So I had a thought about those "short summary" dialogue choices that are bothering some folks (the whole "but I want to know exactly what I'm going to say" thing, etc).

I'm wondering if it's at least partially a by-product of the new Dynamic Dialogue thing (rather than "copying Bioware").

It occurred to me that if you can reply to someone saying something by just aiming your cursor over at them (as you and they are still moving around), it would be problematic to have to quickly read through all the full lines to pick something. Ditto with having a scrollbox with a dozen options.

For the "dynamic" thing to work as envisioned, you need to be able to glance over, pick something relatively quickly, and get back on with what you were doing. Hence, only a few options tied to action buttons (have we seen a PC version of the dialogue interface yet?), and quick summaries of what each option is.

Note that I'm not saying this is better or not. Just that the limited reply options & short text summaries may have been a by-product/consequence of the basic concept itself. (Personally, I'd prefer dialogue to still work like in FO3 - the whole Dynamic Dialogue! Talk while you walk! thing seems really awkward to me.... I've got no problems being locked into a dialogue window, it's how I've been playing cRPGs for 30 years...)

Well they could move the threatening option so it's only triggered if you draw a weapon and point it at them. The "now you die"[attack] option is kind of redundant too.

So there's a couple more potential choices.

I see two problems the first is the obvious 4 option limit.

The second is dialogue state status: say you talk to somebody and select intimidate this gives up new dialogue options in the sub menu. you then get distracted for some time say a day.

You then continue the discussion. Now who dialogue options do you get up? the default start dialogue or the sub options after intimidate.

This is more of an issue than in Skyrim as with 4 option only you can not simply add and remove topics.

Eh, I'm sure that this is one of the things that will be modded. Likely one of the first mods that I get as well. Just have it like it's been previously where we can see the entire thing. I don't think it'll bother me too much but I've had it happen it Witcher 3 where I ended up saying something completely different than I intended and didn't like it.

*wave*

really, what friggin' difference does that make? i still won't know what i'm about to say...

I personally love the idea of a dialog mode that doesn't break the flow. I think you're right on the mark for why they set it up to the face buttons, and I'll admit it adds new challenges, but I'm really excited to see how it works. Are there even other RPGs that do this?

Conversations with our companions out in the wastes might benefit a lot from this. Your partner makes a comment on the landscape, and you can just turn around and reply right there without going into a different mode.