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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jun 2020
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What you're describing does not fit my recollection of my multiple playthroughs to completion AT ALL. There are numerous conversations where you can simply ask questions and get to know more. The only adversarial conversations tends to be ones where tensions are already high. There are options that are less "assert dominance" and more "deescalate the situation," though. Oh certainly there were a number of more sensible conversations to be had in DOS2 - But the overall tone was one of a world full of arseholes, and a game which gave you plenty of dialogue options to be one as well... but precious, precious few to to speak against it or stand up against bad behaviour in anything short of a violent manner. It made it unpleasant to play - no matter how the reasoning for making the game like that is explained, that's the truth of it, from my perspective; the reasoning doesn't matter when the result was that I found it unenjoyable to subject myself to series after series of horrible people behaving horribly, and having to simply carry on the conversations and let them, because I'm not allowed to call them down for it, short of killing them. I tried to do a second playthrough, and found I just didn't WANT to go through all those unpleasant personal interactions again. I do NOT want BG3 to end up like that... but it's made a very bad start in that direction. My experience with BG3 conversations and dialogues so far as been a distinctly disheartening and unpleasant one. Every single companion I've picked up, at first meeting, has made it their point of vigorously asserting dominance, condescending to me, touting their superiority or otherwise being deeply unpleasant... in the cases where the NPCs *aren't* doing that, my only dialogue options are to do that to them *instead*. (Take Lizzy in the cage as an example: The npcs weren't domineering, sure, but instead, MY options there were 1) take control of the situation without asking any questions, and lie to them in order to scare them off by enacting fantasy racism, 2) take control of the situation without asking any questions, and trick them into letting her down ,based on suggestion that we should kill her because she's so alien and weird looking, and thus probably dangerous 3) Attack them, or 4) leave. Oh, and also the option to mock and taunt Lizzy... but nothing positive or reassuring to say to her. Nowhere was there any option to ask them what was going on, or learn anything more about the situation.) It's not a good first impression. This has nothing to do with their perceived alignment - other RPGs have shown us time and time again that it's quite possible to have ultimately good people who are jerks to be around, and morally red characters who are, nevertheless, reasonable and amicable. That is my first impression: those are the conversations I've had and experienced. If those were to be the first series of interpersonal interactions I faced when starting a new game, I would dread continuing it, and I would not be excited.
Last edited by Niara; 27/10/20 07:14 AM.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
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I wanted to converse with the mindflayer while it was in a disadvantageous position - it's intelligent and it doesn't want to die, and it has a story to tell and knows things, important things. That's a huge part of what social interaction in games like this is all about, but Larian's writers never even entertained it as a possible option that players might want to pursue. Unfortunately, that, and other 'dialogue' sequences scattered through the intro and the early stages of the chapter really do sum up Larian's writing style, and it's distressing and depressing to think that the whole game might end up like this. Larian writes conversations like fights to be won, or expressions of dominance, and nothing else. The idea of having a conversation where someone isn't actively trying to boss everyone else around, or lord their superiority (in some fashion) over the other person, seems to be an almost wholly alien concept to their scripting so far, and that, more than anything else, is going to make the game distasteful and a struggle to enjoy. It was what made DOS2 unenjoyable as well. Maybe the intro and the scenes along the beach and nearby areas where you're gathering your party aren't actually going to be indicative of how conversations go for the rest of the game... but if not they are a terrible, terrible way to start out and introduce players to them. Why would it want to have a dialog with a thrall? I mean, I talk to my cat all the time, but that doesn't stop her from biting me when she's ready to bite me, or reaching down from the desk to "poke" my hand with her claws when she thinks she's not getting enough attention. The lost part of this perspective here is that we are, according to the mindflayer, slaves. Yes, the goal is for us to become mindflayers, presumably, since this is how we reproduce, but how much dialog are going to have with embryos? I think the reasonable response to attempting to reason with the mindflayer is exactly what happens in game, it asserts it's authority. Note that when we're given the opportunity to use our tadpole powers it says "Authority"? I'm thinking that's not an accident.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Oct 2020
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I wanted to converse with the mindflayer while it was in a disadvantageous position - it's intelligent and it doesn't want to die, and it has a story to tell and knows things, important things. That's a huge part of what social interaction in games like this is all about, but Larian's writers never even entertained it as a possible option that players might want to pursue. Unfortunately, that, and other 'dialogue' sequences scattered through the intro and the early stages of the chapter really do sum up Larian's writing style, and it's distressing and depressing to think that the whole game might end up like this. Larian writes conversations like fights to be won, or expressions of dominance, and nothing else. The idea of having a conversation where someone isn't actively trying to boss everyone else around, or lord their superiority (in some fashion) over the other person, seems to be an almost wholly alien concept to their scripting so far, and that, more than anything else, is going to make the game distasteful and a struggle to enjoy. It was what made DOS2 unenjoyable as well. Maybe the intro and the scenes along the beach and nearby areas where you're gathering your party aren't actually going to be indicative of how conversations go for the rest of the game... but if not they are a terrible, terrible way to start out and introduce players to them. Why would it want to have a dialog with a thrall? I mean, I talk to my cat all the time, but that doesn't stop her from biting me when she's ready to bite me, or reaching down from the desk to "poke" my hand with her claws when she thinks she's not getting enough attention. The lost part of this perspective here is that we are, according to the mindflayer, slaves. Yes, the goal is for us to become mindflayers, presumably, since this is how we reproduce, but how much dialog are going to have with embryos? I think the reasonable response to attempting to reason with the mindflayer is exactly what happens in game, it asserts it's authority. Note that when we're given the opportunity to use our tadpole powers it says "Authority"? I'm thinking that's not an accident. Agree, from a RP and Lore perspective, the Mind Flayer would not give 2 hoots about you. If you help it up, it should realistically ask you to obey failing which it would take you out.
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