Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Group dialogues deserve priority

In my first and so far only post here, back in 2020 I suggested among other things, that we get to switch the character who is talking in a dialogue. I have since found, that this discussion dates back at least to 2016 in DOS 2 and has also made it into the “Early Access gameplay feedback compendium” under “frequent and/or high importance” back in 2020. I will therefore assume that the issue is on Larians radar. Since I haven’t heard any news on the matter (and we have lots of news from the recent event) and the revealed gameplay does not hint at any such changes either, I further assume the release version is not going to have this option.

I feel therefore compelled to write an extensive text to argue, that an introduction to any form of party dialogue, such as choosing who is speaking, is imperative and should be prioritized over most other improvements to the game, even post release and even if such an update would not be save-game compatible for whatever reason.
While we have lots of discussions on adding additional content or rule variants, and those are all perfectly fine to have, the dialogue system is a core mechanic affecting all playstyles and in its current state it comes with a bunch of flaws:

1. Role play:
The game strongly encourages us to role play our player character (PC) similar to a tabletop game. However, forced dialogue such as an NPC surrendering, will frequently address NPC followers and completely exclude the PC from the conversation. This happens most prominently if the PC is shapeshifted or hidden but generally often for “back row”/”ranged” PCs. These forced dialogues are often particularly important for the story and character development and the fact that the NPC has to handle these situations would be bad enough, but the player choosing how the NON-Player character handles this situation…well I think that sentence speaks for itself. There are problems with immersion and frankly I don’t see it align with the design philosophy of any RPG, since we (the players) are not actually playing our player-character in crucial moments of the game but an NPC, who will later meta-project his own deeds on the player-character because the player was forced to play the non-player character.

2. Plot holes and reduced reactivity:
Since NPCs talk only to the character who triggered the conversation and never to anyone else a lot of logical inconsistencies occur. For example: Let’s say the party needs to pass a checkpoint but if a particular race, say a drow, walks up to said checkpoint the party does not have to fight/talk/stealth through, but can merle pass this checkpoint unhindered. If the party consists of 3 drows and a dwarf, but the dwarf triggers the encounter, the 3 other members are ignored. If they pass the checkpoint anyway, since we can switch the characters we play just not enter the conversation with them, they are attacked although they know at that point from a previous encounter, that this is not how that particular faction would respond to drow. Similar things happen with reactivity.
The games reactivity is amazing and depending on our race, class, skills, deeds etc. we can experience many different outcomes in a particular situation. This is, for me, the biggest selling point of BG3 and really sets it apart from other RPGs. However, this feature loses significantly on impact, if only one quarter of the party experiences this reactivity and more so if that quarter is not really the PC since this character is hidden/shapeshifted or simply staying cautiously in the back. If the player does not know that this situation should react to the PC in a particular way, we simply miss out on the biggest strength of the game. If the player knows it, we have a plot hole as described above.

3. Party dynamics and mechanics:
Although in my opinion not nearly as important as the above points, the fact remains that D&D is designed with a somewhat balanced party in mind so that all can contribute to overcome a particular encounter even if that encounter is not combat. With the current system this is impossible and can be a source of frustration if skill checks such as arcana are rolled by the barbarian while the wizard stands nearby, brain-dead listening to a conversation that she can’t influence. Having a diverse group with respect to background/race and class would open up a lot of content if we could experiment whether a particular situation could be handled differently without save scumming and add to the experience. Further adding to this point: walking up to a potentially hostile NPC and talking to them is very dangerous, since the encounter can turn violent. Currently we have the choice of either setting everyone up for combat and talk with the tank or walk up with the mostly squishy face of the party in the hopes of avoiding a confrontation. With a party dialogue mechanic, we could use the full toolset of the party to see if any race/class/skill/spell of any member could help in this situation giving us way more “epic standoff” moments.

Given my assumptions from the beginning I guess that what I’m asking for is expensive to implement, although it escapes me as to why. Due to my listed 3 point I would argue that investing the resources into “fixing” the current dialogue mechanic rather than adding more races/sub-classes/rule-variants etc. post release would be a better investment.

Tldr: Implementing a party dialogue system would fix inconsistencies with story and mechanics and bring huge benefits to everyone regardless of playstyle. It is a core feature one can’t avoid with “self-policing”, choices, playstyles or mods(I think) and should therefore be prioritized, meaning given the resources even if that means cutting other post-release improvements for the time being.

I could not agree with this more. It is a frankly ridiculous hole in the game's design. It drives me crazy when my backline sorcerer constantly gets left out of these forced dialogues. All it does is make me angry.

