Oblivion talk:Speechcraft

Mini Game Details

How does hovering the mouse over the wedges show you how they feel about it?
Is the wedge position random? Are the fill ins random?
I did not intuitively pick up how the mini game works when I tried
it a couple times.
-Synapse001 11:02, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

I took a stab at rewriting the guide, with your questions in particular in mind. If something is still not clear, ask again! --Nephele 12:46, 8 August 2006 (EDT)

how is the bribe cost exactly determined?

it seems to me that when i first played the persuasion minigame, bribes costed only a few gold,

now they cost 500 gold or something :S — Unsigned comment by 82.171.199.219 (talk) at 13:01 on 15 May 2007‎

Speechrant

Speechcraft is the most useless skill in the game. Master it and all you get is a reduction in bribe cost. What? Unless you are having trouble understanding the mini-game the bribe command shouldn't be necessary even for a Novice. In fact, other than the benefit of being apprehended by a guard with a high disposition towards you, there is little importance in how you are regarded by the average NPC. Love you or hate you they still spout the same useless drivel.--OGRastamon 16:31, 20 November 2006 (EST)

um... i will post my comment again...it's the most easy skill to make you level up(especially for 360 and ps3 users)cause i have gone up like 3 half levels in a row and it only took about 5 minutes to go up 5 half levels for each one!(by the way who erased my comment and please don't do it again!) — Unsigned comment by 142.68.119.8 (talk) at 01:32 on 11 March 2010

For lack of a signature, I'll address this to "um": Please remember to sign your posts with four tildes at the end of your message, as it says to in the white box at the top of the edit page. This tells other users who you are, or at least identifies your portion of the discussion. Also, please note: Increasing your level artificially in this way is not necessarily a good thing; check out the FAQ on http://ocp.uesp.net. There is a leveling problem in Oblivion which can actually make the game harder as you level up. This may be part of the reason your original comment was deleted. Throe 23:03, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Also, there is a statistic which says number of jokes told, in that miscellaneous section in the player menu. Kharwog (talk) 22:07, 24 July 2013‎

minor clarification worth a mention

gp=gold piece(s) ... seen after the speechcraft minigame on the display. — Unsigned comment by 209.155.146.2 (talk) at 01:42 on 3 March 2007

Persuasion mini-game cheat sheet

I'm building a Persuasion mini-game cheat sheet at User:Basophilous/Persuasion.

The 6 tables comprising the entire Love/* tree are online and usable as of 2007-July-18.

Let me know if this would be useful and I'll try to complete it over time. Basophilous 16:37, 18 July 2007 (EDT)

Max disposition

I'm wondering what exactly determines the maximum disposition of an NPC -Quetzilla — Unsigned comment by 68.193.111.55 (talk) at 01:57 on 1 January 2008

Doesn't it have to do with how high your Personality is? Figgy 01:32, 30 May 2008 (EDT)

Yes, but how? Is there a formula? –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 01:34, 30 May 2008 (EDT)

Sorry, I'm not good with formulas. I have no idea how you guys come up with them. Figgy 01:35, 30 May 2008 (EDT)

It's always 100. Of course, that's with Charm effects, but even someone who plans on leaving their Illusion skill below Apprentice level the whole game can make a simple Charm spell that should raise an NPC's disposition to 90-100 long enough for anything they need. 71.243.134.121 10:57, 1 August 2008 (EDT)

Every ten personality you get if i remember correctly 2 or 1 friendship and also famy increases for friendship for every point infamy decreases it unless responsibility is lower than 30 hope i helped! Xxgreenbunnyxx 19:11, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Utility

Depending on some NPC, you can use the persuasion to gain trust from them.

I got illegally in a house at night where a NPC was still awake.

He asked me to get out, I didn't want to so i tried persuading him. After setting his disposition to the maximum, instead of asking me to leave again (or calling the guards) he just got to his bed and went asleep.

I think I gained his trust by speaking to him, and so he considered me as a friend, and went to a happy sleep.

