@PandaTar wrote:
@CasperTheLich
No new system, because they'll screw it up.
Only something that would make sense and translate the ways we picked up in this game. Although I don't discard the idea it was made for another deeper reason, I think the game only gave us 4 different options because they thought it was cute doing so. If not, they're yet to prove it. And the simplest way I can think of, if by carrying over our personality for subtle changes in the next instalment, if any.
@PandaTar
I guess they based those dialogue options on Insights Discovery (R) method like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHcYw60HmP4
The method is very popular in corporations (at least in those for which I have already worked) for a long time already. It allows to easily assign people to 4 communication patterns, and thus better understand them, and better liaise with them. To make it short: people get used to preferred behavior patterns, and e.g. are either focused on emotions (green), or on others (yellow), or on tasks before them (red), or on the method (blue). So e.g. to inspire working team that consists mainly of "green" people You need to appeal to their emotional side (like "we need to deliver on time because otherwise we will disappoint our clients; that would make us look and feel bad, wouldn't it?"), to inspire "yellow" people we should address the team spirit (like "we are in this together, and we will surely have great time working on this, right?"), to convince "red" people You must explain the task and possibly tease a bit (like "OK, to achieve success we need to mail the report by tomorrow 800; we already know that our affiliate in country X will not deliver on time, but You will deliver on time, right?"), and to convince "blue" people You must explain the process and use as many graphs as possible (like "as You can see on the chart here, we have backlog with processing data from A, so in order to get the report done, we will need to collect data from B and C, and reconcile it; we will then need to manually adjust and remap to format that is expected from data A; can anyone assess how much time we will gain by assigning another person to the team to accomplish it this way?").
Of course it is never THAT simple (and actually the method is mainly focused on communicating in an understandable way rather than on manipulating as per example above), but I/D model is quite nice and functional, all the same.
This system was already used in games such as Alpha Protocol (in a VERY successful way), and by BW in Dragon Age Inquisition. Please note that it made heaps more sense in DAI, since it actually served some purpose there: the way You communicated with others made them more or less convinced to You exactly as I/D model assumes (so e.g. if Herald was talking to a "green" team member using emotional answer it was granting You some approval points; while using red answers with a "green" team member was taking some approval points away). In MEA we do not really have approval, so well... It is just a flavor.
So what BW has done with the dialogue system in MEA is - in my opinion - allowing players to *express* them better as Ryder, even though ultimately related outcome is exactly the same. In other words diagonal choices are not about actual choices but about how we communicate with others (or how we "role-play" Ryder). They were never intended to do anything else. Only horizontal selections are about making actual decisions, and in this respect they are quite similar to renegade/paragon choices from the past games, though they are not marked as such, and are (probably) not tracked as rude/galant.
TL;DR: Diagonal dialogue options are ONLY for flavor, but they are appreciated all the same as far as I am concerned.
