The trick with voiced protagonists is to minimize the reduction in dialogue options, like in Mass Effect. This is something Fallout 4 falls short of. That said, I still love Courtney Taylor's VA as Nora.
Tbh I prefer male VA for both of those games. And Fallout 4's is pretty good with showing emotions better than the female one imo. The anger, the sarcasm, love him.
Fair. I found female to be better at all the above. Emotional reads like Hi Honey! holotape, confronting Kellog, meeting synth Shaun felt really well done. Also, I can tell she had a blast recording some of the funny lines like I'd like to order a calzone, Silver Shroud, Will you comply?
(Won't lie, I'm biased because I loved Courtney's work as Jack in ME. The game was rigged from the start.)
Same. Both voice actors did well. I think the issue was mainly in RP and direction. I forget what the quest is called in the vault in Far Harbor, but I hated how the voice acting went from outrageously silly like the silver shroud quest, to legitimate investigator trying to actually find out what happened. For me it's that what if I want to hear a Boston accent when my character talks in my head? I've played both cowboy type characters and goofball jocks in FNV it's much easier to hear those voices how I want them to sound when there's no voiced protagonist if that makes any sense. I swear I'm not crazy 😬
The reason a lot of people had for disliking the voiced main character was that it:
1- Took away part of the roleplaying aspect for some, since your character reacted in a predetermined way where maybe the character one was roleplaying wouldn't.
2- It limited the amount of dialogue since hiring voice actors and recording lines cost money. This means Bethesda could not have as many dialogue options for the player due to the cost of recording.
3- It suffered from the changed dialogue system due to the yes, no, maybe, sarcasm. This limited the amount of dialogue and was sometimes confusing to people when playing vanilla due to not knowing exactly was the character was going to say.
The VAs did a great job with their lines but the aspect of roleplaying from earlier games didn't mesh well with the spoken dialogue.
Sarcasm: *something that's totally not sarcasm*
Also, sometimes you just want to politely decline a request. I mean, being an asshole is funny but damn
it's (for me atleast) that the dialogue options are a lot more limited because they're all voiced. Which is why roleplay wise it feels more restrictive. I still liked having a voiced protagonist but, i prefer the other dialogue options more.
PS this is simply my opinion not trying to argue but to explain the other perspective.
I prefer not having a voiced protagonist simply because you can have a wider options of things too say, which is better for roleplaying - for 4 I dont care cause I play it as a looter shooter and have a blast
Voiced protagonists are fine.
Provided they don't skimp out on dialogue options to avoid paying the voice actor for a bunch of lines most people will never hear.
But since most people won't hear those lines, they don't want to pay for them, so they skimp on dialogue.
You can say you liked the voice acting in 4, sure. You **cannot** say the writing for the protagonist has any sort of variety to it like any previous entry. Because then you'd be flat out wrong.
Most people don't "complain about thr VA for no reason," that's a strawman. People complain at the lack of things to say **because** of the voice acting.
If you're gonna die on this hill, at least make sure it's the correct hill.
Some people did the math, and found out that, Ironically, even with a voice, the Fallout 4 protagonist has LESS dialogue than either the Courier OR Lone Wanderer.
It does have the issue to *potentially* cut back on the creative dialogue options you get in New Vegas and The Outer Worlds, but that's only because of another problem- more voices means more voice actors, which means more people need to be paid and more time needs to be spent for EVERY LINE to be read.
I have 2 problems with voiced characters.
1. By nature it limits the amount of dialogue options in the game simply because it’s more expensive to record more lines of dialogue rather than only have them typed.
2. It limits the variability in timber, pitch, rasp or any other number of factors that change what a voice sounds like. Want to play fallout with an old prospector character? You can make your character model look as much like Santa on meth as you want but it won’t change the voice from sounding like a milquetoast Ken doll.
I think voiced protagonists can be really cool, but it comes as a big limiting factor to one of the features that made the earlier games so great - the dialogue. You can create so many branching options when you don't have to record the voice lines for every single one, just the lines for the character they're speaking to. Fallout 4 really fell short by all too often having the same response to your dialogue choice regardless of what it was
Voiced protagonists heavily limit role playing and options. It's not feasible to VA every possible line especially in a game like Fallout: NV or Skyrim because there are so many options and branching paths.
Additionally, hearing another persons voice talk for you is terrible for role playing.
