I loved playing DOS2's multiplayer, it was the best way to play the game and was virtually no different than singleplayer. I'm still having a lot of fun with co-op in BG3, but there are MANY issues that kinda make single player a much better experience. I realize that BG3 is infinitely more complicated than DOS2, but its multiplayer, while still really fun, has a TON of problems. Most of these stem from the fact that you are two seperate parties the majority of the time,
-there are tons of issues with bugs with camp scenes not showing correctly or jumbeled and out of order
-certain companion characters talk with one main PC but not the other
-you aren't able to fully progress the storyline of a companion unless you only make the companion exclusively the companion of one PC since they don't get enough approval from the choices you make in other cutscenes and dialogue to have both players have a relationship with them, which also leads to not having certain party members ever in the same party unless you are okay missing out on the whole story.
-You can't repeat the dialogue in camp when they have a reaction to a story moment with both characters either, only the generic dialogue about their backstory.
-Companions in the other player's party don't comment on certain scenes or dialogue interactions like they would in single player as well, so you miss out on actually seeing what companions think of eachother in most scenearios.
- it's just really sad when you get into a conversation and you don't see your player character or that player's companion at all (with the exception of a few dialogue/cutscenes).
-When you play online co-op it's really difficult to see the cutscenes the other player has since you have to click listen and might miss at the very least the beginning, so you have to communicate every single time you get in dialogue, and wait for the other player to join, and even then when you talk to characters that just have one piece of dialogue you don't have time to join. Even when you do have time, it cuts off the cutscene early sometimes for one of the players.
-You straight up can't see another player's cutscene when you have one at the same time, which sucks if another player is playing an origin character because they have a completely different scene.
-During the vampire bite scene when playing Astarion, you can't choose from the other player's party about who to bite, and can't bite the other main character, this was supposed to happen according to an old dev interview.
-In combat, when you're online you can't see what the other player is doing when choosing things in battle, where they're moving, what spells they have access to, and the camera doesn't focus on them when it's their turn, so you miss what they do. When you can move at the same time this issue is even worse, and in general it's hard to be tactical when you can't see what the other player has access to do.
-Splitscreen has its own problems, dialogue scenes in splitscren are very difficult since it's miserable to watch a beautiful fully rendered cutscene when you have to move the camera around constantly to see it all
-the dialogue mutes for one player when you both get into a cutscene at the same time (even if you don't have a choice, like romance and guardian scenes)
-It's almost impossible to read books because the text is so small
I did see the interview with Sven saying making each PC able to have their own dialogue wasn't doable, and I understand that (even though that's a big dissapointment, it would be so much better for RP and for making the other player feel included if you could take turns with dialogue, or roll to see who gets to respond a la SWTOR, and you miss out on certain reactions NPCs would have to you if the other player initiated the dialogue, which is super sad when you are playing an origin characer and there's a unique response to them that you will never know about unless you reload and check every single dialogue to see if there's a different reaction but even with that in mind, I feel like there could be changes that make multiplayer have a lot less friction/downsides
-Making both characters get approval for companions when they approve or disapprove of a choice you make so you can progress the story on both PC's and swap party members between them freely with no worries about missing out on their stories.
-Having an option in the game menu to always listen to a cutscene, and if they are near enough, always have the PC and companion be at least shown in the background. Maybe add an option where it says "P1 is starting a cutscene, would you like to join?" and the cutscene doesn't start until you do, this could be toggleable
-Making it so companions act like they're together in one party so they still have the dialogue and banter they have in single player
-Making it so you can see what the other player is doing during combat scenarios and making it focus on their character when it is their turn, add an option to disable characters moving at the same time, and just follow initiative like it would be in tabletop to reduce issues with this maybe, or add a spectate button
-Getting rid of bugs that jumble up companion scenes
-Allow the other player to be able to repeat the dialogue the companion members have after a story event
-Allow repeatble companion for each player scenes like gale showing off magic
-allow you to choose who gets what cutscene in camp perhaps (for example my co-op partner is playing a druid with speak with animals, if you have scenes with an animal in camp, I want him to be the character the animal goes to, not me, this seems like it's random right now.
-Give a toggle to allow splitscreen to always start conversations in fullscreen, and make books easier to read in splitscreen
-Give an option to allow when cutscenes happen silmatanously, like the guardian cutscenes, allow them to happen one after the other so both players can watch eachother's scene.
-Bring back the ability to debate about important decisions from DOS1, it's way better than the vote system.
-Allow the companions to actually refer to the other player at some points, so it doesn't seem like the one player made the same decision the other player made, though I realize this would be hard.
-Bring back the option for players to comment on things that just happened in the story from DOS2.
The biggest thing that would fix most of these issues, is, even if you can't both interact in a cutscene, just allow us to be in the same party, rather than two seperate parties, and if we wana go off on our own, we just unlink a companion, or assign them to follow the other player.
All of this being said, I'm having a blast playing co-op with my friend, but there are a LOT of downsides that make single player objectively better in almost every regard, and that's sad! I hope some of these things are addressed, because it's such a huge strength of this game having co-op, not many games offer it any more, and very very few RPGS do. Not to mention, this game is based off of D&D, which is a multiplayer game, and fixing these issues would make it resemble the tabletop game a lot more, and make it feel much more like you are playing actual D&D.
Still Larion and the devs, you are wonderful and you made a wonderful game, please don't take this as me saying anything otherwise!
