Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Companions could have more dialogue while traveling or during combat in general.

I'd be surprised if they didn't And I mean that in a good way! Healthy games keep an eye on competitors, just to see what their fans in common like/dislikes and perhaps take some bits and pieces of from each other to improve their game.

So I recorded a quick demonstration of additional party banter in WotR, having two examples of multiple party members responding to each other that would not have triggered if one of the respondents was absent.

Warning: Footage of a companion quest in chapter 3 of WotR, which is about mid-game.


(I did the fight in turn-based because it's really hard to get through the fight with none of the allies dying in RTwP. Also, any flavor of archer is basically busted as hell, Eldritch Archer is even more busted because they have access to arcane spells and are able to cast and attack in the same turn, combined with a particularly crazy ring that adds additional damage to each hit of a fire spell. My character would have one-rounded the boss if a couple of the scorching rays didn't fail to penetrate spell resistance. Pretty unsurprised the boss ignored my front line and went for my main character right afterwards.

Actual dialogue begins at 3:11. The last minute or so of the video is just there for one of the two music tracks that play on the world map. I really like this game's music.)

This is probably the last demonstration I'll show, because the others I took were about 13-22 minutes long.

Eh, maybe they are, but that's been there for a while.

Okay, that clip literally gave me goosebumps and got my soul hyped! The casting voice acting seem much better than PF:K (not that it was bad in PF:K, it just felt... Off at times). It sounds so close to PoE's casting voicing and that was ONE OF THE BEST THINGS ABOUT THE GAME (and I adored the game through and through - ESPECIALLY the first one) - LIKE FOR REAL I CAN'T CONTAIN MY HYPE WHENEVER I HEAR SPELL CASTING IN PoE1+2 <3 <3 <3 <3 AAAAAAA....

Like honestly? PF:WotR seems to be absolutely mind blowing! The voicing (although limited) is of AMAZING quality, and the writing seems top-notch! And the (written) dialogues! Oh god, I can't wait! <3 Owlcat really outdid themselves! This is just next level stuff! <3

Also (for Saito - DO NOT READ IF YOU DIDN'T WATCH THE CLIP BECAUSE SPOILERS):

And look how beautifully it plays with a party of six.

Such options were present back in the day in Infinity Engine games, and if anything, Owlcat seems to know those games pretty well.

...That clip had barely any voice acting though. Glad you're happy at least.

I imagine voice acting will just be restricted to major story events and companion quests. The game's still a work in progress after all. To emphasize the idea that the game is very much in an unfinished state, I have footage of another companion quest where there's virtually no party banter from the rest of the companions at the moment, which is a bit jarring considering the occasion presented. Some things in the footage are clearly rather janky too. (I notice that Ember's quest in my previous clip had some of the party banter re-written between both beta phases too.)

The below is probably one of my favorite quests despite that. Extremely atypical premise and very unique for a companion arc. (You also get to see a small snippet of the hub area for chapter 3.)

Again, major spoiler warning!


(Before anyone asks, there is a way to skip cutscenes. Had I used it, the length of the video would have probably been cut by about half. There's some voice acting that begins at 11:25 if there's anyone here that's only interested in that.)

Playing both BG3 and WotR together makes for a nice contrast between a game where your whole party's survival is in question at all times (to the level where everyone has ulterior motives and hardly anyone outside of the party really knows anything about your struggles), and another where everyone tries to cling onto their connections to the greater world despite adventuring into a hellscape instead. BG3 is leagues ahead in the graphics department, but the WotR devs have designed within their limitations well.

The little dragon companion is exclusive to the Azata mythic path, a very Chaotic Good freedom/nature themed path - and I don't hide this behind spoilers because she's actually the main selling point of it, while all the other paths are self explanatory from their names alone. Aivu gets a lot of her own unique dialogue too, and essentially acts as a seventh party member. Aside from her spammable AoE damage breath, she has the highest movement speed of all companions and will gain access to very potent Divine spells later on, allowing her to double as a support/healer. Supposedly you're going to be able to ride her for mounted combat if your character has the proficiency for it, but not within the content available in the Beta thus far.

