Disco Elysium Pre-Release Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Saduj]

Of course persuasion can be affected by luck. People can be more open or less open to being influenced at any given moment based on a million factors that have nothing to with the talker.

 

[Zombra]

Of course persuasion can be affected by luck. People can be more open or less open to being influenced at any given moment based on a million factors that have nothing to with the talker.

Or that do have to do with the talker. The talker may have a slight headache. The talker may see a shiny object. The talker's belt might have worked itself slightly too loose over the day, making them uncomfortable and off their game in this moment (and if you take a second to cinch your belt tight in the middle of an argument, you look like a dork). The talker might mishear a word and respond inappropriately. The talker might salivate at the wrong time, causing them to have to stop and swallow in the middle of a crucial sentence. The talker might even blink at the wrong instant and lose eye contact. Not to mention synergetic factors between the talker and the listener. Anyone who has ever performed on stage knows what I am talking about.

None of these represent sheer luck or a coin toss, but neither can they be realistically modeled in a finite game system. This is the kind of stuff that dice rolls really represent. A higher skill level means (in part) a better ability to stay focused and overcome little distractions like this, but no one is 100% magically immune to them.

 

[barghwata]

That was not my point, my point was the fact it's based on luck is unrealistic.

Dice rolls do not represent sheer luck. Say this to yourself until you really understand it. Once you can demonstrate that you do, come back to the conversation.

I said it to myself a couple of times and still sounds incredibly wrong, i know the more you have of a skill the more chance you have to pass a dice roll check of that skill, but it's still dice rolls you know; those things that people use to gamble n stuff........ because they're luck based.

Of course persuasion can be affected by luck. People can be more open or less open to being influenced at any given moment based on a million factors that have nothing to with the talker.

Yes there are external factors that influence your ability to persuade people, but why be lazy and represent those factors with an abstract dice roll, why not implement some of those things to the game, like maybe implement personality traits to NPCs, maybe have your reputation influence people's opinion of you which in turn influences your ability to persuade them, maybe implement a system that allows you to store informations and secrets and rumors that you encounter or investigate about people in a journal or something, so you can weaponise those informations against those people to make it easier to convince them, there are way better ways to implement those things then just have a dice roll.

 

[Molina]

That was not my point, my point was the fact it's based on luck is unrealistic.

Dice rolls do not represent sheer luck. Say this to yourself until you really understand it. Once you can demonstrate that you do, come back to the conversation.

I said it to myself a couple of times and still sounds incredibly wrong, i know the more you have of a skill the more chance you have to pass a dice roll check of that skill, but it's still dice rolls you know; those things that people use to gamble n stuff........ because they're luck based.

Of course persuasion can be affected by luck. People can be more open or less open to being influenced at any given moment based on a million factors that have nothing to with the talker.

Yes there are external factors that influence your ability to persuade people, but why be lazy and represent those factors with an abstract dice roll, why not implement some of those things to the game, like maybe implement personality traits to NPCs, maybe have your reputation influence people's opinion of you which in turn influences your ability to persuade them, maybe implement a system that allows you to store informations and secrets and rumors that you encounter or investigate about people in a journal or something, so you can weaponise those informations against those people to make it easier to convince them, there are way better ways to implement those things then just have a dice roll.

I agree. They should write one million more words.

 

[barghwata]

That was not my point, my point was the fact it's based on luck is unrealistic.

Dice rolls do not represent sheer luck. Say this to yourself until you really understand it. Once you can demonstrate that you do, come back to the conversation.

I said it to myself a couple of times and still sounds incredibly wrong, i know the more you have of a skill the more chance you have to pass a dice roll check of that skill, but it's still dice rolls you know; those things that people use to gamble n stuff........ because they're luck based.

Of course persuasion can be affected by luck. People can be more open or less open to being influenced at any given moment based on a million factors that have nothing to with the talker.

Yes there are external factors that influence your ability to persuade people, but why be lazy and represent those factors with an abstract dice roll, why not implement some of those things to the game, like maybe implement personality traits to NPCs, maybe have your reputation influence people's opinion of you which in turn influences your ability to persuade them, maybe implement a system that allows you to store informations and secrets and rumors that you encounter or investigate about people in a journal or something, so you can weaponise those informations against those people to make it easier to convince them, there are way better ways to implement those things then just have a dice roll.

I agree. They should write one million more words.

First of all, adding personality traits to NPCs and implementing a reputation system doesn't require you add much more dialog at all, those are just numbers that influence how well you can persuade people, i understand this is also an abstraction since character traits and reputation are much more complex then just a set of numbers, but it's much less abstract then dice rolls.