Agree!

What I would like for single player is a toggle to set conversations that start automatically to always go to the pc. There was some discussion this might have been added, but it was unclear to me if it was (it was called something like switch to pc after combat, so I wasn’t sure if this was meant to be for dialogue or not).

There are also a number of dialogue improvements for multiplayer that have been listed in other threads that would be great to have, including having an option to autojoin group dialogue (instead of having to click the ear) and having SWTOR-like group dialogue so all players can participate.

Agree!

While it is possible to achieve desired outcomes by using quick saving and loading to make different choices, it would still be preferable to have the ability to switch characters during conversations.

If possible, I really hope that after the official release, Larian can talk about these desired features that players have been eagerly waiting for but were not included.

I'm sorry, English is not my primary language. If there are any grammatical errors, please excuse me.

You're thinking what I'm thinking

Truthfully I don't even think simply changing the character that is speaking goes far enough. Nor, indeed, should it be as simple as 'just add all bonuses to whoever is speaking, regardless of stats'. Either of those is perhaps fine for solo player, but in the case of co-op it becomes unwieldly. I'd much rather see a SWTOR-like system, where every dialogue choice is a vote, and then whichever wins is spoken by the character that voted for it. This is a MUCH more natural form of dialogue that involves all of the characters, and doesn't leave anyone feeling left out. It also encourages some different skill spreads.

The current system, regardless, is not a good one. It was a problem in DOS2. It technically worked, but it was incredibly annoying and we were forever reloading and trying to get the persuasion character to be the 'talking' one whenever it was relevant. DOS2 didn't have a TON of these, so it was mostly a problem with 'forced' dialogue cutscenes after bosses or walking into an area. BG3 is liable to have MANY more skill checks, however, and we shouldn't feel the need to simply have one person do a lot of the talking or constantly save scum.

Sure, D&D often has a 'face'. But some things are better enhanced by the medium we're playing in when the options are there, and a SWTOR-like system would do it.

I'm not opposed to an even more sophisticated system but in my mind it should be relatively easy to implement the possibility of the PC taking over the conversation from an NPC yet for some reason that option has not been in DOS2 or BG3 EA eventhough it was requested from the start. Since I can't know what I don't know I'm just gonna assume there are some problems in changing the current dialogue system and I would expect a completley different system would be even harder and more expensive to implement than "just" changing which character is talking, thus I proposed the simplest alternative I could think of that would (mostly) solve the issues I mentioned in the OP. Just adding the bonuses would only work if all the other possible tags would also show (so the options for both druid & Fighter show, if both are in the conversation and would have different options). As for MP: true there could be some issues but for all I care they could always let the "new" character take over. I expect PCs in MP to cooperate so I wouldn't expect any major problems from that point.

An argument I forgot to mention in my OP: Even if consistency issues would appear by a sudden change of who is talking (assuming no additional reqording of voice acting or changes in animations etc.) I can't imagen those beeing any bigger than the current status quo.

I agree, but I think it is too late now.

Definitly to late for release. But as I pointed out the issue was on larians radar from the start of EA (or so I assume). There was a conscious decision to not implement it (I presume) and I can only think that was due to ressource management - Hence my argument to make it a priority over other stuff. I would be thrilled to see an improvement post release, and would likely even start a new playthrough if that was necessary.

so when is this going to happen?

Honestly, the ideal scenario would be:

- Conversations always default to PC (Since, that's who you're playing as so that's where your point of view is)

- Conversations always have all party members dialogue options (Whenever I'm with a group of friends, any one of us can speak up at any time...)

- Skill checks default to whomever has the best rolls (Ties can just pick one person randomly) unless it's a character specific option (So no having your Sorcerer roll for your Barbarian's Intimidate option)

- For multiplayer, use the KotR system where everyone picks something and then an option is randomly chosen from what was picked.

- In open world, whenever a character gets in range of a skill check, everyone rolls for it (This happens in some places like that cave on the beach with the harper stash in Act 1 where everyone rolls a Nature check when someone gets into range of it)

- Selecting to Disarm or Lockpick something, will send the character with the best stats to do so from the currently selected members (This is something that Pillars does...)

- Allow for formations. So that it can be possible to put front lines characters in the front lines, so if a fight breaks out your party is in a not stupid position (Far too often the games pathing puts my weak squishy ranged characters up front and my front lines so far back that they have to Dash in order to get anywhere near something they can attack...)

It's baffling how bass ackwards the overall systems are.

Everything you said. Hopefully, they implement this with the upcoming patch

yeah so um larian get on this asap.