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Dialogue triggers, and suggestions
raphaeldisanto
Member Posts: 402 Arc User
So, there's two types of NPC dialogue, then: Contact and Objective. These come with different limitations and restrictions, some of which appear somewhat arbitrary to me.
In neither type of dialogue can you restrict an NPC's line based on a prerequisite. It would be fantastic if an NPC's prompt had a list of possible options, the way PC responses do. You order the options (in the same way as PC responses) and the game displays the first one it comes to that's valid based on the prerequisites.
A simple example: You could have an NPC's initial line in a Contact Dialogue changed based on whether the PC has spoken to the NPC before. It's a small thing, but annoying to a nit-picky dialogue writer like myself.
PC responses in Contact Dialogues can have 5 preprequisites: Component Complete, Component Reached, Dialogue Prompt reached, Objective Complete and Objective in Progress (I'm ignoring Never and Immediately, because they serve no purpose in creating realistic query/response reactive dialogue)
Dialogue Prompt Reached is an excellent tool for creating reactive dialogue that changes as you talk to the NPC multiple times, however, it will only trigger from dialogue lines within other Contact Dialogues. It cannot be made to trigger from a dialogue line in an Objective Dialogue. I'd love it if this restriction were removed, so that if I wanted to alter an NPCs Contact tree based on something the PC said in an Objective Dialogue (either to this NPC or another NPC; the current prerequisite doesn't differentiate, as far as searching for triggers in other Contact Dialogues), I would be able to do so.
PC responses in Objective Dialogues can only be restricted by Objective Completion, not by whether or not a Dialogue Prompt has been reached. This, to me, seems like a pretty arbitrary restriction. It forces Content Authors to have multiple dialogue trees depending upon what they're trying to have the NPC say to the player and/or what responses they want to make available to the player, which can then confuse the player because they can't say all the things they want to say in one run.
Also, I'm fairly sure that players don't understand the difference between Contact Dialogues and Objective Dialogues and they're not going to understand the idea that "Oh, if I want to know about X, I can only find that out if I'm on an Objective for which this NPC has a Dialogue, but if I want to know Y, I have to wait until the Objective is complete so that I can get the Contact Dialogue back"
It just makes things clunky, awkward and confusing and I'd love to see some of these prerequisite restrictions lifted so that all PC responses could use another dialogue prompt as a trigger, no matter whether it was from a Contact Dialogue or an Objective Dialogue
In neither type of dialogue can you restrict an NPC's line based on a prerequisite. It would be fantastic if an NPC's prompt had a list of possible options, the way PC responses do. You order the options (in the same way as PC responses) and the game displays the first one it comes to that's valid based on the prerequisites.
A simple example: You could have an NPC's initial line in a Contact Dialogue changed based on whether the PC has spoken to the NPC before. It's a small thing, but annoying to a nit-picky dialogue writer like myself.
PC responses in Contact Dialogues can have 5 preprequisites: Component Complete, Component Reached, Dialogue Prompt reached, Objective Complete and Objective in Progress (I'm ignoring Never and Immediately, because they serve no purpose in creating realistic query/response reactive dialogue)
Dialogue Prompt Reached is an excellent tool for creating reactive dialogue that changes as you talk to the NPC multiple times, however, it will only trigger from dialogue lines within other Contact Dialogues. It cannot be made to trigger from a dialogue line in an Objective Dialogue. I'd love it if this restriction were removed, so that if I wanted to alter an NPCs Contact tree based on something the PC said in an Objective Dialogue (either to this NPC or another NPC; the current prerequisite doesn't differentiate, as far as searching for triggers in other Contact Dialogues), I would be able to do so.
PC responses in Objective Dialogues can only be restricted by Objective Completion, not by whether or not a Dialogue Prompt has been reached. This, to me, seems like a pretty arbitrary restriction. It forces Content Authors to have multiple dialogue trees depending upon what they're trying to have the NPC say to the player and/or what responses they want to make available to the player, which can then confuse the player because they can't say all the things they want to say in one run.
Also, I'm fairly sure that players don't understand the difference between Contact Dialogues and Objective Dialogues and they're not going to understand the idea that "Oh, if I want to know about X, I can only find that out if I'm on an Objective for which this NPC has a Dialogue, but if I want to know Y, I have to wait until the Objective is complete so that I can get the Contact Dialogue back"
It just makes things clunky, awkward and confusing and I'd love to see some of these prerequisite restrictions lifted so that all PC responses could use another dialogue prompt as a trigger, no matter whether it was from a Contact Dialogue or an Objective Dialogue
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by raphaeldisanto on
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A Friendly Reminder (NW-DAQN7H5GO) - Short, solo, story-driven quest.
All the other limitations still stand, and are still very restrictive, but mostly the one about Quest Dialog valid prerequisites only being "Objective Complete" and "Objective In Progress". Add "Dialog Prompt Reached" to that and I'm a happy camper.