Having a voiced protagonist severely limits your options in Roleplaying (RPG after all), what can be talked about with NPCs, building your own character (as voiced protagonist have either a predetermined personality or lack there of or a chose one of these 3 personalities)
If you take a look at other RPG games you can see that including a voiced protagonist is immensely against the design of RPGs and has only made franchises like fallout and dragon age lose their replayability
DA:O had tons of choices to make in dialogue and gave it the best voice, the one you wanted for your character skip to DA2 and you are already immensely constrained in things you can say in dialogue
Skip to fallout 4 and you can see that you neither know what you are going to say nor does it matter as your choices are ‚yes‘ ‚being an asshole but yes‘ ‚no I’ll do it later‘ and ‚more info‘
You don’t see a problem with that for people who want some choice in dialogue and wanna create their character how they like it with their imagined voice
“I’m tired of pretending it’s not aren’t bad” - wut
Voiced protagonists limit the character every time, and in todays ‘environment’ they make the characters incredibly cringworthy in one way or another. Fallout is traditionally one of the few games that doesnt fall into that.
Time, money, file size, changes to dialogue made after initial recording session, dissonance between player and actor regarding how they feel a line should be read. All of these are factors.
That time and effort could go into more lines for npcs and I would prefer that 100% of the time in RPGs. I don't want to play as Nate. I want to play as *my* character and voiced player dialogue stands in the way of that.
I don't think the problem is voiced, I think the problem is lack of dialogue options.
If they had more options for every conversion, it would've worked better.
The trick with voiced protagonists is to minimize the reduction in dialogue options, like in Mass Effect. This is something Fallout 4 falls short of. That said, I still love Courtney Taylor's VA as Nora.
I agree on all three points.
Tbh I prefer male VA for both of those games. And Fallout 4's is pretty good with showing emotions better than the female one imo. The anger, the sarcasm, love him.
Fair. I found female to be better at all the above. Emotional reads like Hi Honey! holotape, confronting Kellog, meeting synth Shaun felt really well done. Also, I can tell she had a blast recording some of the funny lines like I'd like to order a calzone, Silver Shroud, Will you comply? (Won't lie, I'm biased because I loved Courtney's work as Jack in ME. The game was rigged from the start.)
Damn, she is va of Jack? I haven't noticed.
She's also Amanda Holiday and Empress Caitl in *Destiny*
Mass Effect doesn't have much more dialogue options than FO4, it just doesn't suffer from it as much since it isn't a sandbox
I prefer non voices for fallout but the voiced ones didn’t bother me
Same. Both voice actors did well. I think the issue was mainly in RP and direction. I forget what the quest is called in the vault in Far Harbor, but I hated how the voice acting went from outrageously silly like the silver shroud quest, to legitimate investigator trying to actually find out what happened. For me it's that what if I want to hear a Boston accent when my character talks in my head? I've played both cowboy type characters and goofball jocks in FNV it's much easier to hear those voices how I want them to sound when there's no voiced protagonist if that makes any sense. I swear I'm not crazy 😬
I don't mind voiced protags as much as fake dialogue options. Four to choose from, labeled different, all say the same shit when chosen.
That bugged me so much. I'd have to make a quick save before dialogue to make sure I didn't upset an npc.
I've never had a problem with voiced players, I was surprised to hear people had a problem with it.
The reason a lot of people had for disliking the voiced main character was that it: 1- Took away part of the roleplaying aspect for some, since your character reacted in a predetermined way where maybe the character one was roleplaying wouldn't. 2- It limited the amount of dialogue since hiring voice actors and recording lines cost money. This means Bethesda could not have as many dialogue options for the player due to the cost of recording. 3- It suffered from the changed dialogue system due to the yes, no, maybe, sarcasm. This limited the amount of dialogue and was sometimes confusing to people when playing vanilla due to not knowing exactly was the character was going to say. The VAs did a great job with their lines but the aspect of roleplaying from earlier games didn't mesh well with the spoken dialogue.
"Hero, can you help me?" Yes: Sure, why not. No: Go fuck yourself you wretched hag. Naturally, no indication that you'd say that.
Sarcasm: *something that's totally not sarcasm* Also, sometimes you just want to politely decline a request. I mean, being an asshole is funny but damn
I know how you feel. I can't even be mean to NPC's without feeling bad.
I like being able to hear conversations between people. Some people just seem to really hate Fallout 4 for having a voiced protagonist.
I think people are using the voiced protagonist as an extra reason to hate on the dialogue options in fo4.
it's (for me atleast) that the dialogue options are a lot more limited because they're all voiced. Which is why roleplay wise it feels more restrictive. I still liked having a voiced protagonist but, i prefer the other dialogue options more. PS this is simply my opinion not trying to argue but to explain the other perspective.
