Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Of party leaders and NPCs arbitrarily starting conversations with companions

Ok, I'll keep this short, we all know what this is about, right?

You finish a battle, and the NPC immediately starts a dialogue automatically with the companion who's the closest to his current position.
You reach a hotspot with an automatic trigger and same happens.
Same when you are druid in beast form and everyone talks over you as if you weren't even there.
I hate it, you hate it, everyone hates it.

It's something that was pointed as an annoyance since the very first days of EA, but we all had more urgent things to debate/complain about and this minor issue was always sidelined. As I was saying few days ago in another thread "You have to pick your battles at some point" etc, etc.

Still, this is something that needs to be addressed and doesn't even take much work to correct.

Premise:
- Especially in single player ALL NPCs, in any circumstance, should ALWAYS start the dialogue with the Main Character as a priority over anyone else.
- As second best alternative (and maybe the "problem solver" in multiplayer, too) the player(s) should be able to *mark* one character in the party as the "Face/Party leader".

Only exceptions when dialogue can start with other characters:
1- The player prompts the dialogue with the companion on purpose.
2- the trigger for the dialogue happens with the MC hidden/dead/significantly out of range.

This should be the baseline of the system. Not a new thing, just a refinement of what we have now mechanically.

Then, on top of it, it would be IDEAL if the rest of the party could be involved at will when there are skill checks to make during dialogue.

The basic form of this feature would involve just using the character skill value to make the check/roll.
The "luxurious" one that may be more up to Larian's taste, could go the extra mile and have every companion offering a voiced line with a comment about how they "got this" for us ("Let me handle this" and so on).
Bonus points (and extra budget spent) if the comment is occasionally contextual to the specific situation rather than generic and used all over the game.

Did I forget to address something?

I would have listed the suggestions in a different order. Your first one would be my last, and your second best would be my second to last.

The baseline, in my view, should be : have the party act like a party. Everyone is in the conversation, and so

• If there is an active Ability Check to make during the cutscene, e.g. tied to a dialogue choice (although not all cutscenes are conversations with NPC, see entry to the swamp), I can choose who makes it.
  
  
• If there is a passive Ability Check to make during the cutscene, e.g. to notice something or recall knowledge, I can choose who makes it. Or everyone makes it. Depending.

Having a designated party Face would be a disappointing fallback option, I think. The point of a party is to have a range of talents. And I can't predict what skills the coming conversation will need. But I can have my whole party with me.


Aside from this, yeah, I have experienced the issues you described, and it is frustrating to have no control over who talks in some conversations. It is also disappointing that the current version of the game, both in its UI and its writing, assumes that you are basically a Solo adventurer during conversations. Larian said in interviews that they wanted the cinematic conversations to put the focus on the party : it currently puts the spotlight on how the game fails to make the party act like a party.

Well, NO, I chose this order deliberately because the first point I talk about is a minor problem to solve that should be solved REGARDLESS of any other improvement.

The second, on the other hand, is basically an overhaul of the dialogue system that they already promised two years ago (and never came).
We are talking about a far more extensive rework there.

Basically: I want the first point to be a thing even in the unfortunate case the second never happens.

Yeah, I am hoping more ambitiously I guess. I would like Larian to significantly improve the conversation system, as a first priority. Then, the smaller change of a designated party Face (fixed to being the PC, or assignable by the player) then comes second, for me.

On a different note, can you remind me where and when Larian talked about overhauling the conversation system ?

It was an interview with Swen Vincke barely days after the EA started. I remember they were either German or Belgian streamers but the whole thing was in English.

In the middle of several other questions, they asked him if there was a plan to make party members take care of skill checks where they outperformed the main character on one particular aspect and Swen's answer was something like "We are working on a new improved dialogue interface that will make feel all the party more involved in the conversation, but it will come later in EA".

It may very well be a dropped feature at this point, given that in two years we have yet to hear a single thing about it again and we are still waiting for basic classes to be implemented.

Agreed this needs a fix.

An easy step one is reducing the number of auto-triggered conversations, so the player can choose which character they want to interact with the NPC. There are some places that the auto trigger is totally unnecessary, eg the tiefling you can save from the bugbear assassin.

Then there are the additional improvements as suggested above, or even the opportunity to make use of the chaining system which I know lots of folk hate. For example, when an NPC is talking to one party member, make it possible to swap to anyone else in the chain to respond to a particular point, or to someone not chained who can continue wandering round the world/pickpocket at will. Similarly, if a different character speaks with the NPC and any character they’ve spoken with previously is in a chain with them (and not hidden) then they have their continuation dialogue rather than repeat the original conversation or talk about what they said to our friend.

Never having played multiplayer, I’m not sure how conversations with NPCs work, but if it’s not already possible, then perhaps make it so if an NPC starts a conversation with one character, another person can click on the NPC and join the convo, and then again anyone in the conversation can be picked to respond on any point. (I guess this could work in single player as well, though may not be ideal for one of the few in-combat conversations like the Flind ).

