[suggestion] Can we have impactful Dialogue Choices?

[Rudje]

Yeah, even in very visually simple games that don't need to worry about visual assets as much and have strict end points, like text adventures and ChoiceScript titles, meaningful choices rapidly leads to exponential addition to the workload. For an MMO... as much as I'd like the ability to have a bit more room in dialogue choices (I haaate having two options that are basically rephrasing the same thing without personality variance, especially when the non-choice isn't part of the joke), it also ends long before choices that would cause actually big changes just because of the workload involved in a game like this. Either you have to collapse stuff, which would piss people off a lot (as we've seen with Mass Effect), or you have to keep adding more and more work to the pile as you move forward.

[Jeeqbit]

I must admit, being able to make a character that chooses to kill everyone and be really critical and condescending is fun in SWTOR. I don't think I ever got tired of it.

I actually got more tired of the tedious sidequests, especially after they stopped making them have proper cutscenes.

[Anarnee]

I'd rather the time the devs spent their time on more stories, rather than being split across figuring more stuff for one. It's an RPG, part of the fun for me is imagining the way our character says the lines, and I feel there is plenty of space for you to imagine your character differently.

[Souljacker]

What would be the point? They are going to tell the story they want to tell regardless of how you feel. I think they should just drop all the WoL clickable lines altogether. Don't ask me what Scions I want to go after if you're just going to tell me they are 'too busy' or whatever.

Just tell your story so I can enternity my way through the parts that I find offensive or dull.

[Antharaes]

Oh, to be able to tell Y'shtola to shut up and take a flying leap into oblivion....

[KatieKuro]

I think other than just having dialogue branches we should get better dialogue in general. To often does the WoL give a really boring phrase. I get everyone has their own headcannon of what their WoL would speak like and it's impossible to cater to each and every one, but I would like having a lot of options to choose from. Most options are either very nice, encouraging, or if you're lucky you get sarcastic ones. The sarcastic ones are usually the best to choose anyway because of the response you get, but I feel like it's far and few between I find a phrase my WoL would actually choose. Not enough sarcastic edgy options, big sad. Responding to some certain people in shadowbringers was probably the coolest I've felt playing as my WoL, but then it went right back to being a goody two shoes with the Eden story...

Not every WoL wants to be that goody two shoes, I would like to have a much more nuanced character, but dialogue options don't give me that option.

[TaleraRistain]

I don't see how it would work with the current setup even not taking into account trying to keep branching paths straight for development purposes. A lot of the time the WoL gets involved in things because they're trusted and looked up to and those are hooks to move story points along. If the reaction of characters changes so they don't trust the WoL anymore, then those hooks can't happen anymore. We're only going to Dawntrail because we impressed someone with our capabilities so they recommended us to someone else.

[Rolder50]

Actually impactful choices don't really work in an MMO format. Things have to be mostly the same for everyone in order for things to make sense. At best you would get some different dialogue choices in some cutscenes.

[Jeeqbit]

Actually impactful choices don't really work in an MMO format. Things have to be mostly the same for everyone in order for things to make sense. At best you would get some different dialogue choices in some cutscenes.

FOMO is also an issue. When I played a multiplayer game where everyone's experience was completely different, I was deeply upset. I wanted to experience what my friend did and I couldn't. So I quit.

I had always thought a "different experience for everyone" would be an ideal MMORPG but after experiencing it, no thanks. In practice, FOMO kicks in and people want to experience what their friends did.

I think another problem I had was I wanted to experience the "proper" story, the real one. But there was no single story... because it was randomly-generated. So that contributed to me quitting as well.

[Remolia]

You mean it's praised by what little community is left over there. I know a lot of people that drifted away from SWTOR because those choices kept them from playing with friends who wanted to make different choices. The only thing left they could do together was the occasional raid and they didn't find that satisfying.

I'll leave the impactful quest choices to the single player games that I also like to play. I'm fine with a static story in MMORPGs so I can play together with my family and friends, and have a discussion about the shared experience instead of spoilers about what happened for them instead of me.

I thought people left SWTOR because game is awful in every other aspects. In FFXIV you cant even do MSQ with ur friends, because it has stupid solo events, and u don't share any cutscene.
But speaking of Main Quest, SWTOR is way better doing RPG part, with building ur character. Imperial Agent still my favorite MSQ.
In FFXIV u are bound to same characters, and ur character is just an empty avatar, who watching everything from the side, without own thoughts.
Maybe FFXIV MSQ does not need impactful Choices, but it would be nice to have different playthroughs of same expansion.
Like a classic one, and the one where you tell to Alphinaud and his friends to stay away from you, and proceed MSQ with Hildibrand, the real hero.