As for using informations you collect on people to better persuade them is something that has already been done in games like arcanum and fallout, and i am under the impression that Disco Elysium does have that since it's a game based on investigation.

 

[Zombra]

Yes there are external factors that influence your ability to persuade people, but why be lazy and represent those factors with an abstract dice roll, why not implement some of those things to the game

I agree. They should write 200 trillion more words to cover all imaginable contingencies of the shit that can go wrong.

Fixed.

 

[Prime Junta]

From a purely gamist PoV the die rolls inject just a bit if unpredictability and tension that can contribute a lot to the experience. There are thousands of skill checks in the game. That’s so many that you will feel your build.

Put all your points into being cool and you’ll be one cool motherfucker, but you’ll still screw up a few times over the game, which means you can’t ever be completely certain that doing the cool thing will always work. Conversely, if you’re the biggest nerd on the planet you will still manage to get away with it on a few occasions, making your usual awkwardness that much more of a highlight.

Again: die-roll checks don’t work if they’re simple pass/fail gates and/or there aren’t enough of them that probabilities don’t become averages. It’d be like a combat system where everyone only has one HP, way too random. But if there are enough checks there, it becomes more like a combat that lasts a few rounds, allowing skill to tell.

In most good systems even the most minmaxed power build will occasionally whiff and nobody thinks that’s a problem. Disco Elysium attempts that, but with everything, not just combat.

(And again the usual disclaimers - it’s premature to say how well it succeeds etc, but the idea, the design, and the attempt are there, and the end result really isn’t like the lock picking or persuasion checks you usually find in cRPGs.)

 

[barghwata]

Yes there are external factors that influence your ability to persuade people, but why be lazy and represent those factors with an abstract dice roll, why not implement some of those things to the game

I agree. They should write 200 trillion more words to cover all imaginable contingencies of the shit that can go wrong.

Fixed.[/QUOTE]

Honestly, this argument is nothing but apologetics, arcanum and fallout are existing examples of games that handle persuation in much better methods then dice rolls and those games don't have a billion words in them.

 

[Infinitron]

An easy fix for games with probability-based dialogue checks would be to add an option so that you always roll the expected value of your dice roll (eg, 3.5 for a 1d6).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

You can tell the game will be great because fanboys are already defending bad design decisions.

 

[Prime Junta]

As for using informations you collect on people to better persuade them is something that has already been done in games like arcanum and fallout, and i am under the impression that Disco Elysium does have that since it's a game based on investigation.

Can confirm. Lots of checks are modified by previous actions. Many hard red checks can be made a lot easier by softening up the witness in all kinds of ways. It wouldn’t be much of a cop game if it didn’t even attempt to model interview technique.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Honestly, this argument is nothing but apologetics, arcanum and fallout and existing examples of games that handles persuation in much better methods then dice rolls and those games don't have a billion words in them.

Speech checks in Fallout 1 include dice rolls.

 

[RNGsus]

From the course of this monologue, it looks like I persuaded Citizen to reconsider his apprehension of dice rolls. My roll was better.

 

[barghwata]

Can confirm. Lots of checks are modified by previous actions. Many hard red checks can be made a lot easier by softening up the witness in all kinds of ways. It wouldn’t be much of a cop game if it didn’t even attempt to model interview technique.

This is a very welcome addition.

Speech checks in Fallout 1 include dice rolls.

Not when it comes to speech, as i said i don't have an issue with dice rolls when it comes to skills that involve some luck like lockpicking or something.

 

[Zombra]

Put all your points into being cool and you’ll be one cool motherfucker, but you’ll still screw up a few times over the game, which means you can’t ever be completely certain that doing the cool thing will always work. Conversely, if you’re the biggest nerd on the planet you will still manage to get away with it on a few occasions, making your usual awkwardness that much more of a highlight.

Yes. The best fiction is that in which the protagonist can screw up. When James Bond misses a difficult pistol shot, it's much more exhilarating when he eventually wins the fight anyway. When Sam Spade gets the shit kicked out of him because he didn't realize the fat man didn't need him any more (he thought), we love to see Spade come back and outthink them all in the end. Neither of these guys truly blundered, factors just weren't in their favor at the time. This doesn't mean Bond is a poor shot, or Spade is stupid.

i don't have an issue with dice rolls when it comes to skills that involve some luck like lockpicking or something.

Every skill involves dealing with the unpredictable. I bet you've had a lace break when tying your shoes. How did you deal with it? Does this mean you suck at tying shoes?

 

[barghwata]

i don't have an issue with dice rolls when it comes to skills that involve some luck like lockpicking or something.

Every skill involves dealing with the unpredictable.

Some way more then others, and if you can implement some of those unpredictables to the game instead of lumping them into the abstract concept of dice rolls, then why not.

