Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Feature Request -View All Dialogue in Co-Op

Hi all,

I have to say firstly the devs have done a great job with Divinity Original Sin.

However there is an issue which is having a disproportionately negative effect on co-op (for me at least). That is that in dialogue, only the shared part is visible to both players, the remainder is visible only to the person who initiated it. The other player is essentially stuck hanging round (unless they want to do their own thing). My request is that both players be allowed to view all dialogue if they so choose.

While it is possible to track the dialogue using the log window, this is extremely inconvenient and detracts from the experience. This is doubly so considering that there is a substantial amount of dialogue.

As there is plainly already functionality for both players to see the dialogue, I can't imagine that there would be any great difficulty in this (I appreciate I may be completely wrong on that).

I would re-iterate that I request this an option/or a toggleable feature, I appreciate some players may not wish to see the dialogue.

I am also interested as a matter of discussion, what the views of other players are on this, and whether others find it off-putting too.

I agree with this. I want to play through the game with a friend and it seems like one of us ends up missing half of the dialog. Even if you try and use the chat in the corner all the random one liners from "citizens" and such just bog down the chat window and make it hard to get a clean flow of the main guy you actually want to hear.

I like the ambient background chatter, but I want to be able to see what the main dialog is that is going on INCLUDING the responses from my friend and not just the NPC side of things.

Not sure how no one ever brough this up or found it frustrating in all the tests that have been going on. Seems like a pretty basic piece to the game.

Yes, very much agreed. I have seen several posts on this already. Me and my brother planned on playing through the campaign 100% co-op. However, if you are not the character to initiate conversation, especially the important NPC talks, its hard to figure out whats going on. Moreover, even if you go back and read the journal it only shows the NPCs responses, not answers of your friend.

In addition, they really need to add the option to allow for players to see each others inventories.



This too, this issue is so frustrating I dont understand how they could have missed it.

Indeed. Certainly seems there should be a way for a nearby companion to see the full conversation text in it's own window.

Just make the window able to be minimized or closed in case they'd rather do something else.

I am glad there are others who agree -it seems like a fairly elementary thing, especially considering that the game was clearly intended from the start to be co-op.

The devs have an excellent reputation for responsiveness, I am hoping the more people that post, the more likely it is that this issue will be noticed, if it hasn't been already.

@perfectblue, definately agree about inventory inspection.

I agree. Although catching up through the Dialog Journal may be ok, it's a little hard to keep track of which quests the other player accepted and so on. Also, since its my first playthrough, i don't really want to miss anything.

The problem with this, besides being cumbersome to track back every conversation through the journal, is it only shows the npcs answers.

This was my biggest gripe during the alpha/beta. I wish they had done it differently.

Ug, this sounds really bad. I also plan on playing it 100% co-op with my girlfriend and we both definitely want to get the whole story.

Yes please! We got over it because we play co-op in the same room but I didn't like how it left one character hanging.

This is OT but I also think barter should apply to the whole party in co-op. Right now the character who has it does all the selling and buying while the other character is bored sitting in town waiting. They can't even browse the inventory at the same time. It makes after-dungeon maintenance a big drag, imo, when it should be fun to see all the money you're raking in and making good buys.

This is a huge issue for me and my friends play through, I wish we would have someone from the team to respond to acknowledge it.

This has to be an oversight!
The game is so heavy story based (as far as i have seen) and one character not getting all the dialogue almost makes co-op useless.

Look at this, guys!

http://steamcommunity.com/app/230230/discussions/0/45350244785796536/

@DasDex, good spot. Still not entirely satisfactory though, as it doesn't let the other play see what dialogue options are available, definately more workable though.

On a further positive note, it looks like this problem has been acknowledged, and hopefully some kind of solution will be implemented to resolve it entirely.

It is mentioned in this thread:

http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=505707&gonew=1#UNREAD

Yeah, was thinking Id want to see dialogue as the other guy did them. Like in Baldurs Gate, but I guess the way Larian does things you are able to sneak around and steal stuff while your friend keeps the NPC busy. Personally I would have prefered it the BG-way though.

@Makrillo, I think we would all prefer things to be the BG way...

I saw this thread earlier before I'd tried co-op and I didn't really get it. Well now I've just finished playing co-op with a friend for the first time and I emphatically agree with this thread. It felt incredibly weird just standing near to my friend as a complete mess of floating text (from the relevant conversation and from other NPCs) popped up for a few seconds.

As bad as that was, it was nothing compared to the fact that my friend has really bad vision so has to have his face right next to the screen, and was basically left out of most NPC dialogue I engaged in because he just couldn't parse it in time.

I let him do all the dialogue because of that, and in the end while he was talking to someone and I was being left out, I ended up rearranging furniture and accidentally wounded a woman with a bench. Suddenly everyone was out for our blood and that was the end of that play session.

Edit
I appreciate how it lets the other player roam while the other player is in dialogue. I'd suggest a system whereby the non-dialogue player can join in the conversation by clicking on the relevant NPC as well.

Less pause based, they did right with true turn base here.

I like the turnbased combat, but I really would like pausing dialogues like they had in BG. I found it very hard to keep up with what was going on in coop.

I dont understand why this issue is not being discussed more. It kills the game for me and my wife.

Ok, my wife is talking to some guy and i use the journal to keep up with what she is saying. Then there is a choice to make and i am pulled into a new window.
Thats fine, but i did not get to see what was said last, and there is no log of the conversation in the chat window. So i actually have no idea what i am responding to. So i have to look over at her screen or ask her, breaking immersion and making the game a chore (its not easy to see her computer from where i am sitting. Its infuriating) :p

This is actually a huge deal for us, and we are both getting frustrated with the entire game. As it stand, my wife does not want to play at all untill its fixed.

I mean come on... This was in alpha/beta for how long? And the devs even hyped the coop choice/dialogue stuff, and this is what we get? Whyyyyy?