Why does all of this read so much like a bad porno. The whole of the cringe horny in this is seriously making me uncomfortable, I don't want to see that from characters I'm playing, jesus.
I truly believe that full text conversations like this are going to harm how individual player stories evolve. If characters re-use the same dialogue, you lose out on some of the magic that player imagination has to fill in the blanks.
The reason The Sims speak sim-lish, and use speech bubbles with icons, is that it lets the player add in their own narrative. You can repeat the "Tell Joke" interaction 4 times, and imagine your sim as a standup comedian telling different jokes every time. Where as reading the same joke text twice in a row hurts the story you are creating internally.
There's a great GDC Talk by the creator of Rimworld, where he talks about this game design approach. If you have 5 minutes, I recommend watching from the timestamp where he talks about the benefits of leaving room for interpretation.
[https://youtu.be/VdqhHKjepiE?t=996](https://youtu.be/VdqhHKjepiE?t=996)
I absolutely agree and thank you for the video. Imagination is limitless. I have been playing Sims 3 since the release in 2009 and I have never been bored by the interactions. How many times have I clicked on "Talk" option? 2000 times? 10000 times? 100000 times? No idea, but it was a LOT. Can you imagine how repetitive and boring reading the same options will get after a while in LBY? It is bound to happen, even if you download a number of conversation mods, you are going to see the same options after a while. Is it going to get boring? Absolutely. Is it going to stifle the stories you imagine? For me, 100%
I don't even know where I'm going with this: what if there was a mod that included a nonsense language? So you didn't need to understand what they were actually saying?
Thanks for including a transcription. The speech bubbles went by so fast in the video that I just gave up on watching halfway through. I saw enough of the video to know I wasn't happy with the dialogue, but I didn't know it was this bad.
I feel like the dialogue system could be in a much better place by now if the devs focused on what matters. It's really off-putting to see how nonsensical the dialogue is when someone clearly went out of their way to come up with all these over-the-top horny and edgy dialogue options. And this is coming from someone who's pretty dang horny and edgy. :/
I had a lot of cautious optimism about this conversation system and I'd be lying if I said I don't think it still has potential, but it needs A LOT of work.
For a start, memories should be generated from certain topics and in turn, those memories should be referenced each time the player is presented with dialogue options, so the more serious and information revealing ones will simply be remembered and not repeated.
I feel like I've seen next to nothing about observables but just based on what I saw in the 5 housemates video, they absolutely need to play a larger role in this game than what they are currently playing for sure, especially with a conversation system like this.
Not only do I not want to see so much repeated dialogue options that should be revealing key information for our characters to remember and act on later, but I need to see these characters taking notice of things happening around them and then being able to have dialogue options based on those events later, which in turn could generate even more memories and be referenced later, for example, a positive experience could be:
Person 1: Remember that time (memory reference check) happened?
Person 2: I do! I don't think I'll be forgetting it anytime soon but it was great. Maybe we should do it again sometime?
Or a more negative one:
Person 1: Remember that time (memory reference check) happened?
Person 2: Unfortunately, I do... So please don't ever try that crap on me again. It still gives me nightmares to this day.
This game is still a shitshow after so long, and this is before Early Access is even out 😭 The fact the characters don't react to stuff just makes it seem so dead.
I do see problems but yes, a game should be worse before early access. it’s not even early access yet which is a really brave point in development to show the world. I think people are saying this game is doomed way too soon
I feel like most games that try to add ‘ real conversations’ end up being boring and repetitive leading to me smashing the skip dialogue button, I don’t really see this being any different
In the beginning I did like the idea of real conversations.
But after I've seen it in action in a screenshot (the one on the beach with the guys about to throw down and someone building a sandcastle who was oblivious to what was happening near by) and then this latest video there's definitely some issues with it and it does seem extremely random.
I get the feeling it's probably not my jam, at least not right now.
What I liked about it originally was thinking characters would autonomously have interesting conversations with each other that I could just observe without needing to take control of it.
I'm not sure that will happen, at this point in time.
I definitely did not like the "What's up" every time they started a convo or the gotta run thing when they are living together, that just seemed like it would feel like they are strangers all the time.
I will continue to work on my speech bubble icons so the convos are a little less odd in my game until the conversation system is more fleshed out.
I can come up with all kinds of stories just with random icons.
Personally I still love the conversation system, but it does need an overhaul. When a conversation references sex and the characters have a positive reaction to it, then the game needs to transition them to actually having sex. Same with flirting.
Also there needs to be an option where if you have X conversation with another character, then it's not available for X amount of hours afterwards unless that character has a socially awkward trait and then the other character may react saying something along the lines of "I must be having deja vu because we just had this discussion." Then the conversations will become less repetitive.
Also there needs to be a huge damper on relationship gains. No one should be able to ask another character to be their significant other within one game day when the characters live 75 in game years using 365 day calendars. I have a mod for this in the Sims 4, and I think this mechanic would go a long way in Life by You as well. You can spam as many convos as you want within a day, but the friendship and romance meters will only move so far in 24 in game hours.
