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[crackajack]

Much like graphics options and dificulty levels, they could allow adjusting levels of storytelling intensity. Options are never bad, allowing the user to experience it however they want and a dev should have the vision to make all possibilities vaguely similarly enjoyable. Some games are built around story, skipping there everything would be a bit weird, but any gamey game, probably is alright without stories and could allow players to just ignore those.
The other way around a game like Detroit could remove all user inputs and you just choose one of a couple options in the very beginning, just deciding what kind of movie, basically which end, you want to watch, might also make sense and find a new audience. Especially women seem to be invested in crime stuff on TV without it being in an interactive medium, so might work for them.

 

[Mediocre Arachno-Lad]

I find this topic quite sad, some of you can't even stay engage for 4 lines of dialogues... Smartphones are ruining everyone's brain

Uh-huh, so smartphones are popular, most people have short attention span, and the most mainstream games have little to no dialogue to serve that audience, like Call Of Duty, GTA, God Of War... Oh wait...
Nah, you got it all backwards.
4 lines of pointless dialogue ARE there to keep your tiktok brain engaged.
The suits seem to believe that gameplay won't hold your attention by itself, so they'll assault your senses 24/7.

 

[SoloCamo]

Main reason I stop playing games, Atomic Heart comes to mind real fast.

 

[Zheph]

Uh-huh, so smartphones are popular, most people have short attention span, and the most mainstream games have little to no dialogue to serve that audience, like Call Of Duty, GTA, God Of War... Oh wait...
Nah, you got it all backwards.
4 lines of pointless dialogue ARE there to keep your tiktok brain engaged.
The suits seem to believe that gameplay won't hold your attention by itself, so they'll assault your senses 24/7.

Maybe I do, a lot of games are culprit of that (I have played Midnight Suns and it was indeed bloated in that deparment) so I am not denying that but it doesn't change the fact that our attention span is not as long as it used to be

 

[StueyDuck]

Main reason I stop playing games, Atomic Heart comes to mind real fast.

Yeah atomic heart was pretty aggressive with its constant blabbering... I didn't even make to the point where it becomes kind of open world

 

[Portugeezer]

Kojima makes up for dialogue with an incredible level of cinematography, which is a skill that more story-based game developers should look further into.

The base-level test in this is ‘how do you make two characters who are simply talking to each other, look and feel more engaging’.

Hell, there are still scenes in high profile games of 2023 and 2024 that can’t even hold a candle to the MGS3 intro scene.

Yeah but sometimes you want to chill for an hour before bed, play your game, but end up watching 30 mins of cutscenes.

 

[Valonquar]

Early on in FFVII Rebirth, there's a part in the Nibelhiem flashback when you walk into the inn... and like 30 NPCs all shit out dialog at once and the left side of the screen fills with text.

Fortnite Save the World Ray absolutely never shuts the fuck up ever.

 

[thefool]

Yes brother.
If i want a good story, i'll read a book or watch a film. It's all about gameplay.

 

[LordOfChaos]

There's definitely too much boring exposition explosions at times. In early Death Stranding there's an annoying ass tone phone call every few seconds at times.

One of the shops in Splatoon 1 had an insanely long dialogue tree if you hadn't gone to it regularly, I was in awe of how much time they thought it was ok to waste with it, and you had to keep pressing the right button to get through or risk cancelling it iirc, with no auto progress either. Sheldon I think.

 

[March Climber]

Yeah but sometimes you want to chill for an hour before bed, play your game, but end up watching 30 mins of cutscenes.

Then play a different game. I also wouldn’t recommend someone start the movie Dune or Blade Runner 2049 right before bed.

 

[zeroluck]

Either do proper story telling through gameplay or just make a god damn movie and cut the video into pieces and sprinkle into the game plus a skip button. All these uncanny valley at best cutscenes are breaking immersion.

 

[hemo memo]

That’s a long post about a topic of talking too much.

 

[Mossybrew]

I don't mind cutscenes, they are usually skippable, they are a break from the action, fine.