 

[Zombra]

Some way more then others, and if you can implement some of those unpredictables to the game instead of lumping them into the abstract concept of dice rolls, then why not.

Good thinking. Disco Elysium: a 1:1 simulation of the real physical universe. Why didn't the devs think of that?

 

[barghwata]

Some way more then others, and if you can implement some of those unpredictables to the game instead of lumping them into the abstract concept of dice rolls, then why not.

Good thinking. Disco Elysium: a 1:1 simulation of the real physical universe. Why didn't the devs think of that?

This ladies and gentelmen is called a "strawman" where you misrepresent what someone is saying or put words into someone's mouth then counter those words, i said "some of them" which means only those that are possible to implement and i am mainly referring to persuation really.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

rusty_shackleford it's the year of our lord 2019, do people really still not know how speech checks in Fallout work?

https://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/fallout-1-2-skill-rolls-mmmm-rolls.198794/

i don't have an issue with dice rolls when it comes to skills that involve some luck like lockpicking or something.

Every skill involves dealing with the unpredictable.

Some way more then others, and if you can implement some of those unpredictables to the game instead of lumping them into the abstract concept of dice rolls, then why not.

They do implement many of those unpredictables, but others are part of the roll. Otherwise you just have an instant-win button and you never really have to cope with the unexpected. Hard checks make sense in games where the dialogue is not the main gameplay, but this is not one of those games. If you think RNG makes sense in typical RPG combat, then it makes sense in Disco Elysium's conversations.

 

[Grauken]

Some way more then others, and if you can implement some of those unpredictables to the game instead of lumping them into the abstract concept of dice rolls, then why not.

Good thinking. Disco Elysium: a 1:1 simulation of the real physical universe. Why didn't the devs think of that?

This ladies and gentelmen is called a "strawman" where you misrepresent what someone is saying or put words into someone's mouth then counter those words, i said "some of them" which means only those that are possible to implement and i am mainly referring to persuation really.

Stop acting like a retard and people will stop treating you like one

 

[Zombra]

This ladies and gentelmen is called a "strawman" where you misrepresent what someone is saying or put words into someone's mouth then counter those words, i said "some of them" which means only those that are possible to implement and i am mainly referring to persuation really.

Let's be clear here. Your position is that a special subsystem should be implemented for social skills, to eliminate dice rolls only for those skills, because social situations can't be influenced by a colossal variety of uncontrollable factors, unlike other situations?

 

[barghwata]

rusty_shackleford it's the year of our lord 2019, do people really still not know how speech checks in Fallout work?

https://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/fallout-1-2-skill-rolls-mmmm-rolls.198794/



They do implement many of those unpredictables, but others are part of the roll. Otherwise you just have an instant-win button and you never really have to cope with the unexpected. Hard checks make sense in games where the dialogue is not the main gameplay, but this is not one of those games. If you think RNG makes sense in typical RPG combat, then it makes sense in Disco Elysium's conversations.

Fair point, and trust me i have no issue with RNG but i like to be at least able to have an idea on how to try to mitigiate those unpredictibals or at least have a sense where they're coming from instead of just total abstraction, i am sure Disco Elyisium handles this a little better then i think it does, i just tend to be a little cynical about games after all the dissappointments i've had with several games these last years.

Stop acting like a retard and people will stop treating you like one

Everyone else in this thread are arguing their points and opinions in a civil manner, you're the only one who looks like a retard here.

 

[barghwata]

This ladies and gentelmen is called a "strawman" where you misrepresent what someone is saying or put words into someone's mouth then counter those words, i said "some of them" which means only those that are possible to implement and i am mainly referring to persuation really.

Let's be clear here. Your position is that a special subsystem should be implemented for social skills, to eliminate dice rolls only for those skills, because social situations can't be influenced by a colossal variety of uncontrollable factors, unlike other situations?

If not eliminate them at the very least lessen their impact on the game as much as possible by trying to implement what you can of those unpredictabls.

 

[Prime Junta]

Fair point, and trust me i have no issue with RNG but i like to be at least able to have an idea on how to try to mitigiate those unpredictibals or at least have a sense where they're coming from instead of just total abstraction

DE is completely transparent about the numbers, including modifiers from previous actions or other factors. It will also tell you your odds.

 

[Zombra]

If not eliminate them at the very least lessen their impact on the game as much as possible by trying to implement what you can of those unpredictabls.

Why social skills? What is it about trying to change someone's political opinion (for example), that makes it much more predictable and controlled than something like climbing a wall? Is wall climbing impossible to model? Why is a dice roll OK for wall climbing or lockpicking, but not for something super intangible like making someone trust you? Honestly I'd say it's the other way around.