I agree. IDEALLY, what I'd like to see from the Traits in D:OS 2 is that they do nothing in terms of boosting combat ability, but instead if you have the Traits, it opens up different dialogue options that you can't get without that trait. So if you are heartless, you can get a dialogue option to trick that orphan child into giving you his life savings or something. If you're altruistic, you get a different option. If possible, some of these options could be further gated by not just requiring you to have Heartless, but to have Heartless at X points above 0. Any fewer and you are not heartless enough to get that dialogue option.
REALISTICALLY, though, that might make quest designers cry.
Yeah, that might be too much to hope for, but if we separate the game into "combat" and "roleplaying", what elements can we fit under roleplaying? Bartering? Pickpocketing? Persuasion? Lockpicking? Looting?
These are all skills you use outside of combat which provide only temporary benefits in combat when you find a good item or persuade someone to drink the kool-aid. (Although being able to pickpocket
during combat could blur that line a bit.)
I think there are a decent variety of ways to provide bonuses to RP stats. As I mentioned in another thread, I think they could even dedicate an entirely separate leveling system to the RP aspect of the game, similar to how base-building in XCOM essentially "levels" separately from the individual soldiers.