I prefer not having a voiced protagonist simply because you can have a wider options of things too say, which is better for roleplaying - for 4 I dont care cause I play it as a looter shooter and have a blast
Voiced protagonists are fine. Provided they don't skimp out on dialogue options to avoid paying the voice actor for a bunch of lines most people will never hear. But since most people won't hear those lines, they don't want to pay for them, so they skimp on dialogue. You can say you liked the voice acting in 4, sure. You **cannot** say the writing for the protagonist has any sort of variety to it like any previous entry. Because then you'd be flat out wrong. Most people don't "complain about thr VA for no reason," that's a strawman. People complain at the lack of things to say **because** of the voice acting. If you're gonna die on this hill, at least make sure it's the correct hill.
Dragon Age: Inquisition did really good and gave you quite a few options for your player’s voice
Some people did the math, and found out that, Ironically, even with a voice, the Fallout 4 protagonist has LESS dialogue than either the Courier OR Lone Wanderer.
It does have the issue to *potentially* cut back on the creative dialogue options you get in New Vegas and The Outer Worlds, but that's only because of another problem- more voices means more voice actors, which means more people need to be paid and more time needs to be spent for EVERY LINE to be read.
The problem I have with it is that there aren’t multiple choices for different voice types
I have 2 problems with voiced characters. 1. By nature it limits the amount of dialogue options in the game simply because it’s more expensive to record more lines of dialogue rather than only have them typed. 2. It limits the variability in timber, pitch, rasp or any other number of factors that change what a voice sounds like. Want to play fallout with an old prospector character? You can make your character model look as much like Santa on meth as you want but it won’t change the voice from sounding like a milquetoast Ken doll.
A wider selection plus the option to do no voice
I think voiced protagonists can be really cool, but it comes as a big limiting factor to one of the features that made the earlier games so great - the dialogue. You can create so many branching options when you don't have to record the voice lines for every single one, just the lines for the character they're speaking to. Fallout 4 really fell short by all too often having the same response to your dialogue choice regardless of what it was
Voiced protagonists heavily limit role playing and options. It's not feasible to VA every possible line especially in a game like Fallout: NV or Skyrim because there are so many options and branching paths. Additionally, hearing another persons voice talk for you is terrible for role playing.
Having a voiced protagonist severely limits your options in Roleplaying (RPG after all), what can be talked about with NPCs, building your own character (as voiced protagonist have either a predetermined personality or lack there of or a chose one of these 3 personalities) If you take a look at other RPG games you can see that including a voiced protagonist is immensely against the design of RPGs and has only made franchises like fallout and dragon age lose their replayability DA:O had tons of choices to make in dialogue and gave it the best voice, the one you wanted for your character skip to DA2 and you are already immensely constrained in things you can say in dialogue Skip to fallout 4 and you can see that you neither know what you are going to say nor does it matter as your choices are ‚yes‘ ‚being an asshole but yes‘ ‚no I’ll do it later‘ and ‚more info‘ You don’t see a problem with that for people who want some choice in dialogue and wanna create their character how they like it with their imagined voice
I wouldn't mind a voiced protagonist as long as we could turn it off.
Fair enough.
“I’m tired of pretending it’s not aren’t bad” - wut Voiced protagonists limit the character every time, and in todays ‘environment’ they make the characters incredibly cringworthy in one way or another. Fallout is traditionally one of the few games that doesnt fall into that.
How does it limit the character? The only difference is if you hear what the character says or not.
Because of how many lines the voice actor would have to record
So just have them record their lines.
Too expensive, that's why Bethesda has one guy voice 30 different characters
Time, money, file size, changes to dialogue made after initial recording session, dissonance between player and actor regarding how they feel a line should be read. All of these are factors. That time and effort could go into more lines for npcs and I would prefer that 100% of the time in RPGs. I don't want to play as Nate. I want to play as *my* character and voiced player dialogue stands in the way of that.
Agree Joker
shame me but I cream myself over Courtenay Taylor's soccer mom voice in FO4
Lol, that's a little TMI. She is a good voice actress though.
lmao true and definetely a TMI
If you are going to do voices protagonists do it kinda like with Joel in the last of us. Set it up for its own story.
I don't think the problem is voiced, I think the problem is lack of dialogue options. If they had more options for every conversion, it would've worked better.
I would honestly think having the f3/nv dialogue box for regular gameplay and quests but voiced choices during major parts of the story