Of course, when he woke up the next morning, his house was empty, but that's his problem. — Unsigned comment by 69.70.126.30 (talk) at 18:13 on 13 August 2008

Bug on PS3 Version?

This probably should be marked as a "question that needs to be answered". Several people have reported that, on both the GOTY and non-GOTY PS3 editions of Oblivion, a Boast NEVER results in a positive response. It isn't just rare, it just plain does not happen. I'd like to know if this is true--and if so, why does it only affect the PS3? --BFG^Talk 21 December 2008

Umm... what exactly do you mean? Each NPC has a fixed response to each of the four types of comments. So certain NPCs will always have a negative response to a boast, no matter what platform, no matter what expansions you have installed. That's not a bug, but just the way that the game is designed to work. Furthermore, since I don't know where in the gamefile those predetermined NPC responses are stored, I can't easily search to see who responds in any given way. In other words, there's no easy way to check which NPCs hate boasts, which ones dislike boasts, and which ones like or love boasts. It's possible that no NPCs like or love boasts, but even so it wouldn't be a bug. As long as each NPC has one "hate", one "dislike", one "like" and one "love", the speechcraft minigame will work the way it's supposed to work. --Nephele^Talk 12:29, 1 January 2009 (EST)

On both PS3 versions, no NPC has ever been observed to have a Like or Love response to Boast. Hate and Dislike responses have both been observed, however. My point is this: don't you think it odd that Like/Love NEVER seem to be options on the PS3, yet they are frequently observed on both the PC and (presumably) Xbox platforms?

To have behavior on the PS3 version that differs from the other platforms, seems to me to be a bug. It's either this, or Bethsoft modified the PS3 version in this one area for unknown reasons. --BFG^Talk 17 January 2009

One question is, which NPCs exactly have you checked? Because "never" is a pretty broad statement. From what I can see about how the reactions are determined, it's very possible that every merchant in the game might have a similar boast reaction, because aggression is the most important factor in determining reactions, and most merchants (in fact, most townspeople) have pretty similar aggression. You really need to check a wide range of different types of NPCs: guards, enemies (bandits/dremora -- yes, they can be persuaded), etc. Also, the reactions can be influenced by your character's level, so if all of your tests are using a high-level character, I'd suggest also checking with a level one character. With a level one character, I got a "like" reaction on boast with an Imperial Watch guard (specifically, the one standing to your right when you fast travel to the Imperial City Market District). --Nephele^Talk 00:13, 22 January 2009 (EST)

I'd definitely want to have 2-3 others test this claim before it's considered "confirmed". That said, my tests have been on four different characters of every level (1-51) and variety spanning roughly 800 game hours, and have been on merchants, guards, bandits/marauders, townspeople, guild members, and every other type of character in the game. I've Speechcrafted every non-generic NPC available to PS3 players, and have maxed Speechcraft the slow way (ie no Skill Books or Training) on two of my characters, so have played the Speechcraft game several thousand times. And I have never seen a positive response to Boast.

I should mention that, the only reason I didn't report this sooner, was that I thought the lack of a positive Boast had something to do with the difficulty setting I was playing on. Once I purchased the game for the PC, boosted the difficulty, and started getting positive Boast responses 50% of the time (as should be expected), I finally realized it could be an error. --BFG^Talk 22 January 2009

I have the ps3 GotY version and at least 2 out of the 6 people at the roxey inn (north of imperial city) have boast as a love. Mikeyboy52 08:20, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, must just be a bug on my copy then. How odd. It's been over 18 months since I first posted this topic and I STILL haven't encountered anyone that has Boast as a Like/Love on the PS3, including at the Roxey Inn. BFG 04:28, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking it must be because someone is trying to make a joke about the PS3... (i.e. When a PS3 player makes a boast, the NPCs are never impressed, because despite your other accomplishments, you're still playing on a PS3). This is contrary to my personal belief, of course, I prefer the PS3 over any other console. However, the evidence currently suggests that you are correct BFG: the issue appears to be relegated to your copy. I've never really paid attention before, but I'll take a look around and let you know what I find out. I do know that the responses stay the same for a given NPC for a given character. I don't know if those reactions are set in the game code, or randomly determined on a per character basis. Throe 18:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