+1 million!!!

Having dialogue that starts automatically not go to the pc is very frustrating! I have to run to the front with my caster pcs so that they can be the ones to get the dialogue.

For multiplayer for me ideally it would be like SWTOR where everyone is involved in the conversation. Otherwise, it could be the same as the single player suggestion: it goes only to pcs instead of companions (if there are any companions). Between multiple pcs it could be one you select or done randomly, so that everyone gets some conversations.

I agree with Tuco. I want the conversation go to my pc. I hate it, when suddendly companions do the talking, especially the ones, that are not good in it.

I had it exactly the same ...
Until last game, where i created 3 Custom Characters ... Barbarian (Host), Druid and Bard (Join) ...

Sometimes when i start conversation (as Bard or Druid), it switch me to Barbarian.
It sucks ...

I think Larian should rather allow us to switch talker at any time in conversation, would be thousand times more usefull and it would not really matter wich member of the party started talking, if anyone would be able to respond.

We should definitely be able to either switch characters during conversations or the default speaker should be our PC. It's really annoying currently.

Yes. That's what I would prefer Larian to work on, as my first choice.

If they can't do that, designating a companion to be the party's Face would be my second best choice.

If they can't even do that, having the PC be the Face by default would do ... sometimes. But not all Player Characters are built to be the Face, whereas at least one of the Companions, Wyll, is built for it.

Every time you "Switch characters in conversation" in this game, each one of them "reset" the dialogue and it's treated exactly like a new blank protagonist, rather than a distinct personality. A byproduct of the "Origin" system that wants every character to be the playable one, possibly.
It breaks the illusion of being part of something reactive and shows the "cracks on the wall" of the system.

Which is why I'm completely NOT a fan of that idea, especially if I can have the better alternative of letting companions contribute to the conversation seamlessly while the MC remains the "Face" of every dialogue.

Maybe I'm weird but it doesn't really matter to me. I don't want to pick the Face as matter of min-maxing. I just want my character to be the "protagonist" even when there are better diplomats in my party.
Last thing I want is having to handle every dialogue with a bard, paladin or warlock companion only because I'm playing a Barbarian, for instance.

I'll deal with the consequences and occasional shortcomings of being a barbarian if I have to.
And companions can contribute to the min-maxing of dialogues anyway, if the suggested conditions are met (their ability to infer during the conversation to help with skill checks, I mean).

Oh, when I talk about switching, I'm certainly talking about a revamped conversation system. Not a quick hack to the poor one we currently have.

So, whether we talk of a companion "contributing", "switching", "taking over" or else ... for me it's essentially all the same.

I mean, there would be surely differences in the details, if me, and you, and others, were to describe in full a satisfying conversation system. But I'm not here for that, and I think it would be a waste of our time.

I prefer to focus on what the problem is in the current version of the game, and the experience I would like the game to provide.

That's what I highlighted in my first post in this thread : have the party act like a party.

Considering how much emphasis this game puts on Origin characters, I personally don't want them to take even more spotlight in my games. I am an absolute fan of how they did Wild Magic sorcerer tag in the game - the lines really make you believe that your character had some interesting past, some experience in life. I want to have my main talking consistently and have more optional lines which come from possible experience rather than bland "who are you?"/"what is your objective?"/"*insert a joke*"/"haha I'll kill you!"

Well, that's precisely the design goal of the system I suggested, isn't it?
The so called "point 2" in the opening post.

Unless you think it wouldn't work for some reason.

+1 to this, and I definitely agree that whether or not anything else is changed, where the MC is present and not hidden they should be the default person NPCs speak to. (When it's essential that NPCs start the conversation at all.)

Perhaps totally revamping the dialogue system would be needed to have a true party feel to conversations, but I still wonder if something less than that would work as an approximation. You'd need to add a mechanism whereby more than one party member could be considered "in a conversation", either using the chain or switching to another party member as you can already and then having them click on the NPC or party member who are in the conversation to join in. But once that's added, then it surely wouldn't be that hard to make using the existing switch button able to cycle through party members who are now "in the conversation" and show the NPC's last line, but the responses available to the currently selected party member based on their race/class/background plus of course the common options but being able to use that character's skill points for checks. All that dialogue would need to be present anyway, given that all party members could conceivably be the only one meeting that NPC. And any party members not in the conversation could wander around and pick pockets as currently.

Or perhaps I'm missing an obvious flaw?

Well, of course if you are willing to redo the entire dialogue system from zero you can go in a million ways about it, all very expensive and time-consuming.


I personally dislike to fantasize about unrealistic or overdesigned systems that aren't practically viable on a reasonable budget, so I always try to_
1) keep things simple.
2) recycling as much as I can of what's already there.

Especially this late in development.


The system I'm describing here (and I'll paste it again for a comfortable read)...


