Questions about Class and Personality Dialogue Options

[Zwiebelchen]

These are the most frequent checks in dialogues, in order of importance:

 

Perception (several 16+ checks)

Resolve (several 16+ checks aswell)

Intelligence (from what I've seen, most checks are 14+ with only a few outliers)

Character Reputation (honest having the most checks)

Lore (have not seen much above 7+, though)

 

 

The only classes that matter for dialogue choices are Paladin and Cipher. Most of class-related checks are for those two classes. Ciphers get checked more frequently from my experience.

The only race that is often checked for in dialogue is - for some weird reason - Orlan. As weird as it sounds: godlikes have almost zero checks.

 

Athletic seems useful on paper, but athletics checks can often be bypassed with a grappling hook.

 

 

Everything else is pretty insignificant.

Edited May 8, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Luckmann]

If we're talking Attributes in dialogues, the ones that are easily the worst off is Dexterity and Constitution. Might actually has quite a lot of options, especially if you're Aggressive (sadly), but Constitution and Dexterity? I can't even remember a single one for Constitution, and maaaybe one for Dexterity (but I might be confusing that with some other game).

There's a few Perception checks, but not nearly as many as you'd expect. Most is probably Resolve, followed by Intellect.

For Skills, there's a few Lore and Survival checks that I saw, but the rest is by and large useless. Like Zwiebelchen says above, most Athletics checks come in scripted events and can be replaced by a grappling hook.

When it comes to backgrounds, classes and such, feast your eyes on this:
 

 

Any chance you could check the same for cultural backgrounds?

I decided to do it properly, checking for everything I could think of. I crawled the "*.conversation" files with grep and removed redundant checks (like the 12 Fire Godlike checks for the braziers in the starter dungeon):

Barbarian: 3
Chanter: 2
Cipher: 17
Druid: 1
Fighter: 5
Monk: 2
Paladin: 1 + Order
Priest: 6 (3 unique - without equivalent "Clergyman" background check) + Deity
Ranger: 3
Rogue: 3
Wizard: 4

Kind Wayfarers: 7
Bleak Walkers: 6
Shieldbearers: 3
Goldpact: 2
Darcozzi: 3

Berath: 3
Skaen: 7
Magran: 6
Wael: 5
Eothas: 7

Aristocrat: 8
Artist: 4
Clergyman: 7 (4 unique)
Colonist: 9
Dissident: 6
Drifter: 4
Explorer: 9
Hunter: 10
Laborer: 8
Mercenary: 8
Merchant: 11
Mystic: 5
Philosopher: 11
Raider: 11
Scholar: 13
Scientist: 6
Slave: 7

Aedyr: 12 (5 of them with Aloth)
Deadfire: 9
Ixamitl Plains: 1
Old Vailia: 4
Rauatai: 0
The Living Lands: 9
White That Wends: 14

Aumaua: 7
Coastal Aumaua: 1

Dwarf: 0
Boreal Dwarf: 1

Elf: 1
Snow Elf: 7 (3 with Glaswal)

Godlike: 10
Fire Godlike: 4
Nature Godlike: 2
Moon Godlike: 2
Death Godlike: 3

Human: 1

Orlan: 14 (5 with Captain Aldmar)
Hearth Orlan: 1
Wild Orlan: 1

Male: 7
Female: 12

 

Ponder the idea of a Female Cipher Wild Orlan Merchant from The White That Wends (69) compared to a Male Druid Mountain Dwarf Artist from Old Valia (16).

Character reactivity in the game ranges from isolated events of "Hey, that's pretty awesome" to practically non-existent for the entirety of the game. For example, I started a playthrough as (spoilers!) a Priestess of Eothas and was.. let down, to say the least. Even when there's a degree of reactivity, it by no means feels appropriate or meaningful 100% of the time, and there's a fair degree of overlap (for example, Priest and Clergyman shares most reactivity, even though a lot of characters would probably want to grab too and be rewarded for that.

So.. it's a bit hit/miss.

[Nobear]

I'd like to crawl these ".conversation" files as well, to find things like the highest value that is checked for each skill or attribute. Any way I can do that on a Mac?

[Clicks]

Could have sworn there's Rauatai checks with Kana. Or are they considered redundant?

[Zwiebelchen]

@Luckmann: thanks for all the work you've put into this.

It actually matches with my experience from the game (Orlan, Cipher and Paladin having the most unique options).

 

What I didn't know was that there are actually that many background checks - though most of them are probably with Thaos and the companions.

I think we already have 3-4 of the background checks in the intro mission.

 

I hope that Obsidian will put into a stronger directive into all this in the sequel and expansions.

 

 

Take only one or two of the features and make it strong and discard all the rest. Nobody can expect all factors to be equally important. That would be insane.

 

 

The current game focuses on Stat and Reputation checks the most. This is fine to me, because it imho has the largest roleplay value to it and affects the largest userbase.

 

If they wanted to develope more factors, I'd say they should go for stats/skills and gender. Why? Well, several reasons:

 

1) if they would want to properly adress godlikes as in the description, they'd basicly have to write reactions on every single dialogue. This is blown completely out of proportion imho. I wish they'd just get rid of godlikes. It doesn't do the game good to be able to have a 6-godlike party and see godlike NPCs everywhere. Godlikes should be rare. It should be limited to NPCs where the scope is limited enough to fully flesh the NPC reactions out. Similar problem with Orlans and Aumauas.

 

2) Your past-life is rarely of interest for an NPC. They know you are an adventurer and that's all that counts. Backgrounds literally only matter in conversations with party members - because only them will probably know about it. It doesn't make much sense to put extra emphasizis on background.

 

3) Stat checks make a lot of sense and actually matter from a gameplay perspective. Also, high number of possible players affected is always good in my book.

 

4) Gender-specific content is very easy to write and easy to follow aswell. Also, it makes sense for your gender to matter more or less in specific situations. Some NPCs care. Some NPCs couldn't care less. Perfect candidate for fleshing out, imho.

 

5) Nobody knows about your religion. Same problem as with backgrounds, imho.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Nakia]

Could have sworn there's Rauatai checks with Kana. Or are they considered redundant?

I did get one option where I could ask him what had happen since I had left Rauatai.  My character is from there.

[Varana]

The check for the Rauatai background is misspelt as "Ruatai" in the files; there are 5 instances in companion_cv_kana.conversation, and one in companion_cv_kana_rest.conversation. I didn't check the non-Kana-related files.