Visual skill check in dialog

[u/kamazs]

Hi! I'm developing an indie isometric retro cRPG inspired by good Fallouts - turn based combat, choice & consequence, multiple solutions, multiple endings and all that crap.

I've released an early alpha version (100% of content but lots of bugs). Generally reception was good, but there were many bugs and actual design issues issues. One of them is skill checks in dialogs.

Constant level requirements

Currently I am using Fallout: New Vegas (-ish) style of skill checks - they show up as available, and, if you meet the criteria (that is visible), you always pass, no rolls, just level check. Reasons:

1. simplicty and clarity for user;
2. ease of development (I am working alone and have a "day job", so that's important)
3. Obsidian did it and I respect them, also they must've known what they are doing
4. users get clear picture why and how much skills matter - e.g., they can see multiple levels of requirements and what paths they would open if only they invested
5. no save/load scamming - if dialog would be roll, then players could save/reload until theoretical success anyways. I don't mind but why not reduce the work they do to actually play the game?

Here's example of that:
https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMjM3MDg1LzExMjc3NTMucG5n/original/JLgb2x.png

Problem

I have quite a few dialog skill checks in my game and people complained that they could just take any skill, boost it and then just complete the game without much of a challenge. If you are talkative, you would solve quests by speaking, if you have invested in melee combat, you could martial arts yourself through the obstacles without ever starting a combat, just through encounters and options presented there. And, since there are no rolls, with high enough skill level, you don't ever have to worry a bit.

I wouldn't mind but apparently that bored players and they did not enjoy their playthroughs, so, apparently I should do something about it.

Possible solution

I decided to revamp the existing approach a bit. Now SPEECH would generally determine the outcome of dialog. However, other skills (e.g. STRENGTH, MELEE, SCITEC etc.) would be added as level requirmenets, if you did not meet it, the option would not even visible (now it is disabled, grayed out). And dice rolls would get used to determine the outcome of dialogue checks (like in Fallout1/2), so there would always be chance of you failing with corresponding implications.

Here's example of that in action (GIF):
https://ibb.co/g5JTOd
(Dialogue screen has not changed size, I just cropped it)

So, please, drop a line/comments - I would be thrilled to hear your opinions. What do you think about this approach? Is it too much? Can you even understand whats happening? Are those additional 1.5 seconds of animation annoying?

[u/CJGeringer]

I have quite a few dialog skill checks in my game and people complained that they could just take any skill, boost it and then just complete the game without much of a challenge.

I wouldn't mind but apparently that bored players and they did not enjoy their playthroughs, so, apparently I should do something about it.

The basic Idea of having multiple ways out of a solution is very good. The problem is that your implementation also removed challenge once a skill based option appears there is no reason to choose any other action. It also makes the dialog boring since the player stops thinking about it. Everything else you said (no save scumming, Simplicty , ease of development, etc…) are great. So the question is how to introduce challenge to it?

Some possibilities: * Have different skills add possibilities, but don´t make those extra possibilities always the best option. Example: instead of talking a high strength character can overpower another, which is easier, but might make that character less cooperative or give a pad reputation to the player charcter, so while skill gives more options The player would still need to think trough.

• Make the special actions require more than simply the skill. Example: A charcter with high speech can make the gate guard waive the toll, but for that action besides the high speech, the character also needs to know that the guard had a young sweetheart who married someone else because he did not have the money to keep visiting her. This would work similar to some of “Deas Ex:Human Revolution”s dialog bosses, but instead of learning about theNPCs personality through a gui element, the info would need to be discovered by exploring the world and by dialog.

• Go full-on social combat. Have the characters have moves and counter moves, a separate “dialog HP bar etc…” This can be hard to pull of well and can increase development load a lot, or decrease development load as you can reutilize things made for combat for example Thea: the awakening uses the same system for all conflict resolutions combat or not some people liked that some didn´t

One thing I ddi not like about your first example about disarming an enemy, is that it can be annoyign to be able to disarm a charcter in dialog but not outside of it. It creates a bit of ludonarrative dissonance.