While the game does have a party of 6 (that could be expanded to 7 or 8+ with certain mythic paths and animal companions), it is worth mentioning that there can be big problems in combat with this. Kingmaker fights were in mostly wide open spaces. WotR fights are more balanced between wide spaces and confined areas, and it's the latter that may present a MAJOR problem with pathing if your party is melee-heavy - which is why I run three archers and only one tank in my main party (okay well, two, since Lann doubles as a back line tank even though he's an archer, and Camellia is also capable of tanking but I mostly built her as a buff bot instead).

It did in the only way that truly matters to me! *Caster* voicing (or chanting, rather?)! <3 You know, when they chant while cast spells It was one of my favorite parts about PoE - listening to Aloth and other characters cast spells made it feel so amazingly epic! Like, when you hear the battle mages during the fight of Castle Nua my heart just went racing because it was SOOOO EPIC! <3 Idk, I just *REALLY* like the way Owlcats are moving closer to the "tone" that PoE used for spell casters!!!

I don't care much about voice acting in general - I am equally fine reading a well-written dialogue as I am listening to a good voice actor. But it is just something about how voiced spell casting feels that makes it a super important detail for me. As an example - BG3 has voiced spell casting but it feels nowhere NEAR the level of epicness that I get from listening to PK:WotR or PoE, but on the other hand - the voice acting in general feels really great! ... But for some reason, the voiced spell casting do not quite pull through for me - it just feels plain and a bit "mehhhh", don't even ask me what is causing the difference. My feelings regarding the subject is not logical at all and I have not quite figured out what exactly is my "trigger". >_<''




... Well, I guess I am not going with the mythic path that I originally thought I was going with... :'] Where there's dragons (or owls), there's Dez! :'D

Regarding the video - Oh man, I long for playing this so much I feel like my soul will burst. :'D

Well, if we're already on this much of a tangent, you might enjoy this character trailer for one of the WotR companions that Owlcat put up earlier today. Woljif, the Tiefling Eldritch Scoundrel. A spellcasting rogue for the uninitiated.

"Stab them, zap 'em. Why not both?"


So you can hear him cast a bunch of things before he runs up to shank something. He's a super glass cannon though, he's not a dodging maniac like Nok-Nok was in Kingmaker, though Woljif can still stab things just as hard. Oh, he also has a side gig as an actual shopkeeper for his band of Thieflings later in the game. As in, you can buy stuff from him that his people had probably stolen from YOUR people beforehand. This has hilarious implications when...


As I've said, the WotR companions are really something.

So I have to come back to this thread after the previous patch added voice barks. I don't believe this thread would have contributed anything to it at all, since that kind of work would have taken far longer than a month to get ready. The voice barks were such a minor thing in the overall topic here regardless.

But I do want to say that BG3's voice barks are a bit too internal monologue-y, which is probably where most of the complaints about it lie. (That and the frequency being a bit high. For comparison sake with the Pathfinder games, the voice barks during normal movement in WotR happens about 1 out of every 10 clicks, while in BG3 it feels like one out of every 5 or less. Also, the voice barks are generally framed as comments directed to the other party members, while the BG3 voice barks appear to be framed as self-reflection of some sort. Though it could be a difference in how the plot is framed - BG3 does have a sort of 'everyone for themselves, but we'll have alliances when it's convenient' vibe among the party VS WotR's generally more optimistic writing unless you go all in on the chaotic evil options.)

I had to turn the chatty dialog off as I don't want excessive chatter in combat situations. This "extra" bit of color I could have done completely without, as I would rather the devs spend more time on fixing more important issues.

Gale’s are my favorite so far! “What fools these mortals be!”

I had one hilarious yesterday ... i was laughting out loud like crazy ...
I was thinking "i cannot forget this, i must write it somewhere" ... well, i did, and i didnt.