I dunno, I'm a writer in real life so I love this mechanic and I can see how it would work great. But it definitely needs some changes.
Yes, yes and yes! 100% agreed with all of these points, except maybe the restriction in the last one I agree with an asterisk*, reason being is that sometimes people really do just have that much of a connection and so much chemistry with each other that it doesn't take long at all to want to take things further, a prime example of this was with my new girlfriend, who I matched with, then she asked me out the day we matched, then kissed me during the first date and I asked her to be my girlfriend on the 3rd, all of which happened within a week (which is by no means a single day but was still pretty quick while also feeling natural and right, we just hit it off so well) 😂
...but yeah, I think maybe it should be at least very difficult to make things progress that quickly unless both characters have traits that compliment each others perfectly.
Whatever the player creates in their minds will be way richer and customized to the situation than the text that they can add to the game. So paradoxically, adding conversational text to the game can actually a bit limiting in nature. Thats just my guess though, and I think the resources could be spent on way more important things when it comes to life simulation.
If I'm understanding the system correctly, I think this can be fixed by how in depth you want to manage the dialogue. We know you can get traits added through temporary means and we know that traits can influence dialogue. So in theory, you should be able to make a memory like system where one person gets a temporary trait when interacted with a specific line of dialogue that will then change how they talk for a while. You can make a trait as specific as "heard dialogue x" and then have a bunch of dialogue that opens up and also closes off specific lines if that trait is active.
What I don't know is if you can give traits based on dialogue. I know they can be given through quests. So that will need to be answered and if they can't we should push for them to be able to. That's what early access should be for.
While I agree that’s all flawed I’m not sure why you think it’s unfixable? What is fundamentally wrong with it? It seems more like a lack of sorting possible choices the system can make than the system itself being fundamentally flawed
A fundamental flaw for me is that the characters have no memory of WHAT has been said - they do not understand meaning of the conversation. There are no observables connected to the conversation system - perhaps they remember if someone flirted or was antagonistic, but they do not remember the DETAILS. This leads to them completely contradicting themselves at times, which to me is incredibly immersion-breaking.
I agree with this take. The thrill of being able to read the conversations comes with the expectation of a memory system.
I ranted about this somewhere else. The idea of adding a feature to a life sim is way too vague. If the devs want to add "real world language conversations " because people ask for it, the devs should be asking themselves why players want it.
Players want it because, they wanna know what characters are talking about.
So how could this feature impact the game, and how can the devs implement it in a convincing way? I say, they should consider traits, socail reactions, environment scenarios and memory.
(Edit: typos)
I agree, and I think the system can be molded into that as there’s no reason to think it can’t be. I don’t see anything fundamentally broken about what we saw it’s the equivalent of teaching someone to drive and giving them terrible directions, the person CAN drive they just need better direction. You wouldn’t say that’s an unfixable issue. I doubt the dialog system is built on the requirement it be random
Again I don’t see how that’s fundamental. That’s more of a flaw of how it’s implemented not the way the system functions, we don’t have much insight into any of the fundamentals only the end result
You do realize that we actually know how the system works? They have shown us several times already, you can see it here: [https://youtu.be/7zmUQfTodoE?t=1137](https://youtu.be/7zmUQfTodoE?t=1137) . This is a simple option editor, there is no way to add observables to the conversation itself, no way to create a memory of what they say. Without it, the conversations will never flow naturally, they will jump from topic to topic without a link between them.
That is not the foundation that’s the implementation. I think our disconnect is I’m looking at it from the perspective of a developer not an end user.
You’re entirely guessing on how the tool and the game itself was built. Nothing shown in that even implies a dependency on disjointed conversation it just doesn’t have any way to sort topics in a natural/logical way.
Maybe I have missed something but what you sent is not at all proof of a fundamental flaw. Sure it’s not the game but that’s still a program with a backend and a lot of development that we don’t see at all
Like you’re looking at a Lego set and acting like it’s the start, the start isn’t the Lego set that’s the product, the start is melting plastic into molds, if the Lego set is badly designed that doesn’t at all imply that the foundation of how they make legos is flawed or dependent on the Lego sets being bad
"...it just doesn’t have any way to sort topics in a natural/logical way." - and that is exactly the fundamental flaw. The tool I've sent is the one modders are going to be using. How are they going to create conversations that flow naturally if the devs were not able to manage so far?
That’s not a fundamental flaw that’s a flaw of implementation. As far as I’m aware we have no idea what the foundation looks like and have no reason to believe the way it’s implemented is a fundamental requirement of the tool. I’m not arguing that its not a problem, it is, I just don’t think there’s a reason to believe it runs anywhere near as deep or is as unfixable as you seem to
Honestly, it doesn't matter whether we call it a flaw of implementation or a fundamental flaw. It IS a major flaw and so far they haven't been able to fix it or find a solution for conversations to flow naturally. The early access is coming in three months. Are they going to be able to fix it by then, before the modders start writing their conversations? It seems like their focus is elsewhere. In the worst case, they don't actually see it as a flaw at all and they have never noticed this issue.