(←) It is not only on your copy, BFG. My friend and I have each played Oblivion for hundreds of hours, only on the PS3, and we have never seen anything but hatred for boasts, not even dislike. I have the original version, and he has the GotY version. I have speechcrafted thousands of times, including bandits, guards, townsmen, merchants, guildsmen, dremora, et cetera. I thought that it had something to do with having insufficient fame, but my friend has finished the main questline, presumably acquiring much fame in the process, and still he has never seen any speechcraft response to boasting other than hatred. I was very surprised to learn that another PS3 player had seen different results. Perhaps it is relevant to the region from which one purchased the game. My friend and I are both in the southern United States, Texas, specifically. I am just brainstorming possible explanations, and that is all I can think of. Agiar2000 21:45, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Determining Reactions

As far as I can tell, an NPC's specific admire/boast/coerce/joke reactions is calculated dynamically based upon the NPC's aggression, confidence, energy level, respsonsibility, intelligence, personality, strength, and willpower. In other words, there are no construction set entries associated with an NPC saying that the character, for example, loves jokes. On the other hand, there are a long set of GMST values with names like fPersBoastAggr that, I would assume, specify how sensitive a boast reaction is to the NPC's aggression. What I can't figure out is how all those GMST values are actually used to calculate the reactions: my first guess at how the parameters might be used didn't seem to work for the handful of NPCs who I tested.

One important implication is that an NPC's admire/boast/coerce/joke responses are not fixed. Leveled NPCs attributes will change as your character's level increases -- and I was able to confirm that the same NPC's responses were different for a level 20 and a level 1 character. Also, it seems likely that a variety of spells could change responses (frenzy, calm, rally, fortify attribute, etc).

It's not really information that can be used to the player's advantage (the NPC will always have four different reactions; it's not as if somehow the NPC would end up with four "love" reactions). However, it does mean that the article is currently incorrect: "A given NPC's reaction to each of the four actions is predetermined, and will be the same every time you talk to that particular NPC" is not true. I'm not sure that I'm ready to fix the article right now, though, given that that I'm not sure what can be really be said in its place. --Nephele^Talk 00:13, 22 January 2009 (EST)

Maxed dispotion?

Tip when you have maxed dispotion: It's not hard to find people with low dispotion really, go to Hackdirt. Everyone there has like 20, even if you have a really high fame. This should be added to the article, very usefull. — Unsigned comment by 213.65.146.20 (talk) at 18:29 on 18 May 2009

pick a fight

Should there be a little how-to on how to minimize disposition here? Perhaps how to pick a fight? Different NPC's react differently to disposition. So how do I get NPC X to attack me, and what are the consequences? Are they similar to Morrowind? Can I make a guard attack me with no bounty penalty? Is this the right page to use for that info? — Unsigned comment by 67.183.28.2 (talk) at 05:31 on 24 May 2009

Well kinda for the people that are mean to you, but no not really. If it does happen the consequences are:

• That person won't accept your yield
• You'll have to kill him. Just make sure that person is not really important to you in a way.

In Morrowind, you never had the option to yield but you had to kill that person. But this is the wrong page to use that info. Good question though.

The Grand Champ 01:01, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Images

I've added an image of the persuasion minigame as it looks before you have done anything other than select the persuasion icon in the dialogue menu. Do we want another image of the minigame during a round of persuasion, perhaps annotated with the main features corresponding to the article's text? If so, then I will happily oblige. -Itachi 10:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I see you already added the second image in the meanwhile. I like the visual representation they added. I think the section describes the different actions nicely enough though, at the moment the given images are self explanatory enough. --Timenn-<talk> 14:11, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Remove Line?

