Already Frustrated w/ CONVO!

I tend to agree.

Give us an option to bypass this system by double clicking the npc. I understand some enjoy the immersive aspect of npc conversation, but that is not my play style and I'd honestly rather just avoid the whole mess.

 

I haven't gotten frustrated yet, many of the things npcs say are just placeholders as they haven't been coded yet.... I see a great potential but of course it's a bit risky considering it's an old school way compared to the "click the huge exclaim marks to progress" - system. I'm hoping in SoTA I won't have a feeling of urgency to grind / powerlevel constantly, and I can spare a few minutes to talk too.

 

I'm hoping the final game will have a slew of shortcuts like this. there is no reason I shouldn't be able to start a conversation with a specific person with a nice, simple double-click. But that really is a polishing thing. As long as it doesn't get lost in the mad dash near release, I don't mind waiting.

 

Maybe 50/50? The main plot could be 'double click' to get info, but you have to dig for side quests? I'm unfortunately in agreement with the OP. This is pretty cumbersome.

I was in Braemar in the inn and two NPCs circled each other saying 'excuse me' and the like to infinity. It cluttered up the screen and was extremely annoying. The just wouldn't sit still, so they kept triggering each other. I hope this gets some work too, or I will be avoiding the taverns as well....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I think it might be useful when returning quests, for example. You wouldn't have to think of a keyword there, but instead could advance in the quest when you've accomplished the task, by clicking the quest giver. However, I'm hoping the conversation system will become smart enough so that it'll feel smooth.

 

Well, the npc's have to do more then vendor buy etc....this ins't ultima online...this is a roleplaying game where the npc aren't just place holders. Thats not to say they don't need work but really..

 

I can see what the Devs might have been hoping for with a public broadcast system; the idea maybe that you could overhear conversations in a tavern or street and discover a quest you didn't know was there, and a more organic world... however as it stands, and we've noticed now in major hubs like Owls Head, just 2 or 3 people can create a massive cascade of confusing responses.

A few very simple tweaks would tidy the system up as it currently stands;

* Double clicking the npc opens a separate chat window just for them and you, all responses are kept in there and don't interfere with others. For the sake of people in a party, the option to toggle the ability to share NPC conversations (or toggle it off individually)

* Patching in the ability to filter broadcast types on the chat tab: We can see this is coming, and when it's complete it'll help a bit more.

* Giving the NPCs a smaller amount of "World" responses, but allow them to respond either using the name of who the response is too, or with unique text colour to the person who said it; thus overheard conversation would look something like this

If the players could set their own colours for Mine/Other People text, it would help the colour blind, but if it was mounted over their heads in game in those colours too some might find that immersion breaking; comes down to personal taste really. I'd probably prefer named text response, but if people are spamming deliberately that could also be frustrating...?

* Something else I've spoken about before, but I'd love to see minor NPCs crowd sourced out. That is, the devs say "We need 100 guard conversations for a certain location. They know about the city, the wider area, but that's about it. Write us a conversation tree". It would ease up pressure on them, and make the conversation much more realistic because people are bound to submit all sorts of rambling characters. It would mean checking for obscenity or spoilers etc, but I believe they'd have to do that work with their own npcs too? But imagine the engagement for the player base, and the positive media coverage that would result from allowing people to seed their own little stories...

 

I'm sure the NPC conversation responses will grow, so I'm not too worried (yet) about lack of response. One thing that does concern me is that they respond to ALL keywords as part of their response, which makes some fairly incomprehensible gibberish when I type multiple sentences to them. Yes, its important to hit important keywords, but if they are not related, only answer the first. If the response is a general "I don't know" or reply to Yes/No/etc, only respond once.

So apparently, when I tell Blackpool that "My name in Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." that means I get three replies, none of which are meaningful. One meaningless response is enough, thank you.

 

Just wanted to hop in and say hey to @Lum! I think we all know you are working your ass off and we are trying to be constructive. This is your baby, we just want to make sure it works the best way possible. You and the rest of the team are doing a great job!

You da man!

 

Thanks. I realize that it would be far worse if *no one* was talking about it.

Some comments:

- Hearing everyone's NPC conversations around you: this is NOT intended. Not only are we going to not have zone-wide chatter, at some point sooner rather than later (sooner) you will not hear NPC-directed conversation. I may try to get this in sometime today actually as it seems pretty critical.

- NPCs telling each other "excuse me" - we'll turn that off. They should only talk to players. Note that if you don't want NPCs to tell you to back off, uh, don't run into them. But the Dance of the Braemar Barmaids will be much quieter.

- Conversation being "Siri-level AI"... um.... er... I'm not sure quite how best to put this, but Apple spent a LOT on language processing (orders of magnitude greater than our entire budget) and Siri still fails most basic Turing tests. Our goal has always been for NPC conversations to (a) not be a roadblock (the fact that many of you feel it is is an issue) and (b) not be immersion-breaking. By which I mean if you CHOOSE to have a full conversation you can and if you CHOOSE to just play Hunt the Keyword you can. However, it will never be able to read your mind.

- Non-typing ways of interacting with NPCs - at this time we (and by we I mean Lord British) is very much against this (save if we get text-to-speech working but to date we haven't found a good solution that works well with Unity cross-platform).

 

Just to be clear, when I say point and click, I mean to start a private conversation. Not to bypass one. Bringing up the chat box, making sure your talking to the right guy, etc are all a pain in the butt right now. It would be nice to double click an NPC and "BOOM!" I've started a chat with the guy.

Also, thanks for the clarifications Lum! Clears up a great deal of my worries.

 

At this point, I think I'd prefer something similar to Star Wars Old Republic. Menus and some choices to choose. Each choice having some meaning and consequence.

Just more streamlined.

 

You don't even have a /moo emote, and poor old Mertyl the cow can only randomly moo back, rather than have a rich and fulfilling multi-moo; you sir have failed in the moo'st import part of MMOo design, and may god have mercy upon you for this crime against humoonity.

P.s. More cowbell would also have been acceptable.

 

That is the plan - we just didn't get it in for R4.

 

You, sir, ARE da man. Thanks!

 

We already flag "important" responses to act as you describe; if "you killed my father" is a Blackpool-specific important topic, it will key on that, give you that response, and ditch everything else. It will chain non-important responses. We may look into how best to handle that; perhaps we should only have one response period but that could get confusing as well.

 

It was probably because I was being a smart ass to him, but I got several responses that seem to contradict themselves. "Perhaps" seems to be a keyword, as well as another negative ("Don't" or "No"), so his reply was something like "I am planning to do this. I won't." I'm sure you can find the specific responses to see how wonky they were.

 

Lum, did you mean speech to text?

If so, just let the end user deal with that, yeah? There are already programs that do that. No point in reinventing that wheel.

 

I agree. Unfortunately, the powers that be appear to be stuck in the past concerning Shrouds development in many areas. I doubt there is little that can be said or done to draw them away for old ideas.

 

The conversation system that is in place (in progress) is one of the defining characteristics of this game. I DO NOT simply want to approach an NPC (with or without an exclamation mark) and speed click through his conversation. I want immersion, I want plot and story and I want to CARE for characters in the world, player and non-player alike.

If you want keyword speed clicking there are a SLEW of other games, poorly done, that are screaming your name. :S