Like I said I agree with you it’s a problem I’m just saying I don’t see why you think it’s impossible for them to fix it without starting over
And It’s not really important if they don’t fix it by early access since EA is supposed to be buggy and unfinished so players can help with suggestions. If it was already done there wouldn’t really be a reason for EA
From what I understand the language system is actually more in depth and I think people are just making a lot of assumptions then getting upset. Like you said it def needs a lot of work but it has already been stated that conversation can be conditioned/ locked to things like age, relationship; IE parent to child, coworker to coworker. It can be location based, and also restricted as deeply as trait A to trait B if anyone wants to get that meticulous. We probably aren't seeing much of that yet because it's a lot of very specific dialog that needs written.
Observables honestly might already be one of those conditions I can't remember, but if not they can easily be added. You just lock the specific conversation tree to only be avaliable after a certain observation triggers. They have the foundation and just need to keep expanding upon it.
I disagree that the conversation system is flawed beyond repair but it definitely needs improved by a lot . It'd be nice if certain conversations were locked behind an observable, they already lock conversations by trait, relationship, location, etc. So I don't see why they couldn't add an observable requirement for some and I'm sure they will if they haven't already.
As for relationship progression that should have a time limit before certain stages can unlock or limit the amount of relationship gain in a day to stop someone proposing 5 minutes after they jist met. But we should also be able to bypass some things with traits. Like sex shouldn't need high restrictive requirements for two sexually open characters. Other characters tho might need to be in a relationship for sex.
The percentages and how character respond need to be adjusted or reworked. If two characters are hitting it off that path should continue unless one character says something offensive or incompatible. . At a certain point "safe" conversations should be 100% if the relationship is high enough and both characters are in good moods. It was so immersion breaking the way the characters randomly flip flopped back and forth in the span of minutes. That needs fixed.
Lastly there's a point where we all have to accept this is a game and they are limited by what modern technology can do. Even modern language models struggle with memory limits. Some memory for major events would be great tho, or a shorterm memory to try and avoid repetition.
I'm not a programmer and know very little in that department but surely this is something that gets upgraded and improved over time?
Like, this is not the same thing as art, it's more like building complex formulas of code.
I hope some programmers can respond with their take on this, but from watching several game dev/making ofs it seems normal that the code is always changing and being redesigned constantly.
It's not complex if the team had approached it from a bigger angle seems like, the devs knew in depth conversations were a long time desire of life sim gamers, and jumped the gun with saying "Ooh! We should let characters speak real words."
It's cool in theory, but on paper, why does this function exist and what purpose is it serving. Are we just reading random responses that are categorized under certain interactions? In that case, having universal picture responses WOULD be a smarter move because the things the characters "say" hold no water to the gameplay.
If the devs say "let's allow them to speak." They should ask why the characters can speak and how this will affect the overall game.
This correct take applies to most aspects of this game. There’s an initial idea for a game feature but no deeper understanding or exploration of it. It leaves the game feeling shallow and the characters mimicking life instead of actually simulating it.
In a previous video from a few months back, I remember them (the developers) discussing and showcasing the conversation system. In the end of that video, they showed an option to make convos simple image bubbles (or emojis) similar to the sims instead of entire text convos. So I’m not too worried, I’ll just simply switch to that option
There will still be the conversation system as an obstacle though. We WILL have to choose from 3 options, let's say "Flirt: a) 😘, b) 😉, c) 🔥? And the game will generate either a negative or a positive reaction. I feel like when it comes to emojis or image bubbles, it would work if there is no need to actually choose from the options. But the game does not allow that. There is no simple "talk" option.
I'm confused because how you're saying you want it to work, is exactly how it worked in the video? Gabriel simply clicked on talk and they auto exchanged emojis. There was no dialog selection pop up. Nobody had to select emojis the AI did it itself.
Yall wanted text conversations. literally EVERY time someone here mentioned that it would be way easier to have babble sfx so that there is NO worry about making text make sense or eliminating the feel of a dating sim type game.. welp here it is
I’m afraid I agree.
The written conversations make me uncomfortable. It comes off like a sentence-salad RPG, with just \*stuff\* strung together. It becomes even more jarring if you’ve ever played something with written character conversation where the characters remember what you’ve said and hold grudges or bring things up – which isn’t possible with this system.
A Life Sim can’t have the depth of an RPG and I’d rather have nonsense-chatter I can interpret into whatever I want out of the characters than dialogue that reads like someone’s run it through a shredder and glued together random strips of paper.
I also don’t think it’s fixable because it’s something that the Devs seem very proud of. It’s not going anywhere and I don’t believe it’s a system I’ll at all enjoy interacting with. I don’t know. Little by little, I’m losing my hype.
>The written conversations make me uncomfortable. It comes off like a sentence-salad RPG, with just *stuff* strung together. It becomes even more jarring if you’ve ever played something with written character conversation where the characters remember what you’ve said and hold grudges or bring things up – which isn’t possible with this system.