...even in its most expensive form would involve very little changes: every time you attempt a skill check of any type (Arcana, Intimidation, Persuasion, Deception, etc) it would "pass" the skill check to the party member who's the best at it.
Let's say there are two of them on even ground, make it either a random pick between the two or use the companion who's the most favorable to you in attitude.

Now...
- In a "money-saving" form this companion would just handle the roll with his bonus (make it that your MC will turn to watch in his direction for bonus involvement) and then pass the dialogue back to you. Pretty much how it goes in Pathfinder. Very basic. More functional than flavorful.
- In the "We spared no expense" form, it would be similar to the occasional "quips" companions can already have during dialogue right now (i.e. when Lae' Zel complains we are being too soft with someone), except they would address "handling the matter for you" or, as I said, even saying something specific about the context you are dealing with, if you want to go the extra mile.

The second scenario, of course, involves recording a whole bunch of extra lines for each character. all related to skill checks in dialogues.
For a lot of studios this could be "too much money", but I have to say that Larian doesn't seem particularly concerned with being parsimonious with these anyway.


P.S. - In the eventuality Origin characters in the final game are going to be fully voiced (which I doubt, but you never know and Larian has been extremely ambiguous about this point in the past) you wouldn't even need to record new dedicated lines tied to these skill checks.
You could just make the companion read the basic line recycling from their voice files. i.e. You select the line, the companion who's good at it (let's say Gale for Arcana, for instance) steps forward to interrupt you and talks in your place, I guess.

______________________________________________

Just to add...
The idea of having to switch manually with a button (as the one we already have, incidentally) between who I want to do the talking, on the other hand, would feel incredibly artificial to me. As if we weren't part of the same dialogue, but just taking turns at it.

+1 for dialogue to trigger with a designated party face; this would let people who prefer minmaxing to select Wyll/another charisma merc if they want to and people who want to see their Tav, to always see their Tav.

+100 for group checks and/or skill check switching (I'm thinking of that Fallout 4 character creation moment where Nora and Nate change places to use the bathroom mirror. A short, unfinished sentence "Excuse me..." "If you'll just..." shouldn't be that expensive to record, together with a position swapping animation) And if the check would give the player additional info, it could be handled with the narrator's voice, same as the grove Descent check, regardless of which character actually rolls. (But as a matter of personal preference, I'd like group checks over switching.)

The way I envision it would be more or less like this:

- You pick the Intimidation option.
- Wyll is the best at intimidating in your party.
- Your character glances at his side (you can make few variations of this and make it mostly a systemic thing, rather than handcrafting each individual animation)...
- Wyll nods, makes a half step forward and does his intimidation attempt, saying whatever he has to say to the interlocutor.
- Regardless of how it goes, the dialogue goes back to you (assuming there's still a dialogue going on after).

Um, yes. That was exactly what I was trying to do. I may have failed, but that's different from misunderstanding the challenge.

My suggestion required only the addition of some mechanism by which more than one party member could be considered to be in the conversation, and if that's the existing chain mechanism then the only thing that needs to change is that when switching to a party member who is in the same chain as one who is engaged in a conversation with the NPC, instead of showing that character in the world and able to move around, it shows that character in dialogue with the NPC with the dialogue options that new party member would have anyway if they'd been the one in the conversation to begin with. I like this idea better than a system where one character handles the whole conversations as you could potentially let your whole group get involved in longer conversations, but on the other hand there may be oddities or non sequiturs in some conversations when one character is responding to a race/class/etc-specific NPC line that had been initially spoken to a different race/class/etc, so I know it's not totally straightforward.

Larian will of course do their cost/benefit analysis and if they think your suggestions would give most player benefit for their bucks then I'm sure that's what they'll do, but I'm also interested to see other ideas thrown into the mix.

My own personal ranking of potential solutions to the issue would be as follows, with (1) and (2) being implemented whether or not any more sophisticated change was also made:

(1) Drastically reduce the number of occasions where NPCs initiate dialogue, and instead let the player choose a character and initiate the dialogue themselves. (Very cheap to implement.)
(2) Where the main character is within reasonable range, conscious and not hidden, have the NPC initiate the conversation with them rather than another closer party member, as you suggest. (Again, pretty straightforward.)
(3) Some sort of mechanism whereby a whole dialogue or specific lines in a dialogue can be handed over to another party member, whether that's like your "luxury" suggestion or my alternative or some other option entirely I don't mind, and while as mentioned I'd prefer to be able to swap between party members and have them all chipping in as appropriate at different times, I'm not precious and would be happy with whatever would be easiest to implement.

I'm not fussed about being able to designate a face - as long as NPCs engaged with my MC it's not functionality I'd ever use so while it wouldn't do me any harm it's not something I'd vote for Larian to spend resources on.

And I don't much like the idea of a character who isn't doing the speaking doing the rolls, though suppose it could be handwaved as a stand-in for a missing rich conversation system so if some variant of (3) wasn't possible and Larian decided to do this I wouldn't be too upset, though I'd slightly prefer they didn't.