The Covenant: Definitive Dialogue Wheel Failure

Irwin John Finster

Irwin John Finster

Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
I stumbled across a location in Fallout 4 called the Covenant. At the entrance, the guy won't let you inside unless you pass a test. The test is, in fact, the infamous G.O.A.T. from Fallout 3!

How pleased I was to see the little reference to it, only to realize the glaring difference in dialogue. You see, previous Fallout's allowed you to have paragraphs to say to other characters in the game. This dialogue wheel gives you 4 choices that are usually one or two words and have little explanation regarding what you're going to say.

For example, the first question asked was:

"You are approached by a frenzied scientist, who yells, "I'm going to put my quantum harmonizer in your photonic resonance chamber!"

In Fallout 3, you were presented with this list of options to choose from:

1) "But doctor, wouldn't that cause a parabolic destabilization of the fission singularity?" - Science

2) "Yeah? Up yours too, buddy!" - Speech

3) Say nothing, grab a nearby pipe and hit the scientist in the head to knock him out. For all you knew, he was planning to blow up the vault. - Melee

4) Say nothing, but slip away before the scientist can continue his rant. - Sneak

In Fallout 4, you can only choose from these responses:

1) Science
2) Insult him
3) Knock him out
4) Sneak Out
 
Irwin John Finster said:
I stumbled across a location in Fallout 4 called the Covenant. At the entrance, the guy won't let you inside unless you pass a test. The test is, in fact, the infamous G.O.A.T. from Fallout 3!

How pleased I was to see the little reference to it, only to realize the glaring difference in dialogue. You see, previous Fallout's allowed you to have paragraphs to say to other characters in the game. This dialogue wheel gives you 4 choices that are usually one or two words and have little explanation regarding what you're going to say.

For example, the first question asked was:

"You are approached by a frenzied scientist, who yells, "I'm going to put my quantum harmonizer in your photonic resonance chamber!"

In Fallout 3, you were presented with this list of options to choose from:

1) "But doctor, wouldn't that cause a parabolic destabilization of the fission singularity?" - Science

2) "Yeah? Up yours too, buddy!" - Speech

3) Say nothing, grab a nearby pipe and hit the scientist in the head to knock him out. For all you knew, he was planning to blow up the vault. - Melee

4) Say nothing, but slip away before the scientist can continue his rant. - Sneak

In Fallout 4, you can only choose from these responses:

1) Science
2) Insult him
3) Knock him out
4) Sneak Out
Click to expand...

Damn. If there's any part of Fallout 4 which is as clear an insult to general intelligence as that, I'll eat my new keyboard.
 
I have seen pictures popping up with the dialogue mod that takes out the wheel and lists exactly what the protagonist says. It reveals that most of the dialogue is exactly the same regardless of choice. In some cases there are 4 choices and only one or two words are different.
 
Irwin John Finster said:
I have seen pictures popping up with the dialogue mod that takes out the wheel and lists exactly what the protagonist says. It reveals that most of the dialogue is exactly the same regardless of choice. In some cases there are 4 choices and only one or two words are different.
Click to expand...

Of course... the dialogue wheel is vague so you won't realize it's pretty much the same response.
 
AgentBJ09 said:
Irwin John Finster said:
I stumbled across a location in Fallout 4 called the Covenant. At the entrance, the guy won't let you inside unless you pass a test. The test is, in fact, the infamous G.O.A.T. from Fallout 3!

How pleased I was to see the little reference to it, only to realize the glaring difference in dialogue. You see, previous Fallout's allowed you to have paragraphs to say to other characters in the game. This dialogue wheel gives you 4 choices that are usually one or two words and have little explanation regarding what you're going to say.

For example, the first question asked was:

"You are approached by a frenzied scientist, who yells, "I'm going to put my quantum harmonizer in your photonic resonance chamber!"

In Fallout 3, you were presented with this list of options to choose from:

1) "But doctor, wouldn't that cause a parabolic destabilization of the fission singularity?" - Science

2) "Yeah? Up yours too, buddy!" - Speech

3) Say nothing, grab a nearby pipe and hit the scientist in the head to knock him out. For all you knew, he was planning to blow up the vault. - Melee

4) Say nothing, but slip away before the scientist can continue his rant. - Sneak

In Fallout 4, you can only choose from these responses:

1) Science
2) Insult him
3) Knock him out
4) Sneak Out
Click to expand...

Damn. If there's any part of Fallout 4 which is as clear an insult to general intelligence as that, I'll eat my new keyboard.
Click to expand...

Well you better start eating that keyboard then because many parts of this game seem to do that. Like the super mutant cure.
 
Not a big fan of the dialogue wheel. The sarcastic option is the worst. Sometimes it means yes and sometimes no. You have no way to tell.