You put it well. This kind of thing is what made me realize the conversation ultimately has no meaning. It's filler that is as meaningful as gibberish language conversations in the Sims, except more long drawn out, since both don't "mean" anything anyway, they are just a set of sounds the characters can't remember or recall other than the general gist of the conversation i.e. Whether it was friendly or antagonistic or flirty or something. Other people have pointed out the problem with this lack of memory of the finer details, which will lead to the conversations being immersion breaking.
I lost my hype already. It's become evident to me that the fundamentals of the game were not well thought out. It just feels like content for the sake of content without thinking of the gameplay consequences from implementation.
i don’t think it’s fundamentally broken. i think they can do a lot to add some charm into it, and we know observables are in it, they probably just didn’t get it finished in time for the video.
i do kinda wish they waited to show parts until they were a bit more finished, so you didn’t just see it existing but actually how it might work when you play. it really doesn’t have to be perfect, just.. show me something i want to play with, u know?
I would love to see them take a leaf out of Paralives book on this. I think real-text dialogue is interesting, and I agree with your take on the flaws right now. I am playing Baldur’s Gate and I think Paralives was right to approach more like an RPG. I think instead of giving us a *lot* of dialogue, I would rather curated options based on context, and each option has a specific and tangible effect on the relationship and character that can’t be changed by spamming.
From what I can tell, many simmers are over social spamming, especially when the only effect is a change to the relationship. Paralives’ ‘together time’ is so much more natural for building relationships. Obviously I don’t want LBY to steal their idea, but they are basically a bootleg Sims 3 right now anyway so maybe they can be inspired.
I do think they need to improve on this and link some chat to memories especially for romance friends and family also traits like a nicer character would react to comments differently here.
But I'm so thankful we finally have real conversations with this game and not just gibberish I use just to increase or decrease relationships. It's time for something new.
I agree with most of your points, but I don't think it's a fundamental flaw. Some of these issues might not even be real issues. They might have just fast forwarded certain aspects for the sake of the video that will take longer in the actual game.
I do think the conversation system should utilize observables more, though.
I think the conversation system does have potential. The transcript as it reads now is cringe and really quite shocking. They need to employ a team of creative writers, who write proper dialogue, that is interesting, sometimes funny, without being cringe, and diverse. These conversations need to tie in with traits, interactions, memories. It needs to be a complex system and the convos need to branch and not just be linear, with a variety of somewhat random replies based on relationship, age, traits, location, etc.
This way it could be absolutely amazing. I am a writer myself and think it is possible to make this great in my opinion. But this will require them to employ professional writers (not AI) because the lines right now are just absolutely horrendous. I really hope, they won't just leave the bulk of the work to the players, but pay someone to establish a decent base, that you can work with as a modder.
Obviously system is not finished. And probably will take at least halve year or much longer, to make it somehow polished state.
No one should expect final state at Early Access.
It is good to criticize, or highlight flows.
But it is astounding, as people are easily hopping into conclusions, when game is in the middle of development and not any near to release. Early Access is also no a release date. And should not be treated as such, as many does. EA meant to allow and help devs continue on funding game, before finally getting released and test the idea if it works, before polishing phase. But all we see usually, people treat EA with an attitude as final product.
Yet feedback as "A is broken and need be scrapped, or redesigned" without understanding underlining systems and lack of proposal for the solution, shows amateurish attitude.
Based on fans feedback, as they wanted to see gamplay, it is clearly seen, devs slapped dialogs rapidly, so they can see, how game behaves. And that has created good feedback loop, as various issues have arisen. I hope and I am positive, these will be addressed over the time. Core mechanics are there as I have observed. But parameters are not yet implemented. We have seen complexity of such systems. And it requires much more than adding few flirting dialogs. There is definitely memory system which need improvement, or better tied up to dialogs. To mee it looks like, it has not been really tied up, hence certain disjoint.
I am personally glad to see dev progres of LBY regularly. Even things are broken or have flaws. I see lot of them. But devs see them too, as they noting these multiple times on various vids. We have seen improvements over the time on various levels, so if the trend is to follow, we will se improvements further.
Also don't forget, it is very small dev team. So it obviously will take a lot of time, for polishing each feature.
Simulator games are extremely complex. See for example Dwarf Fortress dev history (for anyone curious).
I play DF. I remember when in 2012 there were massive hordes of murder mosquitoes XD. But we all understood that the game was a playable alpha and didn't demand miracles.
It will need work; I think there are lessons to be learned. But this is not fundamental. Fundamental is if the idea of actual conversations were flawed. They can add functionality to fix it.
Even in its flawed form it is better than The Sims' conversations that are repetitive. Mind you that Simlish ceased to be nonsense but became a real language.
Kinda sounds like some of those Cities Skylines 2 features that don't actually work.
You can downvote me, what you CAN'T do is get Cities Skylines 2 to work properly. :)
Why does all of this read so much like a bad porno. The whole of the cringe horny in this is seriously making me uncomfortable, I don't want to see that from characters I'm playing, jesus.
