Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Problem with dialogues

I like to have a character who is the leader/face of the group, meaning they are good at persuasion and similar skills and do all the talking. However, NPCs in this game tend to initiate dialogue with whoever is closer to them. It's not usually a problem with peaceful dialogues, but if there was a battle right before, then NPC will address random companion who stands closest to them instead of my character.

I think it would be nice if there was an option to either force NPCs to always choose PC first, or an option to choose "face of the group" who they will prioritize.

I'm actually surprised how little of this I've seen. I only experienced it once in the goblin fortress (doing catering services) during threeish playthroughs.

Allegedly support for "party-wide dialogue UI" is in development.
Still not sure if this will ever address NPCs picking randomly on who they start the conversation with, specifically.

You should honestly just be able to choose which character will talk next unless it's a scenario where the other party demands that someone in particular will answer.

Lae'zel actually has one particular interesting conversation with fellow gith in which you can let her talk, or talk in her stead (at least if you're a gith). That's cool. But if it's a conversation between the party and someone else rather than between 2 people, anyone should be able to speak.

Yeah that should be adressed, particularly with after-fight dialogues. I had that happen with Halsin and Mirkon at least and it's particularly annoying since companion reactions will obviously only trigger if the PC is doing the speaking.

It wouldn't even be that hard to fix: make it so that NPCs always pick the player character to start a dialogue as long as it's anywhere in a reasonable range.
Plenty of games do this already.

This was a big thing in dos2 as well and unlike other story issues this one seems like merely a question of scripting, so I really don't understand how come they moved on to a new game and still didn't fix it, unless it's intentional. The only other possible explanation is that maybe multiplayer makes it more complicated to fix. Anyway there is no reason for it to keep happening. Just have a "main character" flag on your MC that makes NPC initiate dialogue only with him. They only have this kind of mechanic when talking to companions (you can't make a companion talk with another companions, the game will change to your MC when you try it)

Even in a multiplayer game they could create a clear distinction between "Player character" and "NPC follower" and avoid this issue regardless.
IF they cared enough to bother, I mean.

I wouldn't have any doubt it's a bug if it wasn't a problem in dos2 as well.

Oh, we surely need a Party conversation, not an individual conversation. That's how you'd do it in many DnD games, you know?

You should have one face of the group, but be able to pick others to speak, especially when there's skill checks involved.


Especially in multiplayer it would be great, since that way we can help eachother, and not just "vote" on what the face should say.

As I said, that's allegedly coming. Swen already confirmed it as a work in progress.
If the result will live up to expectations and desires needs to be seen.

I have expierienced this a lot too. I actually want to identify with my PC. The way it is now i can't really do that. To make use of other party members skills or attributes you need to have them initiate the conversation. The conversation stays the same though. Feels a bit awkward. I would suggest having only the PC initiate conversations (or combat:)). and then Dialogue options for other party members like we have now for race/class/skill etc.
I guess i am not the first to suggest that.

On the other hand i feel that the dialogues as a while miss some consistency. Apart from the fact that, if someone answered me like the NPCs do often i would turn away and leave, the whole conversation i have expierienced till now is somewhat ...negative. NPCs are more friendly and respectful sometimes. The other party members just follow their way without ever thinking of the consequences. I really don't know how to put it correctly.

I started a gith to see the interaction betwenn la'zael and the PC and i was pretty disappointed. In some conversations there is no change to other races. then she acts totally superior but in other moments you can cut her off without any big consequence.

Dislike or missing trust is normally no reason for open hostility. The Party characters want something from another. Mostly. But to me it feels like the PC can go to hell for what it's worth.

Am i alone with this?

Just commenting to say i completely agree with the comments here and having a main flag for an NPC or a party wide UI so we can CHOOSE who speaks will make the single player game feel much better. It was so frustrating both from a gameplay and role play perspective where the game chooses who initiates dialogue based on who was closest to the NPC after a fight for example.

Agree! It is very frustrating! I would like the option for it to always be the pc instead of whoever is closest.

That is just the tip of the iceberg! Improvements can be made everywhere.

There no party vibe at all, it's minimal even now after improvements. Party members all act like single entities and not as part of the group as presanted by the idea... no leader as well.
Sorry, but random party banter on the road can't fill that void if normal party - group interaction is so shallow. The fact that the game doesn't know who's the party leader makes things even worse and leads to unnecessary reloads and forced wrong checks.

There are examples where talking to a npc twice turns conversation into mush. Doesn't make much sense the second time around yes it was improved alot but still. THere is hardly any party interaction during dialogues, information is not included from previous interaction, whole party should work as a team. Instead it feels like party is a group just for combat?


We get question poping up after the player already has the information. Like "who are you?" and similar questions.. Companions do not register previous intercations and they can't do checks at least not as much as they should, so weird thing happen and information is ignored or not used.

Talking to the dead could be implamented better as well. Sometime it's great but other times not so much. Example: The druid gate fight, you can talk dead thifling Kanon infront of Arka and Memnos. The whole thing turns out weird and no one registers talk to dead interaction at all. Dialogue leader ignores it, party ignores it and Arka ignores it.
You would think she would take that chance to talk to Kanon i mean talking to dead is kinda a big deal. Not to mention we can't res him even when we have 4 scrolls

Anyway, gathered information should be better used in dialogue same as skill use. some times it is but other times it feels like a half made system.

Is it the Origins system Larian is using? I don't know, feels like it. Bioware never had this problem in there games.

Let us set party leader for dialogues that way at least i won't be forced in all sorts of things.

I agree that this is a problem.

suggestion:
When characters are chained together, the uppermost of the chained chars does the talking or you can otherwise select a speaker.

Thats not perfect but I think it may be an improvement.

In most games I give talking skills to the main char because he does all the talking.
Being able to select a speaker would be nice, like when you play a dumb and ugly barbarian and you want your sorcerer to do the talking.
The player character should be the default choice.

But almost anything would be better then using the closest char, especially when this is beyond your control.
It is often not clear at which exact place a cut scene starts and not clear which char triggers the scene when you tell your group to walk there.