I really don't like the idea of the group merging into a single identity. What I was suggesting is conversations that would ordinarily be led by the avatar, with companions who participate out of their own free will. You don't need to choose an option to allow them to speak. You're not always in charge of everyone. It's essntially like talking to two NPCs except one of the NPCs is your companion.
As much as I'd like that as well that's imo out of question and unrealistic because it would require way too much effort for Larian to essentially script every possible dialogue in the game with multiple possibilities and interactions (depending on the character combination of your current group). It's a huge difference to have multiple dialogue paths for different characters or to have completely scripted dialogues for multiple characters and character combinations. That's pretty much a completely different system of doing dialogues.
Realistically we imo have the chance to either leave the dialogue system like it is for SP which means that every character in your group is narratively detached from the dialogue of other characters or to merge their detached dialogues into a group based discussion with the very same mechanics but with more believablity and a more fluid gameplay. That would still mean that we have to control every character of our group in dialogues with the exception of internal group conversations and situations in which group decisions are required (quest relevant choice situations). These will work with scripted AI controlled companions anyway.
So I'm not against your idea, I very much support it. I just don't think that Larian is willing to handle SP and MP narrative with fundamentally different dialogue systems, both due to their overall vision for the game and due to the extensive additional workload that would require.
No obligation, but it's a pretty big distraction for me.
Best way again: more flexibility.
Which means that there should be an option for both and a menu button that let you switch between visible and invisible tags.
I like to have the option to hide the tags in dialogue, but you should see who of your party members is speaking.
This.
