash Installers list

And my before release prediction was correct, the first mod i installed was a UI fix mod

In dialogs they've gone a long way from keywords in Morowind to pre-defined answers in Oblivion to classic but simple dialogs in F3 to classic and good dialogs in FNV (and Skyrim) and back to pre-defined answers in F4. Good boy!

I think the dialogue system in FO4 is one of the biggest things where this game took a huge step backwards.

Imagine if the FO4 dialog system was in FO3 and you just walked into craterside supply. It just wouldn't work. Moira is a vendor, she has oodles of expository dialogue, gives you a whole quest line you can complete in multiple different orders, and on top of that she has a lot of dialogue about herself, and why she wants to write the guide, and a heap of stat and skill checks built into her dialogue. Basically none of that would work in FO4. You'd come in and she'd be all "How are those hot little potatoes?!" and you'd be all "Yes" "No" "Sarcastic" "Potatoes?!" and have no option to tell her that you really just want to buy a theme for your house.

This exact limitation of the FO4 dialogue system does hit you while you're playing all the time. For example, I did some favors for a Brotherhood of Steel member who offered me to join his organization, I told him I want to think about it, because I didn't want to commit to joining the first powerful organization I meet. A bit later in the game I saw somthing in the sky that I really wanted to ask him about, but he's still stuck on the "Do you want to join us?" dialogue and cannot possibly talk about anything else until I have made that decision. It's just stupid!

Well they could have had it like ME where one of the four choices leads to a couple more choices, like a mini-tree. At least that's one way of getting more than four choices in place. Course having to tell Bethesda that there are better ways to doing things they are trying to do ... and they've been out there for years, is very telling on Bethesda's design capabilities.

Since Oblivion, there's been this established trend of Bethesda copying and implementing ideas that work in other games, but don't necessarily work or function fluidly in their own games.

No it's not an improvement, it's a hilariously inept dumbing down of a perfectly good RPG dialogue system.

So far I have found issue with a great many things related to the game, but dialogue is a huuuge part of my problems. Leaving alone the voiced protagonist (despite how I wish to rant on that as well), I think the system is incredibly flawed.

First of all, the four choices are in many cases awful to choose from and give hardly any indication of what the protagonist is going to say. In fact, in my very limited amount of time with the game thus far, I have run into multiple instances where the dialogue wheel will just tell me the direction of the conversation. By this I mean that instead of giving an indication of what will be said, it merely tells me things like "Angry".

Second, when I do have some idea of what might be said with the limited information they display in the wheel, my character will either 1.) Say something completely different to what I expected 2.) Say it in a tone or way that is entirely wrong for the conversation. I have had to reload conversations multiple times because I tried saying something to an NPC or a companion in what I thought might have been a casual way or empathetic or something, and instead my character sounds like a [censored].

Third, the options are very limiting. Playing Skyrim before this games release had me incredibly upset with Bethesda dialogue as more often than not it seemed there were only one or two dialogue options (why even have dialogue choices with only one freaking option). Now when there are four choices I still end up getting only one actual choice out of it.

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I often hang out with a bunch of RPG enthusiasts at college (though I will say they are more hardcoe than I am) and thus far the general consensus regarding this game is "meh". Even with Skyrim some of them had fun with it after disregarding it as an RPG. In every way I can think of, this game has just seemed average to me. Nothing so far has svcked me in or made me even care.

[censored] no. It's obvious NV has far stronger dialog. I mean, not only do people say more and talk about more things, but you can talk your way to victory to boot.

3 was also pretty weak in this area as well. Unfortunately it's Beth that made both 3 and 4. I say unfortunately specifically in terms of dialog. Not voice but the content itself (overall amount/quality/choices in conversation alone). "Dialog wheel" of only one word responses with very vague replies is pretty weak in a series like this. They should have roped Obsidian in to work on the dialog and we would have had a truly flawless game.

I have not examined the files enough to say with certainty; Nor have I played the game enough to know with certainty, but it is my suspicion based on having played two different characters for a sum total of about 70 hours, that (for certain 'important' NPCs) there actually ARE alternate dialogue paths which are opened based on dialogues.

I agree that, Moira as the prime example, much of the copious NPC dialogue in FO3 was absolutely hilarious, and fun.

But I haven't played the game enough yet to know if there really is a significant lack of such extensive and complex dialogues with some NPCs. I suspect that no one has "finished" the game yet, so unless someone has dove into the files, I doubt that anyone has enough experience yet to say for certain. It may well be that this is a deficiency in the current game.

