Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Does anyone else really hate this change...

Does anyone else really hate the change to how conversations are now initiated?

Take Arabella in the druids grove, before you could send you “face” in first and had little problem saving her.

Now if your character has a very low Cha' score unless you scum save and reload 3 – 6 times (or don't take them in at all) the chances of saving her are very small.

What's the point of having a balanced party when one of the most important parts of the game is forced onto your character whether it is built for it or not.

Interesting. I mostly like it but then again I built a Tav to succeed in dialogues. I had a similar problem in the underdark when my squishy charismatic Tav couldn't throw a scroll to save someone.

It would be nice to be able to chose who handles tasks in dialogues so people could travel with a balanced party. Perhaps you could make that your request and send it to Larian?

It's an constant struggle that Larian is having with their conversation system, since it revolves around only one person and cannot be changed mid-conversation.

The new system of favouring the PC helps when people want their character to do the talking and is especially useful for such when post-combat dialogue initiates (As the person closest to the NPC will be the one to trigger the dialogue which will often be a low CHR Fighter or Barbarian as opposed to a Sorcerer or Bard face character)

But at the same time it makes building a companion to be a face utterly useless as they will never trigger dialogue to use their skills.

Honestly, Solasta has a better system, as they have your entire party in every dialogue. Each member can pipe up with their own (Fully voiced) dialogues. So you can have your Barbarian doing Intimidate options, while your Bard can pursuade people or your Rogue can utilize their underground spy knowledge... Of course even this isn't perfect due to the disposition selection for characters (So my wise-cracking Bard was too much of a joker to think of sensible options like persuading people that we're not man-eating Lizards from another universe... Instead my wise and very pragmatic Cleric with 8 CHR had those options...)

However, such a system would require a complete rework of the entire dialogue system...

An easier fix would be to prioritize the player character - But allow use of allies stats (And unique dialogue options) where possible. Meaning that rolls are always done with your party's best stats, with exception of ally specific options which will use that ally's stats only.

Conversation always started by nearest character - players unhappy because not Tav.
Conversation always started by Tav character - players unhappy because not Not-Tav Party Face.
Indeed the only solution seems to be allowing a switch ...
Maybe "nearest Char" and "Always Tav" to "initiate dialogue" could be in the settings, just as one can set an "auto-switch to Tav at end of combat"?

Was this actually that common a complaint? Seems like an odd one for a D&D-based game. AFAIC D&D was always about a team of adventurers rather than one lone wolf; "Seven Samurai" instead of "Batman." The team composition itself could become a "character" in its own right.

In any case, I'm not happy about it either. I think I've done more save-scumming in the past day or two than I have since trying to level Pickpocket in Skyrim.

One of the most common ongoing complaints for pretty much the entirety of the game's lifespan. It was so bad in fact during Early Access that my very first thread ever on this forum was literally to prioritize the main character during dialogues

It keeps being an issue because all party members become instant avatars without their established personality once in a conversation (due to the game having co-op), so Lae'zel talking to someone like Mayrina makes as much sense as Astarion talking to Zevlor and promising he'll rescue the tieflings. It keeps contradicting established characters whenever they're pulled into a dialogue over the main character and by doing so breaks immersion, which is why it's constantly an issue.

Naturally numerous improvements have been made over the last three years, but it's still an issue from time to time and back in the day you would not even gain any approval whenever companions used to take over.

Yes!!! This is something that has been on my wishlists throughout EA. It was very frustrating for me to play a sorcerer and never get dialogue that starts automatically! I am very happy with the change (although it needs some bugs fixed). I want my character to make story decisions not a random companion who happens to be standing closer.

I suppose - but immersion is kind of subjective. I find it counter-immersive when I send in Gale to keep the peace between Aradin and Zevlor, only to have the game focus on my non-charismatic rogue instead. And while I'd never consider Lae'zel a compassionate peacemaker, I don't actually see a problem if someone decides to make her one in their game.

On a side-note, I noticed today that all humans come pre-loaded with Persuasion proficiency regardless of class, whereas the other races don't (their CHA skills, if they have any, make sense for the different classes). Couldn't say whether this is a new change or not, but I've made enough non-CHA types that I think I would have noticed it before.

I think that this is the Extra Proficiency conferred by the "Human Versatility" racial bonus. Introduced at Launch. It can be changed at CHAR creation.

Well, they could have let the player choose the character who is the be the main speaker in the cutscene, whether it is their own protagonist or a companion.

Thanks for the correction. So what happened to my versatile humans' starting feat?

Your Versatile Human traded in his Starting Feat for Militia Training and Beast of Burden abilities [sarcasm].

The Extra Skill Proficiency can be set to any Skill, it is not limited by starting Class, with Persuasion simply being the default for some reason. It is conveniently at the bottom of the list, I suppose ...

Absolutely! The obvious solution one would think. Just let the player select that talking character and let Tav be the default if the latest "talker" was sent to camp/died/split away from the group.

Luckily I backed the Patch 5 version beforehand, because I've been playing it instead of Patch 6 since today. I've only played Patch 6 a little. I'm curious. What would happen if I would have four customs chars that all count as MC? Is it then random as before or does the first character in the "toilet chain" have priority?

Given the choice between this and the way it was before, I choose this.

However, I would much prefer some ability to actually choose who responds in conversation, either during the conversation, or by setting a "face" toggle or something of that sort.

If anything I hated how it worked before. You can still manually start dialogue with an alternate character, but by default your main should always be the standard face of the party.

Optimization is secondary at best. If I play as a barbarian (for example) I want my barbarian to be recognized as the leader even if he’s not the most min-maxed to be the face of the party.

The last thing I want is being forced into a charisma-based class for most of a playthrough only to maximize rolls.

And I absolutely despised being occasionally forced to talk as one of my companions only because the dialogue automatically triggered with them.

EDIT - why there are two identical versions of this thread, anyway?

I have to say, I think Larien wasted a lot of time, because the kissing scenes are clunky and not realistic at all.
That was a huge waste of time and effort.

Is it possible to disconnect your "main Tav" way far back and then enter the convo with the "face" you want to use?

As we do create the "face" of the party (main PC), I do prefer being locked to that character, even if it means being less succesful in skill checks. If I created a charcter who is bad at talking, I think it should have repercussions in gameplay.

I think in a party based RPG it is a fundamental design decision whenever player plays as a party (Solasta, Icewind Dales, Wasteland2) or do they play as a leader of a party (Planescape Torment, Pillars of Eternity1&2). I quite disliked BG3 muddled approach - but to me personally either soluition isn't perfect. There are ways of acknowladging our companions social skills, without having a companion do all the talking - Deadfire and Pathfinders found a way to include our companions social skills, while still having our "face" do the talking. I personally, favour Deadfire, where companions give boost, but our PC still dictates our base chances of passing each skill check - that way playthroughs feel varied, rather than each playthrough coming down to ticking all the boxes through each of our companions.

Well ... I am mostly fine with this. The party leader ought to be charismatic. Shouldnt it ?

At most I would complain that some games do this aspect better and if you have low Charisma, you cannot have much of a party to begin with.