Going through a playthrough of BG2, had to post this here
------------
Regarding bg2->
Now imagine voicing all the answers and adding seperate facial features depending on what you said. I know in one of the patches they said they are automating this through some kind of system based on the emotion meaning they could include it across the entire game way more easily but still.
It's just unrealistic to have both voice overs and cinematics for 9 different choices. Even in BG2 most of them lead to 2-3 respones max(It's usually the case when those gigantic dialogue trees appear. The NPC won't have that many answers as you have dialogue options). Larian could use that system where you have 5-10 different answers leading to 2-5 possible outcomes. Putting aside the fact console gamers will shoot you for implementing the idea of a "scrollable" dialogue tree every now and then (cause how else you're supposed to fit them on the screen?) that's ...not as much work( you're not voicing player text) but if the outcome is the same you're not achieving much more than an illusion of choice. Which is nice to have, don't get me wrong. But you're not solving the issue ^^
Especially to what you see in the game you have to add dialogue options per class and race and per (!!!) allignment and differnt combos of those 3.
Because yes, aligment was very rarely taken into consideration in BG2. In BG3 the 1st dialogue with shadowheart can have a very different vibe to it based on class+ allignment( evil cleric options). Same in the underdark if i rememer correctly, a couple dialogues take it into account.
-------------------
BG2 aside->
So to me it seems BG3 does indeed have a bit less ( ok, way less) dialogue options per conversation but allows for more permutations based on classes and races( based on my experience when playing it as an evil cleric).
Which honestly is quite nice from replayability persepective if my last playthrough is indicative of how it will work when playing with a different class(Good aligned warrior for instance,does he have his own dialogue options in ACT1? I'm assuming he does).
Based on this last statement I think the current dialogue state is quite ok tbh, it's definitely not shocking even if it can lead to a bit " narrow" scenarios similar to what Ragnarok described above.
I would genually enjoy Larian focusing on populating the map with more different scenarios with a "fair " amount of choices rather then trying to overbuild every single side quest( that's what that kid is) to the point where all different options are covered.
I would say covering at least the 3 basic extreme allignment choices should be enought:
1) good outcome 2) evil outcome 3) neutral outcome