This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but In this build (and what I believe is safe to assume will be unchanged in the final build,) I feel as though not every single exchange with an NPC needs to have a zoomed-in, one-on-one dialogue. For important events and companion interaction, sure that's fine, but do we really need a dramatic fade to black with a singled out conversation for NPCs that just add flavor text with one sentence worth of conversation?

I've gone back to play DOS2 while in-between major BG3 patches, and having the voice-acting play "at range" with dialog boxes feels so streamlined and unobtrusive by comparison.
Can an option be reasonably integrated to cut down on the more personal conversations with lesser NPCs?
If not, I'm hoping that someone creates a mod for this because as it stands now, it feels really unnecessary to do this in every interaction.

No.

If anything I want more.
If you want deadpan line delivery then play the Assassins Creed series.
Each NPC dialogue animation is more dead than troupe of elementary school children doing a play.

AC Odyssey tried its hardest for me to care for its characters but it was just sooooo bad.
They all looked the same. Moved the same.
Ugh. I felt nothing as they died or lived.

Nothing at all.

There are going to be differing opinions on this, hence the reason why I proposed it as an option.
This isn't a typical "Larian I hate this so change it and cause everyone who likes it to suffer" post.
Having lines delivered without close-ups and arm-waving is hardly a request for "deadpan line delivery."

I'd go with "cinematic/close-up if a PC can answer". If it's just a greeting or a generic oneliner, there's no need for an intrusive close-up.

It's generally two types of "realistic" competing: cinematic allows for more nuanced acting and you can see the characters up close and personal, while "in-world" is seamless and doesn't feel like "now watch a movie".

That's pretty much how I feel about it. The flow of the game gets broken up a bit for me because of it.
As much as I appreciate the models and the work that's gone into the animation and the actors who pantomimed that stuff out, getting sucked into a dramatic dialog every time I'm speaking to inconsequential randoms kills my immersion.

Completely and utterly agree. What's the point of changing perspective, starting a scene, and animate characters if the npc only says one line of dialogue and than the scene is over? It is so stupid. I have never seen a game that does that. It's just a huge waste of time. If an NPC only has one line of dialogue, just let him speak it in the world map

The one place I'd concur with you are those rando tieflings and goblins which just say a single thing to you. There's no reason to pan in on their face for that, IMHO.

Unless...currently there are some examples where we don't see a zoom in (speaking to the dead, animals, when you backstab a non-hostile character, etc). If Larian plans to change all of these to cinematic, then of course, keep even the one-liners cinematic as well.

I totaly agree with Tzelanit and Abits.
It's totally useless in many situations. In many of them, a popup and nothing more would be way more appropriate.

Cinematics should only be for "interresting" dialogs(quests, lore, story,...).

Two useless cinematics in the tutorial : when you approach 2 dying people and only have a cinematics to hear Lae'zel saying something like "they're dying".
This two exemples of dialogs that breaks the flow of the game for... Nothing... They're wasting their ressources for nothing there.

More than everything, it's just a huge waste of resources. Put more resources into awesome cutscenes that could use extra animations

I agree that one-liners shouldn't be a close in dialogue. But what I'd like to have is a fully voiced PC lines. And yes, I understand the problem with them because you can choose many origin characters. Nevertheless, if Larian will manage to voice protagonist they'll have a chance to aim for GOAT status.

+1

This is what gets me. Of course, I'm not a developer and I may just not understand specific design choices, so I may just not comprehend why "goblin_child_a" needs a dedicated moment of animation that I won't remember 30 seconds from now. Heck, maybe there are animation presets for those characters that only have one or two lines of dialog that can be simply applied universally and it doesn't take much tinkering at all, but as a consumer, it comes across as something that's being marketed as "in-depth and personal interactions" while actually serving the purpose of taking me out of my adventurous headspace.

I've actually started avoiding conversations with non-factor NPCs that aren't critical to the story or quests because I don't want to be bothered by what feels like is an emergency brake being pulled on the flow of my playthrough.

Kind of shocked no one said anything about this, at least as far as I seen. There is dialog that doesn't shoot you to a close up. It happens when you play multiplayer and is between two players. A small terrible dialog box shows up and you pick a few lines.

BTW this is probably something they should work on as it really looks bad and feels out of place. This feature reminds me of DOS1 where two players would play rock, paper, & scissors when they didn't agree on something. Pretty sure DOS2 had something similar but I cant recall at the moment.

There are parts of ea where it happens, specifically when you talk to dead people and in your talk with the paladins, which makes me assume it's a bug to be fixed

Ooh thats right, good call, totally forgot about the talking to dead also.

