Driving conversations since 2007
Games have a lot to say
Over the past decade or so, the popularity of dialogue wheels in gaming has plummeted. Players are becoming deeply dissatisfied with the superficial player interaction and the inherent narrative dissonance that can come with this system.
As a dialogue wheel apologist, I have to speak up in defense of their design! Dialogue wheels excel at creating a specific type of RPG experience that other dialogue systems can’t replicate. Still, they’ve fallen out of favor for a reason, so why would a development team prefer to use one in a game anymore?
The Anatomy of a Dialogue Wheel
Their Inception
To find an answer to why a development team would want to dabble with dialogue wheels, we must first unpack their design and learn what they are. For years, RPGs relied on a relatively uniform yet exhaustive system of navigating dialogue.
And it’s easy to see why: There’s a lot of narrative nuance to be found in how characters communicate with each other.
BioWare’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic exemplifies how these old dialogue interfaces looked and operated. The game featured a silent protagonist who could choose from multiple dialogue options. The writers seemed to have wanted to write a character with their own opinions on what they would say.
This poses a problem for this style of dialogue system, which I will shed some light on later in this article. For now, we can understand that the developers wanted to solve the problem of figuring out how to give players a choice on what their characters will say while still writing a character with their own personality and set history.
In 2007, the world got to experience the dialogue wheel for the first time in BioWare’s Mass Effect. Dialogue wheels are a UI convention that places conversation options in a typically circular format. Each option, once selected, will continue the conversation in some way.
Breaking down the dialogue wheel
Players can easily navigate this UI as each option has its own area. The affordances of modern controllers also support it. The wheel references the form of the joysticks, making it an intuitive system that players will understand quickly.
Emphasis on quickly. Effective dialogue wheels should speed up the monotony of investigative dialogue systems and give players a clear indication of how they will be navigating a conversation.
Choosing where this information sits within the wheel brought new challenges for a system like this. Looking at the dialogue system of Mass Effect, we can see the developers created an interaction pattern for players to quickly pick up on what dialogue options would do based on where they sat within the wheel.
The dialogue wheel is a UI convention that helps players easily navigate conversations. Take the choices out of the wheel, and the gameplay pillars these choices influence remain the same. Meaning there must be some reason why the dialogue wheel exists in the shape it does.
Changes in interaction design
Mass Effect is a game that prioritizes the design of its dialogue system pillars. It completely changed how characters would use their avatar, Commander Shepard, to interact with the world around them.
No longer did the dialogue options listed showcase precisely what your character would say; instead, it gave players an idea of how their actions might influence the story. Dialogue wheels also allow players to get more context on the current topic before progressing the conversation. This makes for a more exploratory style of conversation design when used productively.
This isn’t a design philosophy unique to the dialogue wheel.
In The Witcher 3, the player can sometimes make choices that impact how Geralt and other characters continue the story. This game doesn’t use a dialogue wheel, but it leans into the same mindset players should have when a dialogue wheel is utilized effectively. With proper use of these mindsets, developers can better understand how and when to amplify the player’s journey with dialogue choices.
What dialogue wheels do for design pillars
Starting with the player's POV
As game developers, we want to be conscious of our game systems' effect on players at all times. When crafting dialogue in a game, the flow of conversation can naturally make players both active and passive participants at any moment.
With that in mind, let’s break down the user experience here into two modes: “producer” and “consumer.”; Terms coined in the How to Make an RPG article here. Once we understand how a dialogue wheel can make effective use of these 2 styles of engagement, we can start to see why I think they’re so amazing!
The producer mindset
The producer mindset focuses on direct player-to-game interaction: advancing a conversation by selecting a dialogue option, for example. Presenting players with multiple options primes them to expect some influence on the game’s world and story.
All games do this to some extent. Yet, some lean prioritize this design pillar more than other games to emphasize the effect of player choice on the experience. The recent RPG hit, Baldur’s Gate 3 (BG3), is an excellent example of how games can effectively utilize their UI and UX design to coax players into the producer mindset rather than the consumer mindset.
Seeing all of these variable options and understanding how they fit into BG3’s massive web of character interaction design is how this game promotes engagement and replayability. You could play this game 12 times and create 12 unique characters with their own personal journeys, opinions, and outcomes.
