Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Group Interaction Could be Improved

I had a great time on my first playthrough. The art looks great, the 5e rules are well implemented, it is all around shaping up to be a great game.

For me, the lack of group interaction was quite immersion-breaking though. The cinematic dialogue animations would be great, except that they bring the lack of group dynamic into such sharp focus.

With very few exceptions, the cinematic dialogue is all one-on-one interactions between the PC and whichever NPC they are talking to. I feel like the game would benefit from dialogue revolving less around the PC. Astarion should be directing his acerbic wit at each of the companions, and at any NPCs the group interacts with. We should see Lae'zel and Shadowheart bickering, or Wyll and Gale making wisecracks back and forth.

Everyone has a tadpole, so when encountering Halsin, or the Hag, or Raphael, or anyone who might present a solution, it feels weird for everyone whose life hangs in the balance to stand around quietly deferring to whatever the PC decides. Everyone present for a conversation should be interjecting their own agenda, opinions, and questions on the topic.

Rather than a metagame icon in the corner letting you know that so-and-so approves or disapproves, it should be shown cinematically with a reaction shot at least, if not dialogue to the effect. Also, anyone not privy to a conversation should not have any approval or disapproval of something they didn't hear you say.

Another good opportunity to inject some group dynamics would be at the end-of-day camp scene. Instead of having each companion standing around separately doing an idle animation, have everyone sit around the campfire. When the player has mediated tensions between companions, they might all be sharing a laugh as Wyll recounts one of his adventures. If the player has instead stoked enmity between them, the companions might be at each other's throats, arguing over whether to track down Halsin, or to focus on finding the Githyanki creche.

Anything to make it seem like a fleshed-out adventuring party, rather than just NPCs with exclamation marks over their heads, waiting for a PC to come along and go through their dialogue trees.

All that said, I will reiterate that it was still a very fun game. I just didn't feel like I was part of a group in the same way that I did when playing Pillars of Eternity or Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

There is companion banter, but I agree, it doesn't trigger nearly often enough.
I found a Youtube video with 20 minutes' worth of companion banter - only 5-10% of which ever triggered for me in my playthrough.
I hope this is something they are working on addressing.

Yeah, I like the companion banter when you are just walking around. The more of that, the better.

I was referring specifically to the cinematic dialogue though. Nearly all the cinematic dialogue is just back and forth with the PC choosing from a list of options and then the NPC that they are talking to playing their response animation, followed by the PC choosing from another list of options, followed by the NPC that they are talking to playing another response animation. Rinse and repeat.

For the cinematic dialogue to truly feel cinematic, the PC should pick something to say to the Hag, and then cut to a reaction shot of Shadowheart rolling her eyes, then cut to the hag starting to say something in reply, then cut to Wyll interrupting to threaten the Hag if she doesn't tell the truth about Mayrina's brothers, then cut to Astarion making an acerbic remark about Wyll's temper, then cut back to a list of options for the PC. Maybe have one option to backup Wylls threat, and another option to tell Wyll to calm down, and another to tell Astarion to play nice.

Something that would bring everyone into the story instead of having everyone except the PC stand around twiddling their thumbs during every dialogue sequence.

I had mentioned something similar but only in regards to the PC. I brought up having the PC interactions be more voiced and not just point and click and the response I got reminded me that the increase in game file size + plus the vast increase in voice acting when you take into account all the different voices the game is likely to have for PC customization would be very costly. The same would apply here but on an exponential level when you take into account all the different dialogue options that exist within the game. Great idea but not sure it is one Larian is ready to sink THAT much $$$ into.

I would think it would have the opposite effect. Every time you give the player a set of choices, it increases the number of permutations needed in the dialogue tree. If other companions interjected their own responses instead of the player being responsible for every single response, it would reduce the number of player choices, thereby reducing the number of permutations, and thus reducing the required game resources.

Or to put it another way, rather than having to pull each piece of exposition out of each NPC with a game of 20 questions, the exposition could be delivered in a streamlined manner with a few well-directed cinematic dialogue sequences that incorporated multiple characters.

For myself, I would rather have fewer choices, but have each choice be a meaningful part of a well-constructed dialogue than to have lots of choices that all feel like I am just exhausting each NPC's dialogue tree one by one.