But again, I do not see this as being a deficiency with the dialogue SYSTEM per se, and this addresses a claim made above that certain things that were quite pleasing in NPC interactions in previous titles would be "impossible" with this system. I think that is unlikely and I suspect that once there is enough experience with the game and the files behind the dialogues it may become clear that virtually anything that was possible in previous titles is possible in this system too.

Of course even in that hypothetical instance, one could still be critical of Bethesda for having NOT included all the possible elaborations which this system facilitates or allows. But I think that is an unreasonable criticism. The game is a masterpiece as it is.

Even the Bioware system sometimes just stumbles over it's arbitrary "6 options per dialog wheel" restriction by having to put a "more" option that just takes you to another wheel. It's just not like they took a big step forward in how to do RPG dialogues by replacing lines of text with vague prompts and only allowing a limited number of them.

I'm all for getting things down to the simplest possible solution, and personally like a lot of the changes they made to the game where they removed and simplified elements, but when it comes to dialogue trees the ability to have any number of lines on the screen IS the simplest solution. Putting an arbitrary restriction in there just so it conforms to a controller layout doesn't make anything better. That's a genuine example of dumbing down, and really for no good reason. The dialogue system in FO3 never posed a usability issue in any way.

One of the constant criticisms of the newer Bethesda games is that ever since Oblivion they have consistently had clunky, slow and oversized UIs that don't work overly well on PC. (And yes, the Pip Boy in FO3 was not exactly great either, but I give I give it a pass for the most part because the Pip-Boy is an in-world item and all the computers in Fallout have this kind of command line interface that isn't very user friendly or graphically advanced, so the FO3 UI was still immersive despite being clunky). It's bewildering to me that a company that develops games on a 3 year cycle and has one of the most impressive talent pools in the industry seemingly does not have anyone who can figure out how to create a decent UI for a roleplaying game. Morrowind had a fantastic UI, what happened to that?

It isn't the lack of seeing what I am saying that really bothers me, but the fact that most of the time the dialogue options don't mean anything. Whether you are passive, aggressive, or sarcastic the NPCs will address it with one sentence then carry on with what they would normally say.

Maybe the question should be, "If the 4 choice dialog system made by Bethesda was a PERFECT 4 choice system, would it still be the right choice for FO4?" How do you want to role-play in FO4? With a PERFECT 4 choice system or a PERFECT multiple choice system? For a FO RPG I'd want more choices. If I was playing Borderlands then 4 choices is 2 too many.

Sometimes it's not even the artist/designer lack of vision/talent but those who are directing them. Those "executives" and "directors" are really the ones to blame since it's up to them to decide the final product. I'm a working artist and I remember my boss telling me that when employees do a botched or mediocre work, the client would be pissed off at him and not us, the employee.

This. So much this. It's like they didn't even try.

No surprise there, at the end of the day the director/lead gameplay designer are the ones making the decision if they want to keep a system in the game or not. I find it shocking that they didn't see the major issues that the current dialog system has.

Personally I think it is. The interactions now seem a little more like actual conversations, especially when you get a companion join in, which I like. That being said I can understand why some people preferred the Fallout 3/NV system.

Why do people keep saying this? Do actual conversations consist of one word responses that you have no idea what they will mean before you say it?

Could be with some considerable changes.

Fallout NV's with Fallout 4 would be the pinnacle I think. Charisma shouldn't be the only dialogue modifier. If they used the other attributes in SPECIAL for dialogue checks I would be sold. It allows you to tailor your character's personality to their attributes and that would mean an almost unique experience for everyone since people fill their SPECIAL out differently. An agile character would respond to something differently than a perceptive or strong or charismatic character.

Dont get this at all, they knew that people would like the new dialog system and many would not like it. This is why video games have settings... just add a dialog menu select for "classic" and "new". Boom, done... debate over and everyone is happy.

No, I really dislike the dialogue tree. I liked it better when it actually showed you what you were going to say so you can make a more educated guess on the responses for the best possible outcome. Now it just gives you a generalized statement. I also dislike how it's completely counter intuitive and clunky. I play on PC and it doesn't work too well and it's painfully obvious it was designed for the console crowd.

I did notice there is already a mod on the Nexus that changes the dialogue tree back to the FO3/NV tree. But, I'm trying to hold off on downloading any mods until the GECK drops.