Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General [Suggestion]No multiple dialogue options in SP

One of the few worries I had for Divinity Original Sin 2 was that it could possibly again make compromises in SP for the sake of a well designed coop/MP.

Since the original DOS1 some things have been improved, like the new inventory with the whole party inventory in one menu screen or the shared gold.

But with DOS2 new problems have been introduced (or better: old problems have been intensified), especially with the origin stories, the vastly improved narrative reactivity and the new four-player coop functionality. The design for MP is pretty clear: every human player navigates and controls their own character in the party. Every player can talk with NPCs and explore the world and the story. Ideally there are no traditional companions, only real people playing with (or against each other). And it works pretty well for that case .

But for SP this causes some problems. First, there is a certain dissent whether the player controls a single character with companions or whether the player controls a whole party. While the issue is pretty clear in combat (-> party) the narrative side is not that clear. Like in coop/MP every character in the party can talk with NPCs. And just like in coop every character in the party can do so one after another, pretty much having the same dialogue with NPCs for two, three or four times with the only difference of origin or race specific dialogue options. But the standard dialogue options are all the same. Again, this makes sense in MP in order to give every human player the same possibilites and chances in the game, even if they split up. Nobody should be disadvantaged or demotivated. But SP is different. In a SP RPG I want to experience a story in a kind of immersive way which means that dialogues should be unique. Immersion is pretty much ruined when NPCs say the very same thing four times in a row and the whole party says pretty much the same. But even beyond that, this coop/MP design severly undermines the reactive storytelling approach and its replayability potential. Every companion offers different race and origin answers/possiblities that could benefit my party and the outcome of quests. With this in mind I might end up having every dialogue in the game four times, with every character in my party. Lohse can't convince an NPC? Ok, let's try again with Sebille. Or the Red Prince. Or last, Ifan... And since I might experience a vast variety of different dialogue possibilities in just one playthrough, I'm way less motivated to try the game with another character with a different race or origin, finding different solutions to narrative challenges and quests. In my opinion, the current dialogue implementation in SP destroys the whole potential of the origin stories in SP because it makes them more of a chore than an exciting choice. On top of that, this design makes dialogues way too time-consuming. I doubt that the writers and designers at Larian had it mind that SP-gamers might lead dialogues four times in a row every single time...





One player, four characters, four samey scenarios in a row, a lot of repetition and nonsensical dialogues = no immersion


I think it's pretty clear that the same dialogue system that works well in coop/MP (best in 4-player coop) has its flaws in SP, especially for narrative and replayability purposes. But I also have a suggestion to how this issue could be possibly solved. In my opinion SP should follow the same narrative principle that works in 4-player coop: every player only controls one player. Why this is obviously a non-issue in combat, it needs a change of design for the dialogue system in SP. There are imo two possiblities/options how to solve/improve that for SP (and coop with less than 4 players):


1) Only the original player character (the one you made during character creation and with which you started the game) can lead dialogues.

This way you pretty much play a solo RPG with companions in narrative terms while having the luxury to manually control the whole party in combat. If you want to experience different origin and race effects in dialogues you have to create another character and start another playthrough.

2) Only one character of the group can lead a certain dialogue.

This way you lead the whole party in both the narrative and in combat but you have to decide before you start a dialogue which character of your party you want to use for that, benefitting from its special racial and origin traits.


Both suggestions are imo better than the current implementation in the EA version, but both have their pros and cons. In the first option you still have a minor dissent between solo and party (narrative vs. combat) but it's imo bearable. The second system though could still lead to "system abuse" which means that people might save before dialogues and then reload four times in order to explore all dialogue options with different characters and then finally choosing the one that might fit them best. That way nothing would have been really changed in respect to the current implementation, it would just make the whole process much more tiresome. On top of that this solution has the disadvantage that it can lead to unwanted events in which the game starts a conversation with a character you didn't want to lead the respective dialogue (usually the one that currently leads your party through the world).

That's the reason why I personally prefer the former option. In that solution the system cannot be played or tricked and the whole dialogue and narrative system makes the biggest immersive "sense". It's probably also the easier solution to implement because you just had to link the player character
to every possible dialogue in the game, no matter which party character leads the party through the world. So whoever leads the party, the dialogue is automatically linked to the player character that you created at the beginning. With the latter solution you had to make sure that you can't talk with NPCs again with another character which might require more complex technical adaptions. Of course as a prerequisite both solutions need the engine to realize how many humans are currently playing the game and which characters they are controlling.

One thing to keep in mind though is that with the former solution you should skill your player character with pet pal as soon as possible (since you can't use your companions for that)...

What do you think?