This gives me some hope because now I know that it's at least possible in the game code to have conversations happen outside of those cinematics. I'm hoping that this gets enough attention to have it show up on Larian's radar, but I know that their plate is full.

I'd love to see a game actually break through the "custom" mold and fully voice your protag.

Truthfully I wouldn't want that, getting stuck with one voice actor/actress for a custom character. This would limit character creation with character looking off compared to the way he/she sounds. This happened in fallout 4, you also take away youtubers that roll play the voice of the character.

It's gonna be a problem. They already has a lot of dialogue for the MC dialogue (correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the same voice of the MC is used for the dream girl/guy

Specifically for 10 youtubers... well let's imagine the crazy sales in dozens of million copies, so, 100 youtubers for whom it's important they can make an option to voice protagonist on/off with "on" as a default. The rest of the population will happily listen to them voiced. And why are you going to be "stuck"? For example, I like Shadowheart's voice but if I choose her as my protagonist I'll never hear speaking at all, and this is bad.

Personally, I'm getting a lot of uncanny valley whenever there are close-ups of my character. It's really off-putting. It isn't usually as bad with NPCs.

If there are going to be close-ups, I'd rather they all be from the perspective of my character and never see them from the outside.

Youtubers aside, "locked" means we could (theoretically) either have a dozen or so voices if most of the dialogue wasn't fully voice acted or the current four voices when every line needs to be voiced. In a game with so many dialogue lines, it's a massive amount of work to add even one more voice. So we're not getting a gruff dwarf voice, a hammy barbarian voice, a sneaky bastard voice, a pretentious wizard voice etc. We're stuck with the four we have now and I highly doubt we're going to get any more than that if everything needs to be fully voice acted.

I hadn't considered this either. I don't wanna get greedy here, but having multiple options for how the conversation camera is angled would be great.

I'd love to see something like:

-Default (as it stands now)
-Classic (standard world map view with text boxes)
-First-person (which would be amazing)

I actually don't mind looking at my character in the third person. Since I knew the game wasn't POV, I made sure she was a cute half drow. She seems to smile/nod at the proper points.

The rest of the party looming creepily in the background - even if they aren't even in the same area - is really weird though.

But the problem is that you don't have ANY voices. You choose the protagonist and his/her voice and... your protagonist never speaks except for few places during the map exploration.

Didn't Swen say in a Reddit AMA that all custom characters would be fully voiced? I'm guessing that hasn't been implemented yet, which is why our PC stands around silently during convos.

Ok, I could have been clearer. Iirc (someone correct me if I'm wrong) we've been told that the protagonist (custom or origin) will have full voice acting and the current silence is just an EA thing (or it's been at least hinted at). I think some people reported their custom protagonists speaking their lines on one occasion, which would further hint at it.

Then there's the matter that the characters should speak more when exploring, but for now it's just a suggestion.

Yup. Here's an excerpt from the Reddit ama.

Q: Will custom (non origin) characters have Voice Acting, or is it for for origin characters only?

Adam: Hello! Yes, custom characters will have voice acting - you’ll choose a voice as part of character creation.

Q: That's the real question. An answer like Adams is technically correct but doesn't get at what we're looking for - will lines be voiced etc. in similar ways for origin vs. non.

We get they'll have voice lines... that's basic.

Adam: They'll have full voice acting, just like origins!

I actually agree, and like this idea. Especially if talking to someone that has nothing new/else to say; or a generic merchant.

If they made a voiced custom character, there will be no "off switch", if anything I'd have to wait for a mod. Both examples I gave focused on one theme, limiting the RP in RPG.

Not sure how we dipped into voice-acting.
Anyhow, getting roped into random NPC conversations that feel substantial when they aren't because there's only one camera view for conversations just wears on me.
It makes every other conversation of import seem less substantial by comparison.

It's not that I don't appreciate the hard work or attention to detail, I just feel like it's squandering resources and applying systems too universally.

I don't even think it's draining resources, they probably don't have custom animations for those very short close-ups. It's just quite tiring/cumbersome/annoying for the player. Most games with cinematic approaches I can think of don't have this problem and solve it in the same simple way I've mentioned earlier. No cinematics for oneliners (unless they are great oneliners that have meaningful acting attached to them). Witcher, Dragon Age, TES (iirc).

Is there any cinematic TB action shots? Xcom has them, Solasta does each with frequency sliders, would love to have an option for them in BG3 which is more beautiful than both. I may not even mind to have them every time.

Oh see, I like that idea. A frequency slider for those lesser scenes could be good as long as there's some distinction that's blatantly made well-known. I don't want to assume that every time I get into a cutscene conversation that what's happening is going to be substantial and noteworthy. I feel like there's a way to tweak that to make it viable.