It's when fuckers won't shut up during the gameplay that I get really irritated. Whether it's your character talking to themselves, some other character talking to you constantly on "comms", idle banter between party members/companions, or repetitive combat barks during combat (I'm looking at you JARPGs) this shit gets REALLY old fast.

 

[March Climber]

That’s a long post about a topic of talking too much.

The difference is that the OP is not going off on a side tangent regarding what he ate for breakfast this morning, like a journalist would do if they brought up this topic and needed to meet a word quota.

 

[hemo memo]

The difference is that the OP is not going off on a side tangent regarding what he ate for breakfast this morning, like a journalist would do if they brought up this topic and needed to meet a word quota.

I was joking and yeah I agree. I don’t know if it’s the age or what, but when I was young cutscenes were like a reward. Now I just want the story to be told through gameplay. Not tell the story through item descriptions though, just meaningful cutscenes.

 

[Arsic]

Well told stories and cut scenes are not a problem to listen to. However even the best games you can see yourself skipping dialogue if it hits you over the head with it repeatedly.

Some exceptions are like Kojima games. We don’t skip shit here.

 

[hemo memo]

Well told stories and cut scenes are not a problem to listen to. However even the best games you can see yourself skipping dialogue if it hits you over the head with it repeatedly.

Some exceptions are like Kojima games. We don’t skip shit here.

I did with 4 though to be honest.

 

[Arsic]

I did with 4 though to be honest.

 

[FeralEcho]

I mean,I agree to some extent,I feel like most developers think the players are retarded and feel the need to constantly overnarrate things because gamers are "too stupidz".

You only have to look at God of War Ragnarok and the 5 seconds it takes Atreus to spill the beans on a puzzle without even giving you enough time to think about it.

But then the same devs that think you are too stupid to solve a simple puzzle apparently changed their mind in the middle of the cutscenes where you're supposed to understand the difficult nature of Kratos' struggle with himself by him not saying a single word and only grunting and sighing for 5 mins because it's so pretentious and deep

So make up your fucking mind already devs,are we too stupid or not,cuz you seem conflicted...

 

[SoloCamo]

While voice acting can be done right (few and far between though) I often prefer text for most of it, with voices used more for greetings / goodbyes, intro to basic boss fights or main characters, etc. Morrowind nailed this to me aside from the lack of variety of voices.

 

[Fbh]

I don't mind characters talking as I'm exploring or fighting. (though I do find it annoying how some JRPGs love having their characters go on a monologue mid fight).

What I'm increasingly bothered by are these story heavy sequences where you do nothing but listen to characters talk, like all these forced walking sequences, or these very scripted sequences which are about story and it feels like you are barley doing anything: like half of Uncharted 4, or the boring aquarium flashbacks in TLOU2, or every Atreus part in Ragnarok.
I'm also not a fan of games wanting me to periodically go back to some home base and talk to half a dozen characters (it's cool if it's optional though).

 

[Windom Earle]

I hate listening to stories so much I almost want a tl:dr about the original post above mine.

But, this was me with Metro Exodus. I just wanted to shoot cool shit and it was non-stop talking and standing around. Unbelievably boring. I tapped out in 10 minutes.

Metro Exodus was stupid in that regard, good example.

 

[WorldHero]

Horizon Forbidden West for sure. Everything was bloated in that game including the dialogue.

 

[Humdinger]

You got about 50 likes on this, so it's clear a lot of people feel this way. I'm certainly one of them. I think of Horizon Forbidden West, for example. At points, all the dialog was exhausting. I was thinking, "Shut the hell up already."

It would be different if the dialog were good -- like Elmore Leonard good, sharp and punchy. But it isn't. The dialog is typically boring, expository, weak.