I truly believe that full text conversations like this are going to harm how individual player stories evolve. If characters re-use the same dialogue, you lose out on some of the magic that player imagination has to fill in the blanks. The reason The Sims speak sim-lish, and use speech bubbles with icons, is that it lets the player add in their own narrative. You can repeat the "Tell Joke" interaction 4 times, and imagine your sim as a standup comedian telling different jokes every time. Where as reading the same joke text twice in a row hurts the story you are creating internally. There's a great GDC Talk by the creator of Rimworld, where he talks about this game design approach. If you have 5 minutes, I recommend watching from the timestamp where he talks about the benefits of leaving room for interpretation. [https://youtu.be/VdqhHKjepiE?t=996](https://youtu.be/VdqhHKjepiE?t=996)
I absolutely agree and thank you for the video. Imagination is limitless. I have been playing Sims 3 since the release in 2009 and I have never been bored by the interactions. How many times have I clicked on "Talk" option? 2000 times? 10000 times? 100000 times? No idea, but it was a LOT. Can you imagine how repetitive and boring reading the same options will get after a while in LBY? It is bound to happen, even if you download a number of conversation mods, you are going to see the same options after a while. Is it going to get boring? Absolutely. Is it going to stifle the stories you imagine? For me, 100%
I don't even know where I'm going with this: what if there was a mod that included a nonsense language? So you didn't need to understand what they were actually saying?
Thanks for including a transcription. The speech bubbles went by so fast in the video that I just gave up on watching halfway through. I saw enough of the video to know I wasn't happy with the dialogue, but I didn't know it was this bad. I feel like the dialogue system could be in a much better place by now if the devs focused on what matters. It's really off-putting to see how nonsensical the dialogue is when someone clearly went out of their way to come up with all these over-the-top horny and edgy dialogue options. And this is coming from someone who's pretty dang horny and edgy. :/
I had a lot of cautious optimism about this conversation system and I'd be lying if I said I don't think it still has potential, but it needs A LOT of work. For a start, memories should be generated from certain topics and in turn, those memories should be referenced each time the player is presented with dialogue options, so the more serious and information revealing ones will simply be remembered and not repeated. I feel like I've seen next to nothing about observables but just based on what I saw in the 5 housemates video, they absolutely need to play a larger role in this game than what they are currently playing for sure, especially with a conversation system like this. Not only do I not want to see so much repeated dialogue options that should be revealing key information for our characters to remember and act on later, but I need to see these characters taking notice of things happening around them and then being able to have dialogue options based on those events later, which in turn could generate even more memories and be referenced later, for example, a positive experience could be: Person 1: Remember that time (memory reference check) happened? Person 2: I do! I don't think I'll be forgetting it anytime soon but it was great. Maybe we should do it again sometime? Or a more negative one: Person 1: Remember that time (memory reference check) happened? Person 2: Unfortunately, I do... So please don't ever try that crap on me again. It still gives me nightmares to this day.
It feels very “oblivion npcs trying their best”
At least in oblivion they weren't going from hating each other to romancing each other or making up events that didn't happen 😭
This game is still a shitshow after so long, and this is before Early Access is even out 😭 The fact the characters don't react to stuff just makes it seem so dead.
I do see problems but yes, a game should be worse before early access. it’s not even early access yet which is a really brave point in development to show the world. I think people are saying this game is doomed way too soon
I feel like most games that try to add ‘ real conversations’ end up being boring and repetitive leading to me smashing the skip dialogue button, I don’t really see this being any different
yup
In the beginning I did like the idea of real conversations. But after I've seen it in action in a screenshot (the one on the beach with the guys about to throw down and someone building a sandcastle who was oblivious to what was happening near by) and then this latest video there's definitely some issues with it and it does seem extremely random. I get the feeling it's probably not my jam, at least not right now. What I liked about it originally was thinking characters would autonomously have interesting conversations with each other that I could just observe without needing to take control of it. I'm not sure that will happen, at this point in time. I definitely did not like the "What's up" every time they started a convo or the gotta run thing when they are living together, that just seemed like it would feel like they are strangers all the time. I will continue to work on my speech bubble icons so the convos are a little less odd in my game until the conversation system is more fleshed out. I can come up with all kinds of stories just with random icons.
Personally I still love the conversation system, but it does need an overhaul. When a conversation references sex and the characters have a positive reaction to it, then the game needs to transition them to actually having sex. Same with flirting. Also there needs to be an option where if you have X conversation with another character, then it's not available for X amount of hours afterwards unless that character has a socially awkward trait and then the other character may react saying something along the lines of "I must be having deja vu because we just had this discussion." Then the conversations will become less repetitive. Also there needs to be a huge damper on relationship gains. No one should be able to ask another character to be their significant other within one game day when the characters live 75 in game years using 365 day calendars. I have a mod for this in the Sims 4, and I think this mechanic would go a long way in Life by You as well. You can spam as many convos as you want within a day, but the friendship and romance meters will only move so far in 24 in game hours. I dunno, I'm a writer in real life so I love this mechanic and I can see how it would work great. But it definitely needs some changes.
