And here I always thought maxing out the speech skill tree is an utter waste of points.

Kraco said:

And here I always thought maxing out the speech skill tree is an utter waste of points.

I reckon you didn't played games by "Black Isle"/"Obsidian". Those do have options to bullshit your way through main quest.

DeadW@nderer said:

I reckon you didn't played games by "Black Isle"/"Obsidian". Those do have options to bullshit your way through main quest.

Behold as I talk every (major) villain to death in Arcanum.

...Though yeah, the speech options are usually far less practical then just brute-forcing your way through everything. BUT IT IS THE MOST SATISFYING OPTION, SO TOTALLY WORTH IT.

(If the game studio can write worthwhile dialogue. And also best reserved for later playthroughs, after one has a grasp on the main story. Otherwise getting stuck and needing to savescum through dialogue trees can be frustrating. Or worse, looking up spoilers.)

Haha. Maybe I have seen such a game in the past, but still wouldn't rather go for it. Every rpg has plenty of enemies to slay and places to go in any case, so combat and exploration related skills seem more useful in a general sense. Of course, depending on the game, you might also miss things if you can't negotiate at all or bargain with merchants. So, saying it's useless was a big exaggeration, I admit that.

Kraco said:

Haha. Maybe I have seen such a game in the past, but still wouldn't rather go for it. Every rpg has plenty of enemies to slay and places to go in any case, so combat and exploration related skills seem more useful in a general sense. Of course, depending on the game, you might also miss things if you can't negotiate at all or bargain with merchants. So, saying it's useless was a big exaggeration, I admit that.

It's mostly more ideal for second playthroughs, yes, after one is more familiar with the game and knows what can be done without (much) combat and what would be otherwise. And knows the tricks of getting good weapons/equipment/followers etc. to make up for a build less specced for combat. And maybe tricks to solo an encounter even with poor equipment and character combat specialization.

Though some of the older CRPGs do cater a lot to people who want to spec a character for charisma/speechcraft. Games made by Black Isle Studios and Obsidian Entertainment were very well known for that. Planescape: Torment is probably the crowning achievement in this regard (where you will get shafted if you "mono-specialize" solely in combat). In lots of these games you can go in blind with a charisma/speechcraft-specced build and still complete the game on your first run pretty satisfactorily. Having followers (which charisma/speechcraft-specced builds tend to have an easier time acquiring) goes a lot towards helping this.

The main reward for going for these speechcraft builds was the additional dialogue options that they open up. More lore and story bits, basically. Of course oftentimes one gets more tangible rewards as well with in-game benefits, but I think the main draw is still the lore.

This tend to fall a little bit by the wayside now for games these days (even those produced by 'descendants' of the old devs from Black Isle/Obsidian), because people prefer a more 'movie-like' experience with more action and hacky bits. And voice lines. Animating/voicing all those extra lines for stuff that most typical players these days wouldn't go out of their way to 'unlock' is no longer a... well, optimal use of resources. Same goes with dialogue trees that nowadays are pretty much just dialogue shrubs.

(Back then, when players didn't expect voice and animation for most lines, it was much cheaper to write more extensive dialogue. To the point that there can be entire 'chapters' of dialogue hidden behind an obscure option or an easter egg.)

Also another thing would be the followers. Back then one can have a party of like 3-10+ followers, more than making up for a speechcraft specced character's deficit in personal combat. Now, trying to code the AI for that is a lot of effort, especially with the more immersive and feature-filled combat for the more current combat system. And also drains more CPU resources and memory, which is a big concern for console titles.

I mean, even now, having three followers is probably more trouble than it's worth for most games. One is kinda ideal (if not zero), and even two can run into problems.

Incidentally, how many of us have screamed at Lydia for blocking a door or container in Skyrim?

NNescio said:
Though some of the older CRPGs do cater a lot to people who want to spec a character for charisma/speechcraft. Games made by Black Isle Studios and Obsidian Entertainment were very well known for that. Planescape: Torment is probably the crowning achievement in this regard (where you will get shafted if you "mono-specialize" solely in combat).

That or the setup in the Fallout 2 where Big Bad being bang-ganged with more than dozen guns directed at him while Choosen One do absolutely nothing to contibute for the combat itself. Or literally drive to suicide-nuking The Master in the first FallOut.

Incidentally, how many of us have screamed at Lydia for blocking a door or container in Skyrim?

I didn't. TES ended for me in the Oblivion.

NNescio said:

Incidentally, how many of us have screamed at Lydia for blocking a door or container in Skyrim?

Yeah. Sneaking is the best ally in TES. I guess open world companion AI is one of the hardest things to pull off in game engine development.