While BG3 excels at engaging players through the producer mindset, the game still utilizes the consumer mindset. Players are put in that mode whenever a cutscene occurs or another character speaks to the player or someone else. This game wants its consumer moments to feel informed by every possible action the player takes in producer mode.
The consumer mindset
Consumers are being engaged through listening and watching non-interactive cutscenes and conversations. What this doesn’t mean is that it’s boring. This would be like implying every book or every movie is less effective than games 100% of the time simply because they are non-interactive.
No, games that lean into this mindset when designing narratives might be more concerned with “railroading” parts of the story. This means that the writers are trying to get players to experience specific story beats and can focus their attention on the effect this will have on gameplay and player emotion.
One notable benefit of this style of engagement is that devs get to design cinematic moments and showpieces that showcase that high-budget spectacle reserved for things like The Game Awards.
How games balance producer and consumer modes
Striking a balance between these 2 modes is necessary for a great conversation. We can’t expect every game to lean into both camps equally when playing with a dialogue system. Spoilers for Mass Effect, but a specific choice in this game and analyzing how it utilizes both mindsets to grip players.
When choosing to save or kill the Rachni queen on Noveria in the first game, the choice is binary. The writers aren’t trying to get players to think about how Shepard's personality and background might impact what they’ll do. They’re telling players, “Hey, Shepard’s going to do this or that; which one do you want to watch?”
We get to watch how Shepard saves the queen. The emphasis isn’t on getting players to consider if Shepard could do this or could’ve done that, but how Shepard will do X or Y. This is why these scenes, even while binary, can be just as engaging to watch as your favorite movie.
This is what the dialogue wheel was born to do. The primary goal is the outcome of dialogue choices rather than the weaving, complex nature of conversation design. To get a better look at this, what better way to showcase it than looking at how the design pillars shifted on BioWare’s Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2?
Why dialogue wheels shouldn’t be used everywhere
Understanding Dragon Age Origins
Dragon Age Origins (DAO) is a phenomenal character roleplaying game (CRPG) that saddles players with the terrible task of saving the world from the most recent blight as the newest Grey Warden recruit. Players get to choose from a selection of backstories that help immerse them in the experience of their silent protagonist.
With this game, the devs seemed keen on providing the building blocks for introducing players to the world of Thedas and having them develop their Warden’s personality and character through the detailed list of dialogue options offered.
Going back to our producer and consumer modes, DAO is focusing on keeping players in that producer mindset. Every line of dialogue your character says is followed closely by another, much like a 2-way conversation you, the player, are a part of. Engagement is centered around players driving their created character’s narrative journey.
Adding a dialogue wheel to DAO would only do the game a disservice. The conversations are back-and-forth and largely stationary. Players couldn’t easily craft their own Warden with unique personality subtleties without the dialogue list system. Dialogue lists like this have their own potential setbacks that are better saved for another day because the star of this show is the dialogue wheel.
Understanding Dragon Age 2
DAO’s direct sequel, Dragon Age 2 (DA2), featured a new, voiced protagonist and emphasized an entirely new style of dialogue and storytelling.
The main character, Hawke, always starts the game by fleeing the same village regardless of the player's starting choices. Hawke has a set of lived experiences and relationships within this world that are linked to their personality, irrespective of how nice or mean players want to make them.
DA2 introduced the dialogue wheel into the Dragon Age franchise. Players can choose from 3 “tones” for Hawke to respond with to continue the dialogue. This allowed the game to focus on writing a compelling character with a prescribed identity that could deliver plenty of voiced lines without fear of things feeling “out of character” for Hawke.
Effectively utilizing the consumer mindset
Yes, it does mean players aren’t going to have as much influence on Hawke’s evolving political opinions. Still, it does allow the development team to create entire arcs that center around aspects of the character that don’t change much, regardless of player choice. Take Hawke’s relationship with their brother Carver, for instance.
The team explored aspects of their relationship that more players will encounter. Hawke will have a range of responses, but all of them will have more consistency to the character regardless of the tone options players select.