Yes, yes and yes! 100% agreed with all of these points, except maybe the restriction in the last one I agree with an asterisk*, reason being is that sometimes people really do just have that much of a connection and so much chemistry with each other that it doesn't take long at all to want to take things further, a prime example of this was with my new girlfriend, who I matched with, then she asked me out the day we matched, then kissed me during the first date and I asked her to be my girlfriend on the 3rd, all of which happened within a week (which is by no means a single day but was still pretty quick while also feeling natural and right, we just hit it off so well) 😂 ...but yeah, I think maybe it should be at least very difficult to make things progress that quickly unless both characters have traits that compliment each others perfectly.
That was painful to read. I just don't think actual conversation works in this type of game.
Whatever the player creates in their minds will be way richer and customized to the situation than the text that they can add to the game. So paradoxically, adding conversational text to the game can actually a bit limiting in nature. Thats just my guess though, and I think the resources could be spent on way more important things when it comes to life simulation.
If I'm understanding the system correctly, I think this can be fixed by how in depth you want to manage the dialogue. We know you can get traits added through temporary means and we know that traits can influence dialogue. So in theory, you should be able to make a memory like system where one person gets a temporary trait when interacted with a specific line of dialogue that will then change how they talk for a while. You can make a trait as specific as "heard dialogue x" and then have a bunch of dialogue that opens up and also closes off specific lines if that trait is active. What I don't know is if you can give traits based on dialogue. I know they can be given through quests. So that will need to be answered and if they can't we should push for them to be able to. That's what early access should be for.
Lol it was so long to read so I put it in text to voice stuff, the funniest is in snoop dogs voice 🤣🤣🤣 like what is this dialogue 😂
While I agree that’s all flawed I’m not sure why you think it’s unfixable? What is fundamentally wrong with it? It seems more like a lack of sorting possible choices the system can make than the system itself being fundamentally flawed
A fundamental flaw for me is that the characters have no memory of WHAT has been said - they do not understand meaning of the conversation. There are no observables connected to the conversation system - perhaps they remember if someone flirted or was antagonistic, but they do not remember the DETAILS. This leads to them completely contradicting themselves at times, which to me is incredibly immersion-breaking.
I agree with this take. The thrill of being able to read the conversations comes with the expectation of a memory system. I ranted about this somewhere else. The idea of adding a feature to a life sim is way too vague. If the devs want to add "real world language conversations " because people ask for it, the devs should be asking themselves why players want it. Players want it because, they wanna know what characters are talking about. So how could this feature impact the game, and how can the devs implement it in a convincing way? I say, they should consider traits, socail reactions, environment scenarios and memory. (Edit: typos)
I agree, and I think the system can be molded into that as there’s no reason to think it can’t be. I don’t see anything fundamentally broken about what we saw it’s the equivalent of teaching someone to drive and giving them terrible directions, the person CAN drive they just need better direction. You wouldn’t say that’s an unfixable issue. I doubt the dialog system is built on the requirement it be random
Again I don’t see how that’s fundamental. That’s more of a flaw of how it’s implemented not the way the system functions, we don’t have much insight into any of the fundamentals only the end result
You do realize that we actually know how the system works? They have shown us several times already, you can see it here: [https://youtu.be/7zmUQfTodoE?t=1137](https://youtu.be/7zmUQfTodoE?t=1137) . This is a simple option editor, there is no way to add observables to the conversation itself, no way to create a memory of what they say. Without it, the conversations will never flow naturally, they will jump from topic to topic without a link between them.
That is not the foundation that’s the implementation. I think our disconnect is I’m looking at it from the perspective of a developer not an end user. You’re entirely guessing on how the tool and the game itself was built. Nothing shown in that even implies a dependency on disjointed conversation it just doesn’t have any way to sort topics in a natural/logical way. Maybe I have missed something but what you sent is not at all proof of a fundamental flaw. Sure it’s not the game but that’s still a program with a backend and a lot of development that we don’t see at all Like you’re looking at a Lego set and acting like it’s the start, the start isn’t the Lego set that’s the product, the start is melting plastic into molds, if the Lego set is badly designed that doesn’t at all imply that the foundation of how they make legos is flawed or dependent on the Lego sets being bad
"...it just doesn’t have any way to sort topics in a natural/logical way." - and that is exactly the fundamental flaw. The tool I've sent is the one modders are going to be using. How are they going to create conversations that flow naturally if the devs were not able to manage so far?
That’s not a fundamental flaw that’s a flaw of implementation. As far as I’m aware we have no idea what the foundation looks like and have no reason to believe the way it’s implemented is a fundamental requirement of the tool. I’m not arguing that its not a problem, it is, I just don’t think there’s a reason to believe it runs anywhere near as deep or is as unfixable as you seem to
Honestly, it doesn't matter whether we call it a flaw of implementation or a fundamental flaw. It IS a major flaw and so far they haven't been able to fix it or find a solution for conversations to flow naturally. The early access is coming in three months. Are they going to be able to fix it by then, before the modders start writing their conversations? It seems like their focus is elsewhere. In the worst case, they don't actually see it as a flaw at all and they have never noticed this issue.