I think one reason they add so much talk is to pad out the game's length. They don't want to end up with a game that it "too short" to warrant a $70 price tag. So they pad it out with overly long cutscenes full of this stuff. It's easier and cheaper than designing interesting, taut gameplay.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

I swear in Xenoblade 2 and 3, every single action scene has a part where everybody stops and stands there with weapons drawn for 20 minutes of dialog. The good guys will discuss their strategy at length, bad guys will give their speeches, maybe a flashback sequence or 3.

Xenoblade 3 has at least 3 villain battles like this, where they have a conversation like:

Good guys: “why? Why did you betray us and try to murder a whole town?”

Villain: “you want to know why? Because I’m jealous, that’s why. Everyone likes you guys, nobody likes me. You guys are good at everything, I suck at everything. I’m just a no good loser who can’t do anything right.”

[beat the ever loving shit out of the villain]

Good guys: “no, that’s not true! We like you! Don’t die!! NOOOOOOOOO!”

Spoiler

Shania, Jorah, and that nopon asshole who builds the killer robot are the 3 I’m thinking of, although there are probably more

 

[tygertrip]

For the most part I agree. Every line of dialog needs to have a purpose. This is the foundation of good cinematics. It's simple but you have a lot of writers who are fanfic writers at heart who like to fluff up dialog and ignore good mechanics. Fortunately in games I can skip through that garbage.

Sometimes you CAN’T skip it… omg it absolutely ruins some games, especially when it is drivel obviously written by some talentless 20 year old.

 

[Tiamat2san]

Yeah, even flowers now…

 

[Krathoon]

TV shows are also bad about this. He-Man Revelations does it. It is friggin' He-Man. Less talky and more action.

I blame Kevin Smith for that.

 

[Dacvak]

This is why I play Nintendo games

 

[bbeach123]

Dropped borderland 3 because I cant even skip that shit .

Dropped metro exodus too because of too much artyom .

 

[Danjin44]

If its done well then I dont mind.

I LOVE the banter between these two.

It also helps that english voice acting is great.

Same with Armored Core VI, I love the conversations in that game as well.

 

[Laptop1991]

Yeah, i've played a few games where i just want to play the damn game and the dialogue and cut scenes just goes on and on and it is irritating especially when it isn't even good dialogue and you just don't care.

 

[Moochi]

It's at its worst when the gameplay and slowing down to have extended conversations or (please stop) read a text lore entry. I dont appreciate devs putting books in the games. I feel obligated to read or miss context and it ruins my fun. Now, if the books are narrated to you while you run around and explore, I love that.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

They probably fill these games up with a plethora of endless dialog and story because modern gamers seemingly care more about things like good writing, award winning stories and character development over gameplay and fun.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

This is why I play Nintendo games

Yep, Ninty gets it and always has. Gameplay above all else. Period.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

This is why multiplayer games are superior.

I missed this thread made way back.

But it is spot on. Only thing worse than too much chit chat, is unskippable chat. It's like the dev team is trying to force it on gamers just to make sure the actors, animation and audio recording team feel good knowing gamers arent pressing X to skip it.

But I agree that a reason why MP games do so well is no nonsense gaming. Just play the game against other people and the only dead time is waiting in the lobby for the next match to start. And it's not even a long wait or dead time anyway because a lot of gamers will get up and grab a drink or mess around checking stats and custom class loadouts. If anything, often there's not enough time. Suddenly the match is loading the next map and it's time to go.

Just imagine if MP matches had stoppages where all players and teams had to sit there and watch a two minute cut scene before play resumes. Technically, the devs can do that if they want. Anytime something big happens, it goes to an unskippable cutscene where everyone has to sit there and watch it. But they dont.

 

[Thief1987]

This is why I play Nintendo games

My condolences

 

[DenchDeckard]

Take some edibles and slow down a touch.

 

[BabyfaceRe]

Weak thread OP. You state games have too much dialogue, then describe a game where the dialogue and charcter interactions are a core part of the game. (BTW that's the reason I never started it, combat looks awesome dialogue looks tedious.)

Then compare it to a game that is the complete opposite to that in Helldivers 2, MP, no plot, no characters.