"This skill is probably not very useful as it is not too hard to get people's disposition up. " Should probably be removed from the notes section. It's quite usefull if you don't want to bride or if you want to level fast. 98.198.83.12 16:01, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

just a tip

Sometimes, maxing out someone's diposition just is'nt enough, and something that has really helped me is pulling out a weapon and bribing to the max, then exiting dialogue and re-entering with your weapon sheathed. it gives you an additional +10 disposition. — Unsigned comment by The Wurm (talk • contribs) at 03:51 on 23 April 2010

Possible Addendum

The article mentions drawing your weapon and using the Gray Cowl in order to lower NPC's disposition. This works fine, but they can be specifically used in succession to lower the disposition of an NPC, even after the disposition is maxed. For example, with no weapon drawn and without the Gray Cowl, max the disposition of an NPC. Then exit dialogue and draw a weapon, and max the disposition again. After this, keep your weapon drawn and equip the Gray Cowl. You can talk to the same NPC again and raise it's disposition. This gives three chances per NPC to raise your speechcraft skill.

76.91.152.188 17:05, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

While this is true enough, the difference between lowering the initial disposition all at once and doing it incrementally as you suggest is fairly minimal. The only time it would allow a significant difference that I can think of is if the initial, unmodified disposition were near zero in the first place. – Robin Hood↝talk 04:40, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

speechcraft leveling trick

the highwaymen are perfect for speechcraft training. if you accidently won the mini game you can simply open the steal menu a few times and his disposition will be 0 (his standard disposition, so there will be no negative consequences) Someone could add this in a better english than mine ;) - 87.160.14.8 16:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Question

Does Race affect the amount of disposition to different Races? Shianni 18:50, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. --Rigas Papadopoulos • Talk • Deeds • 18:50, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Nice response time, Kiddo. :D Shianni 18:51, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Speechcraft, not capped at 100 nor affected by Luck

I am trying to figure a formula for 'X Speechcraft = Y Max.Disposition' (coming soon), and while testing in game I have discovered two interesting facts.

• It is not capped at 100, raising it above 100 continues to increase the maximum disposition at wich you can still play the mini-game. I have tested up to 255, at wich point you can still start the mini-game when the disposition is 90 (The Max.Disposition for 100 Speechcraft is 86).
• It is not affected by Luck, I got the exact same values with 50 and 100 Luck.

--Wizy (Talk/Contribs) 19:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

That'll be useful. The topic is one of our oldest Good Questions. rpeh •T•C•E• 04:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Strategy #4

This is obviously an idiotic vandalism! Who will remove it? 187.13.6.197 17:41, 14 January 2013 (GMT)

It's not vandalism-- just someone who made a mistake or didn't read what page they were on. Only edits made in obvious bad faith are vandalism. Either way, it didn't fit the page and is now removed. Thanks. --Vulpa 19:09, 14 January 2013 (GMT)

Is it just me or...

It seems I can do the mini game and push the disposition as high as I can, but the message "disposition maxed" won't appear until I do Bribe at least one time. Am I just missing the magic number with the minigame each time? I'll admit I am new to the game and haven't played very long yet. Still it seems like I raise and raise disposition till its maxing out through the minigame, but that dang "Disposition Maxed" message won't appear until I hit bribe one time. — Unsigned comment by 96.41.90.226 (talk) at 03:20 on 17 November 2013

Your Charisma affects it too, so if you've just started then it will be low and therefore you cannot obtain the maximum disposition through the minigame. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 03:41, 17 November 2013 (GMT)

What does the player's skill level effect?

Not counting perks this article doesn't mention any effects, does it increase the disposition boost when choosing positive options in the minigame? Increase base disposition? Increase bribe effect? — Unsigned comment by 81.140.243.149 (talk) at 21:08 on 11 January 2023 (UTC)

The player's skill level determines the maximum level an NPC's disposition can be raised to when using this skill. The higher the skill level, the higher the maximum disposition. See the discussion three topics above (Speechcraft, not capped at 100 nor affected by Luck). — Wolfborn^(Howl) 04:31, 12 January 2023 (UTC)