Not new information, but just a PSA to those who aren't aware how dialogue works here...

TheKryptoKnight

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One of the biggest complaints I see over and over again is about the repetitive dialogue...

I generally disagree with this complaint and think the dialogue is improved over New leaf, but there is a bit of a catch.

I don't think this game has a problem in terms of the amount of dialogue, but the problem is in how it's accessed...

You HAVE to talk to your villagers many times in a row to get varied dialogue. Dialogue is in tiers, and the more you talk to them in a row, the deeper they get into these tiers. The first 1-3 conversations are all introductory surface level stuff. If you just run around your island only talking to each villager once or twice, you're never getting past the introductory dialogue...

Think about it like this: The first time you talk to a villager, they're selecting from 3 options of what that personality can say. Talk again, and they're selecting from five options. Talk again, they're selecting from 10 options. Talk again and they're selecting from 20. These numbers are made up and just an example, but if you're only ever talking once or twice, you're cycling through the same 3-5 options over and over.

I'm posting this because I was DMing with someone who literally thought each personality only had about 10 lines of dialogue. They were only talking to villagers once. I had them talk to a villager until the villager was tired, and they said they saw stuff they've never seen before. They have significantly more than 10 lines, but if you only talk once or twice, you're pulling from a really shallow pool of options.

I'm not really trying to convince anyone that the dialogue is good with this thread. That's subjective, and not a hill I'm willing to die on since dialogue is still worse than GCN/WW. Just trying to highlight again how dialogue works in this game... I think it's kind of dumb that they adopted this layered tier approach to dialogue. I think it'd be a lot better if they could say anything every conversation... Just pull from the entire pool of dialogue every conversation... But they don't. And if you only ever talk once or twice, it's going to seem much more limited than it is because they ARE limited in what they can say for the first few conversations.

Same also goes for requests... They become much more likely to ask for things the more you talk to them. I do 4-5 errands a day for my villagers, but you have to get past the intro conversations first (unless they ping you with an errand).

I think it's kind of stupid they went with this approach. But I also think it's a shame when I see people frustrated because "villagers only talk about what I did yesterday"... Yes the introductory dialogue gets repetitive. But get past it, and you'll get to much "rarer" dialogue
 
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I've been bugging Puck a lot lately in hopes of asking me favors because I really want to get his photo. I did occasionally encounter new dialogue outside of the usual bug and food talk. But yeah, it does suck that villagers must be talked to repeatedly just to get it.
 
I've been bugging Puck a lot lately in hopes of asking me favors because I really want to get his photo. I did occasionally encounter new dialogue outside of the usual bug and food talk. But yeah, it does suck that villagers must be talked to repeatedly just to get it.

Yeah. It does. And I can kind of see what they were going for. IRL convos can often start basic and progressively develop. But I think in practice it doesn't work, because it just gives people the impression that all they have to say is the intro stuff...
 
One of the biggest complaints I see over and over again is about the repetitive dialogue...

I generally disagree with this complaint and think the dialogue is improved over New leaf, but there is a bit of a catch.

I don't think this game has a problem in terms of the amount of dialogue, but the problem is in how it's accessed...

*waves hands wildly and pulls an elderly muscle somewhere*

Yes. I totally agree with your observations.

It's really a pity that so much of the dialogue is locked behind a (maybe) predetermined number of encounters. I love talking to my residents, so I have encountered a good amount of information about them that other players seem to have trouble accessing from their own villagers. I do talk to my islanders repeatedly, throughout the day and, because of that, I'm still getting little bits of dialogue I'm hearing for the first time, so many months down the road.

For instance, Fuchsia, my uchi MVP, has spoken so much about herself that I sometimes wonder if she's the exception, or an example of how much more backstory I can get out of my other residents if I persevere. She has stories about her parents, her grandparents, a neighbour kid who looked up to her, a scary encounter with an old lady in the park when she was a child, a friend who was completely tone-deaf, and so on. Raymond told me about what he wanted to be (and it's not about working in an office). It's a dream that he did not manage to fulfill. Wolfgang mentioned the friends he used to hang out with at a river in his hometown. Rolf had a story about twins who switched identities. And so on. All these snippets of information have gone a long way in allowing me to feel very strongly about my residents. They are not cardboard, shallow, one-dimensional characters. They have a history and they have stories to tell.