So when you say "video games talk too much" it reads false because even in your own example, you describe a game that doesn't.

It's not a 'video games talk too much' problem, it's a genre problem. It's like playing a turn based game then complaining combat is slow. Would Baldurs gate be even half as good without all that talking?

Sounds like you wish Midnight Sun's was a different game (I do too), but complaining that it isn't what you want it to be is a pretty weak complaint imo.

 

[Lunarorbit]

Monster hunter world... I was excited to try it despite the large learning curve.

Over an hour of being talking at with no gameplay. I was so annoyed I turned that shit off.

 

[CityHunter1981]

I would be happy going back getting great games which had a much smaller team and shorter development time. But it’s probably only me and some other people over 40 here.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

I like to record all the details of my life in a journal, then tear all the pages out and put them in random places all around my house and workplace.

Also like to make little 30 second audio recordings on SD cards and scatter them about.

That way it forms a really compelling narrative if I die and someone has to piece the puzzle together about what I was up to.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

I like to record all the details of my life in a journal, then tear all the pages out and put them in random places all around my house and workplace.

Also like to make little 30 second audio recordings on SD cards and scatter them about.

That way it forms a really compelling narrative if I die and someone has to piece the puzzle together about what I was up to.

Your hired
-Remedy

 

[SHA]

I believe it's up to the game itself, if it holds value like Doom, even if the text so boring, the gameplay will overshadow all that and make it a masterpiece.

If we instantly put each element aside then obviously they did a poor job on making the game cause no one cares about it and will be forgotten anyway.

 

[SHA]

Your hired
-Remedy

That's sorting by gameplay standards, in real life no, that's a complete mess.

 

[Hrk69]

Dropped borderland 3 because I cant even skip that shit .

Dropped metro exodus too because of too much artyom .

It's absolutely insane with Borderlands 3

The amount of waiting without anything happening is a joke. Waste of fucking time.

I thought about checking out the DLC but I probably never will now.

 

[EDMIX]

lol CP2077


At some point, it felt like they were just having those long conversation trees to make up for having a shallow game lol

Be like "if we can just get them to talk here for 100 plus trees, maybe...just maybe" lol

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

It's absolutely insane with Borderlands 3

The amount of waiting without anything happening is a joke. Waste of fucking time.

I thought about checking out the DLC but I probably never will now.

The worst part is how they try so hard to be funny yet fail so miserably, it’s like listening to some d-list SNL rejects ad-libbing the script, desperately trying to elicit even the slightest smirk from the player.

They couldn’t even make it through that funeral scene on the ship without characters yapping and making unfunny “jokes”

 

[MafiaMurderBag]

lol CP2077


At some point, it felt like they were just having those long conversation trees to make up for having a shallow game lol

Be like "if we can just get them to talk here for 100 plus trees, maybe...just maybe" lol

I loathe this game. Feels like you spend 5 mins driving & combat combined & the rest of it "walk here, talk to this person" only for them to tell you "you need to go there & talk to that Person instead".

Then it beats you over the head with more gibberish & never ending tutorials.

 

[EDMIX]

I loathe this game. Feels like you spend 5 mins driving & combat combined & the rest of it "walk here, talk to this person" only for them to tell you "you need to go there & talk to that Person instead".

Then it beats you over the head with more gibberish & never ending tutorials.

same.

I remember even thinking "man this game is deep, once I get past these tutorials and cut scen-" nah.....thats the whole game lol

I worried when I kept talking to someone and a mission completion thing showed up in the screen. I was like "no way, is that an actual quest to these idiots lol" They will literally have you speaking to someone telling you about the world, instead of just actually making the functions of the world.

Saying shit like "he was jumped into the gang at 15, started doing drive bys to rise in the ranks, then joined the Corpros to do some real dirt, got mixed up with some corrupts cops"

Ok...so we don't do none of that shit, see none of that shit lol They spend more time telling you this then actually having a real thing in the game that is functional regarding any of those elements, they might as well just made some visual novel or something.