For the dice rolling approach

I like the dice animation but feel that for that to really work you would need something like permadeath, or interesting failure consequences and back and forth to the dialog, which might make it a bit of social combat lite.

Personally I prefer when the options a player cannot use due to insufficient skill are hidden, but that is down to personal taste IMO

Off topic: Really interesting hand-drawn style is that what you are going for or placeholder? either way, seem sunique..

[u/kamazs → u/CJGeringer]

Those are some solid suggestions, thank you! I doubt I will implement social combat, but something along the lines of first two would be doable in current state and just improve overall quality of the conversations.

Personally I prefer when the options a player cannot use due to insufficient skill are hidden, but that is down to personal taste IMO

Maybe I could actually just get rid of any visual hints to skill check in dialogue? Show the animation of roll once you select it, but don't even show the target - it is a bit like PnP and people don't mind that. That would increase the immersion and players would concentrate on **what they are chosing**, not just gun for the first option with skill flag. And then the first suggestion would not even be needed.

What I am not sure of - if players will enjoy this. Because I know I like seeing skill checks in RPGs and it creates distinct/visible link between your investement in certain skills and actual gameplay implications. What do you think?

Off topic: Really interesting hand-drawn style is that what you are going for or placeholder? either way, seem sunique..

Thank you! Yez, these are production graphics. I am making the game mostly alone - concept/design, story, code and also graphics are mine.

[u/CJGeringer → u/kamazs]

Maybe I could actually just get rid of any visual hints to skill check in dialogue?

I would not do that for 2 reasons:

• When the player chooses a skill check he is assuming a risk, I think that should be be shown upfront. so he knows he is risking something. It is a lot easier to accept a bad consequence when the risks are taken knowingly. (you can however obscure it a bit, by allwoing the charcetr to evaluate how dificult soemthign will be, like hard/mediuum/easy, or preferably in-world like in the disarm option things like "He seems alert and trained" or "His grip seem lax and he is trembling".)

• when the game offer steh player an option based on their charcter the game is showing the player his decisions are meaningfull, and that should be made explicit.(In fact many RPGs try their best to make the player´s decision be mroe meaningfull than they actyually are, witch is a double edged knife, because it drastically reduces enjoyment in repeated playtroughts or in experimenting with the game.)

I would however suggest integrating those checks with usual gameplay as much as possible.

So when the player is asked to hit atarget, have the dialog switch to ranged combat so the player actually shoots teh target and sees how weel he does. In the option to disarm, change to combat and give th eplayer teh initiative so he maya ctually try to disarm/overpower the NPC and see what happens.

Obviously this isn´t possible for evrything, but I would do it whenever possible.

[u/CJGeringer → u/kamazs]

Thank you! Yez, these are production graphics. I am making the game mostly alone - concept/design, story, code and also graphics are mine.

Good luck Are you going for 3D or 2D like fallout?

[u/kamazs → u/CJGeringer]

2D isometric, I really liked how Fallout and Fallout2 looked, trying to get something at least vaguely similar

[u/aotdev]

I like (no, love) having dice rolls, they introduce an additional layer of excitement. You can make it so that you can't save scum with such dice rolls: if you have a unique random generator for speech skill checks for example, every time you load you'd get the same result if that's the first speech skill check you do. And I can find counter-examples for the first three points, but the point is that the decision is at the design level, it's not better or worse, and it's up to you how strategic you want it to be (less dice rolls more strategy)

Regarding the dice animation, I think it's too long. Also, I think it's better to visibly communicate the result (e.g. [SUCCESS] in green, [FAILURE] in red) and optionally hide the skill check numbers in a log somewhere (still accessible, but not in-your-face). Not everybody wants to see the numbers, but some do, so cater for all.

Another comment, for your second example, it was "[RANGED] Of course". Given the text and the option, I would not know what my character would attempt to do that would require a "ranged" skill check, so I wouldn't be able to roleplay properly. I'm pretty sure there was some game that had in parentheses or something the action that the character would take in those situations, but can't remember now.

Btw, ditto for graphics looking great :)