Scott Ryder 'BroRyder' (Official Thread)

I'm sure that they are going to do the thing that they did with Hawke where the autodialogue is based on the trends of how you've been playing the game.  Sure there might be an interaction here and there that doesn't jive with how a particular player is playing their character, but I'm sure that the PC will be able to be played in a customizable way where the player gets to set the tone. 

The NPC will have to have a preset personality.

It's literally going to be minor variations to the way they express the various dialogue and autodialogue tones, both of which being almost always out of your control to begin with.

No... no you didn't. You had choice of tone of response which remains, but the Inquisitor was a blank slate personality so the dialogue itself does not vary. 

 Shepard for example was always stoic, with almost no variation in the tone of each dialogue choice.

Now you have two different responses for the same dialogue tone choice depending if you're Scott or Sara. How is that worse?

I actually hope I don't have to play with a set personality... I want to create my character the way I want. Like they did with Hawke. In DA2 you could choose to play either nice, sarcastic or rude. And I'd want to be sarcastic...and Scott. : /

Shepard did get less stoic in ME2 and ME3, with more humour to contrast with the darker tone.

Which was good, because it allowed Hale and Meer to be funny, which they are great at.

And that's the problem. There shouldn't be exclusive variations. They should be options for both Scott and Sarah. 
Shepard is among my least favorite Bioware protagonists after what Bioware did with assuming things about them and making them more predefined, so not a good example if you are trying to win me over to seeing this as a good idea. 
Because it restricts roleplaying. Something that does that in a RPG is the exact opposite of an improvement. 

Yeah, I really need to stop overestimating the Mass Effect team when it comes to protagonists.

Except no PC RPG game in history had something other than a predefined set of dialogue, with variation typically dependent on lore and background choices. This is because they're all programmed into the game. They are by nature restricted. If you add to how the variations occur, you're not making them more restricted all of a sudden.

K think of it this way.

If Sara and Scott were two different races, would you have an issue with them having variations in their dialogue depending on their background?

Do we know that Scott isn't sarcastic? It could be that Sara's sarcasm only comes off as the most pronounced?

With Sarcastic Hawke in DA2, I often noticed that Nicholas Boulton's delivery of the sarcastic lines was far more overtly silly than Jo Wyatt's, who opted for a more dry wit. Both were equally funny, but played the humour slightly differently and made each gender seem more distinct.

Yes it is. They're two distinct characters. This is not male or female Shepard or Hawke where only one exists at any given time. They are twins, not clones.

They are two distinct characters, therefore they are two characters with different backgrounds. You are assuming they were stuck in the hip since birth, had the exact same experiences, have the same exact personalities, and had the same relationships with other people. 

Tell me now, how that is in any way sensible design?

They are functionally two different entities, like two different races. The analogy holds. 

So once again I ask you, if they were two characters with different backgrounds, would you have an issue with them having variation in dialogue?

I hope you're right. They can be different as NPC's. I have no problem with it. But I don't want restrictions based on the gender I play.