The only snag is, we have to keep talking to them, A LOT, to unlock any of it.
 
i make it a habit to talk to my villagers 5+ times each day. i’m glad i found this out when i did; for a while, i thought that the generic dialogue was all there was and i’m definitely glad that it’s not aha. i’m not too sure how i feel about this approach, either; it’s not awful and like you said, it makes the interactions more realistic in a way but at the same time,, i might go feral if my villagers keep talking about my side characters or what i did the previous day💀
 
Genuinely have never heard this, it's good to know! I'll have to start talking more times in a row to my villagers :D
 
I'm aware of this, and I keep meaning to talk to my villagers properly, but the fact that they all bring up the same thing before getting to the real dialogue is such a deterrent :( I don't need all 10 of my villagers telling me I dug up fossils yesterday, or what my friends' titles are. I'll just grin and bear it.
 
Even then, the activity dialogue can take up most of the conversation, and they stop talking to you WAY too early. I got a single interesting thing out of Alice before she wanted to stop talking and that was about how she likes to cheer me on. Everything else was activity stuff.
 
I never realized this because it's a major turn-off that the villagers start "getting annoyed" when you talk to them more than once. Noted that it's worth it to trek through and talk to them more!
 
I would be more okay with this if they didn’t also get frustrated if you talk to them more than 1-2 times per play session. In past games I could talk to villagers repeatedly and it was fine! I’ve known about this layered dialogue setup since the game released, but it’s still hard for me to keep talking to somebody over and over when they start making passive-aggressive remarks about how they can’t get away from me.
 
this is really useful to share; i remember reading it awhile back but i know there's so many people who don't know how the dialogue functions in this game. i really wish nintendo would adjust it, because it's really annoying that villagers get mad after you talk to them repeatedly - but that's the only way to get new dialogue, so??? dumb. i'll never understand some of the weird choices made with new horizons
 
I just find it obnoxious that you have to get to the point that the villagers are getting annoyed with you before you get substantial dialogue. It’s like they ONLY wanted you to have meaningless fluff conversations...

Agreed. This happens a lot, and I'm not sure why, 'cause then when you don't talk to them they end up getting annoyed or worried.
 
This is really good information to know -- thank you for sharing! It makes me sad that I have to keep talking with my villagers after they have already indicated their annoyance because I hate it when people try to talk to me when I'm not in a chatty mood. I somewhat understand the intent behind the design of this mechanism, but I cannot imagine trying to approach someone more than twice IRL if they have already expressed disinterest in speaking with me...
 
They really need to make the threshold for ‘talking to villagers without them getting annoyed’ higher. I think that would help keep it realistic on both ends—you would still have the conversation progression and avoid upsetting them. If someone is annoying me irl by talking to me too much, I’m going to ignore them, it would not be the best part of the conversation!
 
This is super informative and it’s new information for me. It makes total sense for them to keep conversation on a surface level initially. Most people do that in real life too. People wil exchange greetings and platitudes and small talk, but conversations of any depth take time and familiarity. It’s very good to know that villagers do have more dialogue options, and that we just need to interact with them more frequently to encounter them. Thank you for posting :)
 
I agree 100%. I've been playing every single day since launch (bar maybe 3 days or so) and I still find new villager dialogue to this day. I do think it's more varied than New Leaf, but you hit the nail on the head with the dialogue being in tiers.

I speak to my villagers a lot, multiple times over, so I see a lot of new dialogue. My boyfriend, on the other hand, will speak to a villager and get disappointed that it's not new dialogue and then walk away... meaning he doesn't actually see any new dialogue.

Thank you for sharing!
 
All my villagers ever do, is comment on my waistcoat, and if I talk to them again, they complain about how much I've talked to them.

I prefer WW's dialogue over any AC game.
 
Thank you for making this thread! I didn't know any of this myself and find it quite interesting. :)

Does anyone know if being BFF's with a villager opens up their dialogue more? Because I'm best friends with Kiki and Grizzly on my island and it feels like their dialogue is a lot more interesting than my other villagers now. :unsure:
 
In New Leaf, my villagers still told me that I could press up to look at the sky...6 years after I started the game.

New Horizons is so, so much better. Its not perfect - I wish they had some bite to them, like they used to.

But dang. I know how to look at the sky. (Celeste reminds me pretty often, tho.
 
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