Dialogue wheel done right? Mass Effect and Alpha Protocol.
 
I am pretty certain that Elder Scrolls VI will not have a dialogue wheel because even most of the positive reviews I read complain about it.

Someone at Bethesda is a total idiot (whoever made the decision to use the dialogue wheel).
 
I'm very confident that this is the true definitive dialogue failure. Takes a mod to show how bad it is. And to further insult your intelligence, a lot of quests will allow you to ask "Remind me what we were doing again?" despite it being in your quest notes, and talked about not five minutes ago.

This isn't even a dialogue wheel. That's what Mass Effect and Alpha Protocol had. Four options do not make it that. It's basically a dialogue cross, if you can even call it that. It's ridiculous.

Here's the transcript - context is accepting a quest to help settlers at a farm, I assume it was a Minutemen Garvey thing... again. This is what it looks like with the mod:

1) Yes, I'm here to help, what's the problem?
2) Yes, I'm here to help, what's going on?
3) I'm not the tooth fairy. Just tell me what you need so I can get out of here.
4) Of course. Just tell me what you need help with.

What do you think?
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
I'm very confident that this is the true definitive dialogue failure. Takes a mod to show how bad it is. And to further insult your intelligence, a lot of quests will allow you to ask "Remind me what we were doing again?" despite it being in your quest notes, and talked about not five minutes ago.

This isn't even a dialogue wheel. That's what Mass Effect and Alpha Protocol had. Four options do not make it that. It's basically a dialogue cross, if you can even call it that. It's ridiculous.

Here's the transcript - context is accepting a quest to help settlers at a farm, I assume it was a Minutemen Garvey thing... again. This is what it looks like with the mod:

1) Yes, I'm here to help, what's the problem?
2) Yes, I'm here to help, what's going on?
3) I'm not the tooth fairy. Just tell me what you need so I can get out of here.
4) Of course. Just tell me what you need help with.

What do you think?
Click to expand...

Its really bad. I have a feeling Todd Howard was playing Mass Effect and during it he thought to himself, "You know what would make the next Fallout game awesome? A Mass Effect style dialogue wheel!" Bad! Bad, bad, bad design choice!:mad: Someone really needed to question Todd and the rest of the developers with what they were thinking with this. That or Bethesda really needs to stop hiring yes men's for their studio.
 
RangerBoo said:
ZigzagPX4 said:
I'm very confident that this is the true definitive dialogue failure. Takes a mod to show how bad it is. And to further insult your intelligence, a lot of quests will allow you to ask "Remind me what we were doing again?" despite it being in your quest notes, and talked about not five minutes ago.

This isn't even a dialogue wheel. That's what Mass Effect and Alpha Protocol had. Four options do not make it that. It's basically a dialogue cross, if you can even call it that. It's ridiculous.

Here's the transcript - context is accepting a quest to help settlers at a farm, I assume it was a Minutemen Garvey thing... again. This is what it looks like with the mod:

1) Yes, I'm here to help, what's the problem?
2) Yes, I'm here to help, what's going on?
3) I'm not the tooth fairy. Just tell me what you need so I can get out of here.
4) Of course. Just tell me what you need help with.

What do you think?
Click to expand...

Its really bad. I have a feeling Todd Howard was playing Mass Effect and during it he thought to himself, "You know what would make the next Fallout game awesome? A Mass Effect style dialogue wheel!" Bad! Bad, bad, bad design choice!:mad: Someone really needed to question Todd and the rest of the developers with what they were thinking with this. That or Bethesda really needs to stop hiring yes men's for their studio.
Click to expand...

The worst part is that they are lowering expectations with this. Mass Effect's dialogue wheel essentially had five options, plus two possible interrupts and an extra info option that led to yet another wheel. That's still eons ahead of this abomination of a system. So now even Mass Effect's dialogue wheel seems amazing and dynamic compared to this, they can basically move on to that and call it an improvement.
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
Mass Effect's dialogue wheel essentially had five options, plus two possible interrupts and an extra info option that led to yet another wheel. That's still eons ahead of this abomination of a system. So now even Mass Effect's dialogue wheel seems amazing and dynamic compared to this, they can basically move on to that and call it an improvement.
Click to expand...
Really ME's dialogue wheel had up to 10 options, you had 3 options on the right that progress the dialogue, charm and intimidate options on the left, then there was also another screen where you could get information. Honestly the first ME and 2 for the most part did the whole "dialogue wheel" thing about as well as it could possibly be done, and having a voiced protagonist in a more restrictive/guided RPG like Mass Effect isn't the worst idea ever. On the other hand, in a Fallout game that should be focused on player choice it makes no sense whatsoever.
 
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