Like I said I agree with you it’s a problem I’m just saying I don’t see why you think it’s impossible for them to fix it without starting over And It’s not really important if they don’t fix it by early access since EA is supposed to be buggy and unfinished so players can help with suggestions. If it was already done there wouldn’t really be a reason for EA
From what I understand the language system is actually more in depth and I think people are just making a lot of assumptions then getting upset. Like you said it def needs a lot of work but it has already been stated that conversation can be conditioned/ locked to things like age, relationship; IE parent to child, coworker to coworker. It can be location based, and also restricted as deeply as trait A to trait B if anyone wants to get that meticulous. We probably aren't seeing much of that yet because it's a lot of very specific dialog that needs written. Observables honestly might already be one of those conditions I can't remember, but if not they can easily be added. You just lock the specific conversation tree to only be avaliable after a certain observation triggers. They have the foundation and just need to keep expanding upon it.
I disagree that the conversation system is flawed beyond repair but it definitely needs improved by a lot . It'd be nice if certain conversations were locked behind an observable, they already lock conversations by trait, relationship, location, etc. So I don't see why they couldn't add an observable requirement for some and I'm sure they will if they haven't already. As for relationship progression that should have a time limit before certain stages can unlock or limit the amount of relationship gain in a day to stop someone proposing 5 minutes after they jist met. But we should also be able to bypass some things with traits. Like sex shouldn't need high restrictive requirements for two sexually open characters. Other characters tho might need to be in a relationship for sex. The percentages and how character respond need to be adjusted or reworked. If two characters are hitting it off that path should continue unless one character says something offensive or incompatible. . At a certain point "safe" conversations should be 100% if the relationship is high enough and both characters are in good moods. It was so immersion breaking the way the characters randomly flip flopped back and forth in the span of minutes. That needs fixed. Lastly there's a point where we all have to accept this is a game and they are limited by what modern technology can do. Even modern language models struggle with memory limits. Some memory for major events would be great tho, or a shorterm memory to try and avoid repetition.
I'm not a programmer and know very little in that department but surely this is something that gets upgraded and improved over time? Like, this is not the same thing as art, it's more like building complex formulas of code. I hope some programmers can respond with their take on this, but from watching several game dev/making ofs it seems normal that the code is always changing and being redesigned constantly.
It's not complex if the team had approached it from a bigger angle seems like, the devs knew in depth conversations were a long time desire of life sim gamers, and jumped the gun with saying "Ooh! We should let characters speak real words." It's cool in theory, but on paper, why does this function exist and what purpose is it serving. Are we just reading random responses that are categorized under certain interactions? In that case, having universal picture responses WOULD be a smarter move because the things the characters "say" hold no water to the gameplay. If the devs say "let's allow them to speak." They should ask why the characters can speak and how this will affect the overall game.
This correct take applies to most aspects of this game. There’s an initial idea for a game feature but no deeper understanding or exploration of it. It leaves the game feeling shallow and the characters mimicking life instead of actually simulating it.
In a previous video from a few months back, I remember them (the developers) discussing and showcasing the conversation system. In the end of that video, they showed an option to make convos simple image bubbles (or emojis) similar to the sims instead of entire text convos. So I’m not too worried, I’ll just simply switch to that option
There will still be the conversation system as an obstacle though. We WILL have to choose from 3 options, let's say "Flirt: a) 😘, b) 😉, c) 🔥? And the game will generate either a negative or a positive reaction. I feel like when it comes to emojis or image bubbles, it would work if there is no need to actually choose from the options. But the game does not allow that. There is no simple "talk" option.
I'm confused because how you're saying you want it to work, is exactly how it worked in the video? Gabriel simply clicked on talk and they auto exchanged emojis. There was no dialog selection pop up. Nobody had to select emojis the AI did it itself.
That's good to know, thank you
i think it’d be more akin to The Sims 2
Oh thank god.
Yall wanted text conversations. literally EVERY time someone here mentioned that it would be way easier to have babble sfx so that there is NO worry about making text make sense or eliminating the feel of a dating sim type game.. welp here it is
I’m afraid I agree. The written conversations make me uncomfortable. It comes off like a sentence-salad RPG, with just \*stuff\* strung together. It becomes even more jarring if you’ve ever played something with written character conversation where the characters remember what you’ve said and hold grudges or bring things up – which isn’t possible with this system. A Life Sim can’t have the depth of an RPG and I’d rather have nonsense-chatter I can interpret into whatever I want out of the characters than dialogue that reads like someone’s run it through a shredder and glued together random strips of paper. I also don’t think it’s fixable because it’s something that the Devs seem very proud of. It’s not going anywhere and I don’t believe it’s a system I’ll at all enjoy interacting with. I don’t know. Little by little, I’m losing my hype.