The team wanted to shift the player focus to the drama unfolding before them rather than emphasizing the consideration of responses. More consumer, less producer. This allows developers to bring a new level of engagement to an ultimately linear story.
So why use a dialogue wheel?
We’ve finally arrived at the answer to the earlier question: Why would a game prefer to use a dialogue system anymore?
The Warden in DAO wouldn’t feel as unique to the player if they communicated through dialogue wheels. Hawke from DA2 would have a rougher time showcasing their curated narrative moments if players were focused on figuring out who their Hawke is the whole time.
Using a metaphor here, DAO emulates the feel of creating memorable player character characters in a game like Dungeons & Dragons. DA2 wants to capture the cinematic feeling of a summer blockbuster with some light influence from players. And that’s all thanks to the decision to use a dialogue wheel.
Designing a better dialogue wheel UX
Some things to remember
As a UX designer, I can’t help but highlight the new ways devs are trying to create better player experiences with dialogue wheels! We need to keep in mind the main things that set them apart from other dialogue systems in games: they’re intuitive, concise, and easy to identify.
Identifying areas that don’t work as well
We need to consider how games today are utilizing the dialogue wheel. Taking a break from BioWare for a minute, Fallout 4 is often bombarded with hate for its implementation of a dialogue wheel.
Why is that? Yes, it’s quick, but that is primarily because it only allows 4 dialogue options at any given time. The frustratingly unintuitive UX writing microcopy doesn’t signify what type of response the player will give. Players have repeatedly remarked that “Sarcastic” was not enough to get an idea of what would come out of their character’s mouth, leaving the dialogue system and player expectations with this awkward narrative dissonance.
Fallout 4’s dialogue system lacks most of what makes for a great dialogue wheel. Other games in recent years have significantly improved the usability of dialogue wheel systems.
Keeping things intuitive
Dragon Age Inquisition (DAI) used a similar, intuitive format familiar to BioWare fans, like how the circular navigation ties to the direction the controller’s joystick faces. This also makes navigating with a mouse and keyboard easy, as the spaces always map to the same numbers for choices.
Designers should be sure to map dialogue options that progress the system in similar ways to the same areas throughout the game. As stated in the Mass Effect breakdown, this will help players quickly identify what options will continue the conversation in their preferred style and which investigate the topics further.
Utilizing concise and precise UX writing
I’m going to take a break from dialogue wheels specifically to talk about the UX writing of Animal Crossing New Horizons. The microcopy in this game is excellent at providing a burst of personality into just a few words that fit the game's overall tone.
It concisely conveys what players communicate to a character without breaking their immersion. If you plan on developing a dialogue system, don’t be afraid to research how other genres also accomplish your goals!
Identifying what’s going on here
Going back to Dragon Age 2, the game has this really unique tone system that determines how your Hawke will deliver some of their lines as you shape their personality. The icons in the middle of the wheel give you a better sense of what type of response Hawke will provide to aid the copy summarizing what will be said.
DAI also uses icons like this that signify what type of response your character will deliver. There isn’t a tone system, so all of the icons aren’t linked to something like that, but they do subtly allude to how each option will continue the dialogue.
DAI is an excellent resource for learning how to tie these elements together to evolve the dialogue wheel with new features. On top of the icons, this game denotes important choices by briefly flashing the dialogue wheel. This primes players to expect their next choice to be significant to the larger game experience.
To ease any frustration that could come from players not understanding what a choice could mean, the team introduced a feature that explains the implications of selecting that option. This is a genius move to bring more UX writing into the experience to make the player experience more accessible.
“I should go.”
I hope I’ve been able to sing the praises of the incredibly underrated dialogue wheel. When considering design, I want to keep the dialogue wheel in conversations as I believe it’s still a very powerful design tool when used correctly. If you plan to implement a dialogue system of some kind in your game, I hope I’ve helped put dialogue wheels back on the menu.
Yeah, players won’t be able to replay the game with as much personal character nuance as, say, Baldur’s Gate 3, but they’ll keep coming back to hear Commander Shepard deliver iconic lines the way only Commander Shepard could.
After considering them like this, I’d love to know your opinion on dialogue wheels. What games do you think might have benefitted from one?
Thanks so much for reading and making it through this winding 1-way dialogue path!
I should go.