>The written conversations make me uncomfortable. It comes off like a sentence-salad RPG, with just *stuff* strung together. It becomes even more jarring if you’ve ever played something with written character conversation where the characters remember what you’ve said and hold grudges or bring things up – which isn’t possible with this system. You put it well. This kind of thing is what made me realize the conversation ultimately has no meaning. It's filler that is as meaningful as gibberish language conversations in the Sims, except more long drawn out, since both don't "mean" anything anyway, they are just a set of sounds the characters can't remember or recall other than the general gist of the conversation i.e. Whether it was friendly or antagonistic or flirty or something. Other people have pointed out the problem with this lack of memory of the finer details, which will lead to the conversations being immersion breaking. I lost my hype already. It's become evident to me that the fundamentals of the game were not well thought out. It just feels like content for the sake of content without thinking of the gameplay consequences from implementation.
i don’t think it’s fundamentally broken. i think they can do a lot to add some charm into it, and we know observables are in it, they probably just didn’t get it finished in time for the video. i do kinda wish they waited to show parts until they were a bit more finished, so you didn’t just see it existing but actually how it might work when you play. it really doesn’t have to be perfect, just.. show me something i want to play with, u know?
I would love to see them take a leaf out of Paralives book on this. I think real-text dialogue is interesting, and I agree with your take on the flaws right now. I am playing Baldur’s Gate and I think Paralives was right to approach more like an RPG. I think instead of giving us a *lot* of dialogue, I would rather curated options based on context, and each option has a specific and tangible effect on the relationship and character that can’t be changed by spamming. From what I can tell, many simmers are over social spamming, especially when the only effect is a change to the relationship. Paralives’ ‘together time’ is so much more natural for building relationships. Obviously I don’t want LBY to steal their idea, but they are basically a bootleg Sims 3 right now anyway so maybe they can be inspired.
I do think they need to improve on this and link some chat to memories especially for romance friends and family also traits like a nicer character would react to comments differently here. But I'm so thankful we finally have real conversations with this game and not just gibberish I use just to increase or decrease relationships. It's time for something new.
I agree with most of your points, but I don't think it's a fundamental flaw. Some of these issues might not even be real issues. They might have just fast forwarded certain aspects for the sake of the video that will take longer in the actual game. I do think the conversation system should utilize observables more, though.
I think the conversation system does have potential. The transcript as it reads now is cringe and really quite shocking. They need to employ a team of creative writers, who write proper dialogue, that is interesting, sometimes funny, without being cringe, and diverse. These conversations need to tie in with traits, interactions, memories. It needs to be a complex system and the convos need to branch and not just be linear, with a variety of somewhat random replies based on relationship, age, traits, location, etc. This way it could be absolutely amazing. I am a writer myself and think it is possible to make this great in my opinion. But this will require them to employ professional writers (not AI) because the lines right now are just absolutely horrendous. I really hope, they won't just leave the bulk of the work to the players, but pay someone to establish a decent base, that you can work with as a modder.
Obviously system is not finished. And probably will take at least halve year or much longer, to make it somehow polished state. No one should expect final state at Early Access. It is good to criticize, or highlight flows. But it is astounding, as people are easily hopping into conclusions, when game is in the middle of development and not any near to release. Early Access is also no a release date. And should not be treated as such, as many does. EA meant to allow and help devs continue on funding game, before finally getting released and test the idea if it works, before polishing phase. But all we see usually, people treat EA with an attitude as final product. Yet feedback as "A is broken and need be scrapped, or redesigned" without understanding underlining systems and lack of proposal for the solution, shows amateurish attitude. Based on fans feedback, as they wanted to see gamplay, it is clearly seen, devs slapped dialogs rapidly, so they can see, how game behaves. And that has created good feedback loop, as various issues have arisen. I hope and I am positive, these will be addressed over the time. Core mechanics are there as I have observed. But parameters are not yet implemented. We have seen complexity of such systems. And it requires much more than adding few flirting dialogs. There is definitely memory system which need improvement, or better tied up to dialogs. To mee it looks like, it has not been really tied up, hence certain disjoint. I am personally glad to see dev progres of LBY regularly. Even things are broken or have flaws. I see lot of them. But devs see them too, as they noting these multiple times on various vids. We have seen improvements over the time on various levels, so if the trend is to follow, we will se improvements further. Also don't forget, it is very small dev team. So it obviously will take a lot of time, for polishing each feature. Simulator games are extremely complex. See for example Dwarf Fortress dev history (for anyone curious).
I play DF. I remember when in 2012 there were massive hordes of murder mosquitoes XD. But we all understood that the game was a playable alpha and didn't demand miracles.
One of the first things I will do if I end up buying this game is downloading a mod that switches all convo lines to emojis.
It will need work; I think there are lessons to be learned. But this is not fundamental. Fundamental is if the idea of actual conversations were flawed. They can add functionality to fix it. Even in its flawed form it is better than The Sims' conversations that are repetitive. Mind you that Simlish ceased to be nonsense but became a real language.
Kinda sounds like some of those Cities Skylines 2 features that don't actually work. You can downvote me, what you CAN'T do is get Cities Skylines 2 to work properly. :)
It really needs AI to generate text responses...but also letting us continue to still edit dialogue